Choosing profitable niches for online courses
Are you looking for a profitable niche? Finding a profitable niche for your online course can help you generate substantial income. In this article, we will share the process of finding a profitable niche. If you are looking for a list of topics that are profitable, this is not the place. This article will guide you on what to teach, how to find a trending topic, and why you need to find what your learners value even after you find a profitable niche.
It’s worth noting that some of the best-selling online courses are those accompanied by proper marketing. So, even if you find the most profitable niche, without a proper plan, the online course will not be profitable.
How to find profitable Niches for online courses
Teach what you do is the best advice. There are 1000’s of online course topics that can be taught but you need to understand the topic thoroughly to be able to teach it. If you are still wanting to know what some of the profitable niches are, you can do some secondary research.
The first step is to narrow it down to an industry –If you search online, you will find many third-party research reports which will tell you about growth in a certain industry. For example, the e-learning industry is poised to grow from $107B in 2015 to $325B by 2025. This shows the growth in the e-learning sector. These secondary research reports are based on extensive surveys and analysis. It is not 100% reliable but it is a good data point to do industry-level analysis
The second step is to find what is trending – If you start looking for a general trend, there are simply too many topics. Narrowing down your focus to one Industry will help you get better results. For example, if you are looking to teach something in coding, look for technology trends. Twitter trends, Google Trends, Buzzfeed, Buzzsumo, Quora are a few places to see what is currently trending in the market. For example, as per google trend, 5G is trending in technology, so teaching a topic related to 5G can be a profitable niche.
Third, Subscribe to newsletters and magazines related to your chosen industry. The more you know about what’s trending in an industry, the better decision you will be able to make when it comes to choosing a profitable Niche.
Fourth, look at the data provided by e-learning platforms. This data is based on the past performance of their customers. It’s based on how some of the online courses have performed in the past. While it is not a guarantee for future results, it does give a good data point to start with. Usually, a quick blog search on these platforms will reveal such data analysis.
Narrowing down to a profitable niche
By following a 4 step process outlined above, you will be able to find a topic that’s trending in a given industry. You still need to understand if your audience is willing to pay for the knowledge that you bring to the table?
To find the answers to this question, you must do some market research and understand your audience. And so, reach out to your audience and know what will make them pay for your online course.
Note, that your broader audience can be different than your perfect audience. E.g., your broader audience can be “Music lovers” and your perfect audience can be “Rock Music lovers”. To find your perfect audience yet, consider reaching out to a broader audience. From there, learn more about your audience to understand their needs and narrow down to your profitable niche.
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