5 Amazing Must-Have Tools for Online Course Creation

And why I love them.

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“I have no idea how to grow my business.”

“There aren’t enough hours in the day to manage my social media accounts.”

“How do I get my followers to actually buy from me?”

I heard this sort of stuff a lot in recent years.

I’m in regular contact with dozens of local business owners every month. It’s just part of the solopreneurial role I made for myself (for better or for worse). And without fail, the most common frustrations being vented every week revolve around social media.

It’s an enigma to almost everyone — myself included — because none of us really understand how the algorithms pulling the strings at Meta, TikTok or Twitter (or X Corps, or whatever it’s called this week) actually work.

And I shared those frustrations.

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My socials once grew quickly and easily, but with each new iteration of the platforms I used, it became increasingly difficult to expand my audience and reach new potential customers.

I had more and more fellow business owners asking why they got so few bookings through social media, why their posts had so little engagement, why their audience weren’t growing anymore.

So I decided to create a course.

Because, as you may or may not know, online courses are the future.

According to Prosperity for America (via Upskillwise), the number of online learning platform users is expected to reach 57 million by 2027.

More and more people are turning to online courses to improve their knowledge and gain new skills.

I made my first course by packing everything I knew about how to manage social media while also growing a business into a 6-part online learning experience.

I simply took what I’d learned through 3+ years of trial and error and made it available to others.

And in the process, I discovered a handful of incredibly valuable tools that make course creation a breeze.

So here are my 5 favourite tools for researching, building and promoting online courses.

1. Determine your audience needs with SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow is a cloud-based, end-to-end survey management platform that helps businesses gain critical feedback from their audience. It uses chat-like, conversational surveys which produce 40% more response rates than many other survey providers.

I use SurveySparrow to gather insights from my followers and then use those insights to create a product they actually want and need, not just one I feel like making.

SurveySparrow is an awesome platform for hosting surveys that get genuinely useful results. Start by answering the “why” question for your audience, and go from there.

2. Test audience desire and build anticipation with ConvertKit

I’ve made no secret of how much I love Substack.

But before that love affair began, ConvertKit was my jam. And for good reason.

It’s a brilliant email marketing platform you can use to create slick, eye-catching email templates, landing pages and sequences.

Once you know what your ideal customers want, start building anticipation through persuasive emails and automations. Test (and test) your wording, segment your audience where necessary, and nail your sales pitch. Make your email subscribers feel as though they’d be nuts to turn down your course when it finally arrives.

ConvertKit is perfect for this. I’ve tried a few different email platforms and it’s one of my favourites.

3. Design your course using Canva

Canva image.

Everyone already knows about Canva.

It’s an amazing tool you can use to create pretty much anything you’ll ever need in business, from social media graphics to Pinterest boards to Medim header image (see above)… to slides for your online course.

I used Canva’s Talking Presentation feature to create the slides for my course and record my overlaid audio. It was fantastically easy to do and saved so much time.

Canva for the win.

4. Course delivery made easy with Thinkific

Canva image.

There are a few course delivery platforms out there, but in the end I decided to go for Thinkific to handle my first one.

It’s a super comprehensive resource that allows you to put together the exact course you envisioned from start to finish, and offers a ton of tools to help you manage your students and appeal to the widest possible audience.

If you enjoy going in-depth with product design, you’ll love Thinkific.

5. Manage course promotion with Socialbee

SocialBee is one of the fastest-growing social media management tools out there. It helps you get more leads with less effort by allowing its users to add, organise, and share content across multiple social channels from one dashboard.

You’ve heard it said that the average customer needs to see a product at least 7 times before buying, right?

Personally, I think that number is a lot higher, which is why I plaster social media with posts about my latest products in order to ensure a decent percentage of my audience actually hear about them.

SocialBee is brilliant when it comes to managing your social posts. They’re all organised onto one dashboard, where you can determine their frequency, style and cross-promotability.

Check out this video I made about it:

If you want to manage your socials right, I highly recommend SocialBee.

Some of the above suggestions contain affiliate links. If you use any of them, you’ll help support me at no extra cost to yourself (and I’ve personally used each of these platforms).

TL;DR

• Courses are fast becoming one of the most effective ways to reach and educate online audiences, and they’re not as hard to make as you might think.

• My favourite course-creation tools are SurveySparrow, ConvertKit, Canva, Thinkific and SocialBee.

• Take your time with each stage of the process. Create an amazing, evergreen product that sells automatically and puts money in your pocket all year round.

You can try my online course, Sustainable Scalable Social Strategy, here. Paid subscribers get it for free.

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