How KOLs earn millions by selling courses (Part 1)

The online education industry has become a hot spot today, and paying for knowledge is being accepted by more and more people. In this era of knowledge economy, if you master good channels and methods, you can monetize your knowledge. As a result, more and more KOLs have emerged. How do they earn millions of dollars by "selling courses"?

The 2020 epidemic has triggered explosive growth in the education industry and the knowledge payment industry, and many people are eager to join in.

If you ask me if I can do it, I will say absolutely yes, because the industry trend is indeed upward; but if you ask me if I can do it, I don’t know, because in any industry, there are only a small number of top companies that survive well, there is fierce competition in the middle, and a large number of tail companies die in the darkness before dawn.

Let me start with the conclusion: I have worked in the knowledge payment industry for a period of time and have interviewed for many positions in education companies and knowledge payment companies. Based on my own shallow experience and the information I have collected (non-professional data, for reference only):

Regarding income: for a small-name KOL, the annual income from selling courses is about 0-2 million; for a big-name KOL, the annual income from selling courses is about 5-10 million, and there are some that earn over 10 million, but they are rare.

Regarding personnel: Usually a KOL will have 2-3 assistants, and there may be a little more people, but generally it is a small team of less than 10 people. In fact, as long as the content you output has a market and you are willing to spend time and energy on it, no matter what your status is, you can actually have income. Some KOLs I know can earn 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a month as part-time workers, so this is totally worth a try.

Next, based on my observations and analysis, I will tell you how they did it. I divide the overall content into two parts:

• Previous article: How to create a course
• Next article: How to sell more courses

Before making a course, you might as well try to ask yourself these three questions. The essence of the course is to solve a problem that users have in their work or life, so:

1. There aren’t many people who want to solve this type of problem – how big the market demand is, which can also be understood as the user scale;
2. How to teach so that users can learn to solve such problems - the logic of course design;
3. Am I the only one who knows this question? How am I better than others? - Differentiated competition.

Next, I will elaborate on these three questions.

1. Identify market demand

How can individuals verify that the content they produce is in demand in the market? They can consider the following four aspects:

1. Do you have a certain expertise in a certain industry or have a very strong skill or craft?

If you have been in a certain industry for 5-10 years and are often invited to attend industry summits, then the experience or knowledge system you possess must have a market. The key lies in how to output it systematically. Or if you have an amazing skill or craft and have won many industry awards, there is also a market for this.

2. Do you have offline teaching experience?

Because if there is market demand for offline courses, then in principle, there will also be market demand for online courses.

Some teachers may have been teaching offline before and have rich practical experience, but lack experience in online teaching and marketing. This is actually the easiest transition.

3. Check your social media

This does not mean that you must have a million fans to do this, but first check whether you have published many (at least 3-5 or more) highly praised answers or highly read articles on your Weibo, WeChat public account, Zhihu, and vertical community, and whether your actual number of fans is 10w+?

Because whether it is a question and answer or an article, it is also solving certain types of problems of users, which is similar to the essence of a course. And once you have a certain number of fans, your courses will also have the first wave of seed users, which will facilitate subsequent promotion.

4. Market research

If you are not one of the first three, but still want to earn money by "selling courses", the most direct and effective way to verify whether this can be done is market research:

• Check to see if there are similar courses on the market for the content you want to output.
• Second, see how they sell
• Third, see if you have the ability to create similar courses

If the answers to all three are yes, then give it a try. But remember not to think about how well you can do right from the start. Follow first, and then think about how to optimize and surpass.

2. Clarify the logic of course design

Different content must be equipped with different design logics to maximize the value of the content. The following are some common course design logics on the market:

1. Content consumption logic

• Focus: How to make users consume a piece of content happily?
• Content value: point of view + actual case = inspiring thinking
• Course type: paid knowledge

For example: Many courses on the GetApp follow this logic, and the slogan of GetApp itself is to expand the boundaries of cognition, so completing these courses will not immediately change your life. But you cannot completely deny its value, because the viewpoints and cases in the course are indeed things you have not thought of before, and maybe you will suddenly use them one day.

2. Learn the delivery logic

• Focus: How can users achieve certain learning goals?
• Content value: underlying logic + tools and methods = implementation
• Course Type: Education/Result Delivery

3. Behavior Guidance Logic

• Focus: How can we make users change their behavior in a certain way?
• Content value: cognitive imbalance + low action cost = change action
• Course type: Traffic conversion course

For example: Most free or low-priced courses on the market follow this logic. The purpose of designing these courses is to guide you into communities or live broadcasts, and then the operations will guide you to further conversion or retention.

4. Skill display logic

• Focus: How can users learn a certain skill?
• Content value: basic principles + practical details = improving skills
• Course type: Skills course

For example: Interest and skill courses can teach you singing, dancing, drawing, photography... by telling you the basic principles and trying to restore the practical details to help you learn a certain skill.

Why are some of these courses free? Some are sold very cheaply? Some are very expensive?

The point is that in addition to the skill display logic, this set of courses also uses some kind of course design logic. If it is skill display logic + content consumption logic, it will be relatively cheaper; but if it is skill display logic + learning delivery logic, it will be expensive. This is one of the reasons why offline courses of skill-based courses can be sold for thousands or tens of thousands even if they are only for a few days.

Just like I mentioned at the beginning of this section, "different content must be equipped with different design logics to maximize the value of the content." In reality, you will find that many courses involve these four logics. This is not a problem. Even if there are multiple design logics in a course, there will still be a distinction between primary and secondary. Different content cooperates with each other to achieve the best effect.

3. Differentiated competition

Only differences can be seen. Let us first understand the major elements that make up a course, and then look for differences in each element. The important elements that usually make up a course are: lecturers, course content, and community services:

1. Lecturer

Usually when we write a lecturer introduction, we will look at it from these perspectives. For example: If you want to sell a career course, you usually introduce the lecturer:

1. Endorsement from famous companies: xx years of professional experience, worked in xx large company;
2. Award endorsement: worked on xx case and won xx industry trophy;
3. Book endorsement: If you have published a book, you will write "author of xx book, sales volume xx, reputation xx";
4. Celebrity Endorsement: Recommended by xx celebrities.

But if you want to differentiate yourself, you have to focus on exploring your personal strengths. For example, if you want to sell courses on job hunting skills, then you can mention in your instructor introduction how many offers you have received from prestigious companies. Your target users will at least stop and take a look.

2. Course Content

If you want to differentiate your course content, you can think more about these aspects:

1) Is your content vertical enough?

For example, everyone is selling operations courses, but all the content you output only focuses on “how to operate in the education industry”, then your content is differentiated enough.

Large companies and institutions will generally first develop courses that cover the largest user groups, so if KOLs want to get a piece of the pie, they must be vertical, segmented, and focused enough to have a differentiated competitive advantage.

2) Is your content direct enough?

When making courses, many people always think that the more content the better. It seems that there are many chapters, but in fact they do not hit the user's pain points. The reason why users think that this knowledge is useless is because there is a disconnect between knowledge and application.

The essence of a course is to solve a certain type of problem for users. Therefore, the knowledge in the application scenario involved in this problem is what users need. The "directness" emphasized here requires us to think about how to save users time and build real scenarios when teaching, so that users can quickly apply knowledge.

3) Is your format novel enough?

The current mainstream course formats are mainly graphics, text, audio, and video, with an increasing tendency towards video. However, some novel learning forms have also emerged, such as interactive learning, game-based learning, and scenario-based learning.

You might say that it is impossible for an individual without a technical team to be so advanced. But at least you have to think about what form I can try while controlling costs.

For example, can the content of my course be presented in the form of a dialogue to make users feel more involved? For example, if I have a foundation in painting, can I use painting to explain some difficult professional terms? Sometimes, if you add a little personal style, you can stand out.

3. Community Services

Community services usually have the following three types:

1. Sales nature: Commonly seen are community fission or community conversion
2. Service nature: Usually after the course is purchased
3. Resource nature: usually resource connection or exchange

So when you create a course, you must think clearly about whether to build a community and what to do after building the community, because community maintenance requires time and energy. If you don’t have the energy to do this part for the time being, then you don’t have to do community services for now.

If it is not the differentiating point of your course, you have to find the differentiated competitive advantage in the previous parts.

The above content may be a little abstract, so let me give an actual example to illustrate. Although this is a course that I assisted a lecturer in running at a certain institution, it is still very instructive for KOLs to create courses. You can take a look at it.

IV. Case Study: Taking the "Portrait Master Training Camp" series of courses as an example

1. Identify market needs

Research method: Analysis of past business data

Analysis of past business data

• In terms of the proportion of annual total revenue, the largest number of users are learning portrait photography courses, accounting for XX% and the total number of users is XX;
• Judging from the number of user purchases, most existing users have purchased a course at least once. They have a certain foundation in photography or have been shooting for some time.

This leads to two conclusions:

1. Portraits are the subject of choice because they have the largest user base;
2. We create advanced content because existing users’ needs are not only to learn how to start shooting, but also to learn how to shoot well. The expectation behind the word "expert" is actually to meet the needs of this part of users.

2. Course Design Logic

The course design logic adopted by this set of courses is skill display logic. The focus is on allowing users to learn a certain skill, and the content value is basic principles + practical details.

3. Differentiation

Find the differences from three aspects: lecturers, course content, and community services:

1) Lecturer

Highlight the lecturer's personal advantages from three dimensions:

1. xx years of portrait photography experience, won XX award, etc.;
2. How many classes have you taught, how many students have you served, and what are the word-of-mouth reviews?
3. Participated in XX industry summit, was invited to be a lecturer for XX famous company, etc.

2) Course Content

• Is the content vertical enough?

Highlight words: portrait, expert, focusing on portrait photography, focusing on advanced users (not pure photography novices).

• Is the content direct enough?

Highlight word: whole process

The full process means showing a set of high-quality photography works from shooting preparation to shooting process and post-production editing.

It does not talk about the various ways to use the camera or the various methods of post-production photo editing, but only focuses on what methods and tools to use for each portrait theme. This way, the content presented is direct enough, the application of knowledge will be more in-depth, and the differentiation will be more obvious.

• Is the format novel enough?

Highlight word: documentary style

Documentary style means that the cameraman records the entire shooting process of the photographer in a real shooting location, and we emphasize uncut, full real-scene recording. This is very rare in the industry, because most of the photography courses on the market now have the teacher talking about the shooting process while looking at the pictures. A few videos may be inserted in the middle to assist the explanation, but these are not concrete enough.

The new course format will include a lot of practical details. For example, you can see how the photographer adjusts parameters according to the light at the real shooting scene, how to guide the model to pose, and even how waste film is produced. This is very important for learning a skill, and it is also the biggest difference and advantage of this course.

3) Community Services

Highlight word: Training camp

• This course is released on a weekly basis when it is launched

The whole set consists of 5 major portrait themes and 10 sections, so I release 1 theme and 2 sections every week. The reason for doing this is that I hope that everyone will watch and practice after buying the course, instead of hoarding courses. Hoarding courses is a very bad learning habit for users, and for operators, users hoarding courses is also very unfavorable for repeat purchases.

• The first month of purchase will provide exclusive community services

The lecturer answers questions and comments on homework once a week in the community; the operator solves common after-sales problems in the community and organizes some small activities, such as encouraging everyone to participate in the community's photography competition, or doing "flash photo editing" to give away benefits to enhance user activity.

The final effect of this course was very good. Not only did it win the sales championship that month, it also had a very good reputation among users. I think the above content is part of the reason why it did so well.

Author: Cloud

Source: Clouds are not perfect