E-learning business blueprint: How to start, manage and scale a profitable online education business

Starting an e-learning business is hard work and demands many steps and decisions that need to come together at the right time.

To help, we’ve put together a comprehensive blueprint for starting a business, compiled from Tyootr’s most popular content. These blog posts, guides, and videos have been organized based on the most important tasks you’ll face when researching, launching, and growing a profitable online education business.

I. Choosing a course

Finding a course to sell

The first step to building an e-learning business is to know what courses you want to sell direct to consumer. This is often the most challenging part of starting a new online business. In this section, we’ll highlight strategies you can use to find market opportunities, explore the best places to look for course ideas, and finally, we’ll look at trending courses to consider.

  • Find courses to sell with Tyootr Marketplace
  • Creating your first e-learning course
  • 7 tips to create great e-learning videos
  • 10 - In demand courses that are trending by categories

Evaluating your idea

Once you have a product idea in mind, how do you know if it will sell? In this section, we’ll cover a few approaches that active entrepreneurs have used to validate their product ideas and the potential market.

  • How to Validate Your Course Ideas
  • The 10-Step Checklist to Evaluating Your Course

Creating your course content

After landing on a strong course idea, your next step is to figure out where and how you’re going to create and deliver your course. The next two posts will cover the various methods for creating and delivering your course, along with the pros and cons of each model.

II. Research and Prepare

Research your competition

You’ve found your course, evaluated the potential, and decided to create content on your own or resell from tyootr marketplace. You’re now ready to write your business plan, but before you get into that, you'll need to thoroughly research your competition so you know what you’re up against and how you can differentiate your business.

Once you have a product idea in mind, how do you know if it will sell? In this section, we’ll cover a few approaches that active entrepreneurs have used to validate their product ideas and the potential market.

  • How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Writing a business plan

With your competitive research complete, it's the perfect time to write your business plan. A business plan will be your roadmap that helps bring your ideas and thoughts together. A business plan is vital in determining what to prioritize and how to effectively reach new customers.

  • A Detailed Guide to Writing a Useful Business Plan
  • Business Plan Template: A Framework to Streamline Your Next Business Plan

III. Setting up your business

Naming your business

Aside from finding an actual course to sell online, another challenging decision is determining your business or brand name and choosing an appropriate and available domain name. These blog posts will help you tackle these important tasks.

  • What Should I Name My Online Store?
  • Choosing a Brand Name: 10 Tools & 5 Brainstorming Strategies

Creating a logo

Once you’ve selected a memorable name and registered a corresponding domain, it’s time to craft a simple logo. In these resources, we’ll show you several options for creating a great logo for your new business.

  • 5 Easy to Use Online Logo Makers to Design Your Brand

Understanding search engine optimization (SEO)

You’re almost ready to begin building your online store. However, before you jump into it, you should understand the basics of search engine optimization so that you can properly structure your site and pages for Google and other search engines.

  • The Beginner’s Guide to Ecommerce SEO
  • What Can I Do to Help My E-learning Website Rank in Search Engines?
  • Keyword Research for Online education business from the Ground Up

Building your E-learning Website

With a better understanding of search engines, it’s time to build out your e-learning website. There are many crucial elements to consider. Below we’ve listed our essential reads to help you build high-converting course pages, write captivating course descriptions, shoot beautiful course introduction videos, choose your e-learning color palette, and much more.

  • 11 Experts Share How to Optimize Your Course Pages
  • How to Write Course Descriptions that Sell
  • The Ultimate DIY Guide to Course images and intro videos
  • Customizing Your Tyootr Storefront Theme: Using Images, Colors, and Fonts
  • Must-Know Tips for Optimizing Your Images

Don’t forget, if you run into any problems getting your store set up, you can always hire help from Tyootr Marketplace.

Choosing your sales channels

One of the best ways to reach new customers is to choose sales channels where they already shop. The right mix of sales channels will depend on your courses and your target customers, but there are a number of great options that can complement and support your self-hosted store.

  • You and Tyootr Marketplace: How to effectively use your storefront and tyootr marketplace to sell your courses
  • Selling on Social Media Platforms: How One Business Finds New Customers
  • Selling your courses to Businesses: How to effectively create a B2B or Corporate Sales Strategy

IV. Preparing to Launch

As you prepare for the launch of your new online education business, there are several delivery and fulfillment elements you need to prepare for. In this section, we’ve curated a few comprehensive guides on how to determine your delivery strategy.

  • The Beginner's Guide to course delivery and fulfillment
  • Virtual instructor led course: Everything you need to know
  • How Do I Price and Implement a Strategy to Handle Refunds?
  • How to operational costs and overheads as a small online education business

It’s also a good idea to define your key performance indicators upfront so once you launch, you know what to measure success to track.

  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for online education business

As a final checklist, this post covers the ten essential things you need to do before launch.

  • The Tyootr e-learning business launch checklist

V. Post Launch

Acquiring your first customer

Now that you’ve launched, the hard work of marketing your courses begins. While many new educators should consider selling their courses initially within their network of target audience, the rest of digital marketing rests on doing one thing well: driving targeted traffic. Next, we’ll share a variety of marketing tactics that will help you in your first months.

  • Marketing Checklist: How to Get Your First Sale in 30 Days
  • The Beginner's Guide to Getting More High Quality Traffic

Marketing your store

You’re well on your way and now likely have a few sales under your belt. It’s time to get serious and focused. The following posts will help you zero in on your top-performing marketing tactics for driving traffic and converting that traffic to sales.

Email marketing essentials

  • Email Marketing 101: How to Build Your List, Send Effective Campaigns, and Track Results
  • 7 Email Campaigns Every Online Education Business Should Run
  • How to Write an Effective Welcome Email
  • Teardown: 60 Days of Emails from a Fast-Growing Education Brand

Driving traffic from social

  • How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
  • How to Get More Followers on Social Media: A Guide for Businesses
  • How to Start a YouTube Channel for Your Business
  • 7 Common Facebook Advertising Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

Optimizing for higher conversions

  • The Complete Guide to A/B Testing (Tips from Google, HubSpot, and Tyootr)
  • How to Find and Plug the Leaks in Your Conversion Funnels
  • Drive More Sales and Revenue with Targeted Live Chat
  • Experts Share How to Increase Revenue Without Increasing Traffic
  • Ways to Earn Customer Trust When You Have Zero Sales

Using analytics to uncover insights

  • The Beginner's Guide to Analyzing Tyootr Reports and Analytics
  • What Basic E-learning Metrics Should I Focus On First?
  • 5 Google Analytics Segments You Can Use to Increase Revenue
  • 9 Google Analytics Custom Reports by the Experts

A blueprint is just the beginning

Building your own e-learning business is as exciting as it is challenging. At a rapid pace you’ll learn a ton about choosing a course, evaluating its viability, figuring out how to get it produced, building your storefront, and marketing and selling to new customers. The process can feel like you’re solving a head-scratcher of a puzzle, but it’s rewarding all the same.

We hope following this resource roundup helps provide you with a clearer roadmap. As always, the best advice anyone can give is to just get started, and to enjoy yourself along the way.