Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
If you sell online courses, it is tempting to think that future-proofing your business means finding the next piece of technology. Maybe it is AI. Maybe it is adaptive learning. Maybe it is an AI tutor, a new type of video, microlearning, skills-based learning or whatever the next big LMS feature happens to be.
I personally think that is only part of the answer.
The online course businesses most likely to survive and grow over the next five to ten years will be the ones that build a business around their expertise, their learners, their content and their own brand. Technology matters, but the real question is whether your business can adapt when technology, learner expectations and the market inevitably change.
That is particularly important if you sell online courses as a trainer, consultant or training organisation. Your courses may become one of your most valuable business assets, so it makes sense to build the business around them rather than treating them as another product sitting on a third-party platform.
Future-proofing does not mean predicting exactly what online learning will look like in 2030. Nobody can do that with any confidence. I know…I’ve tried! 10 years ago when I started creating courses, I could never have predicted an “AI trend” amongst gigantic third party platforms. No, Future-proofing means building enough flexibility and scalability into your online learning platform, course content, marketing and business model so that you can respond when things change. (and they will!)
Learner expectations are already moving in that direction. Research from the University of Michigan points to flexibility, human connection, useful feedback and clear outcomes as important parts of the modern online learning experience.
At the same time, AI is changing how people find information and learn. Learners can ask an AI tool for an explanation in seconds, which means simply putting information into a video and calling it a course may become increasingly difficult to justify.
Your expertise still matters. The way you package and deliver it matters even more and Goster can help you put the two together effectively.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in online course businesses is thinking in terms of individual courses rather than an overall learning business. You might start with one course because you have a particular area of expertise. That is perfectly sensible. The problem comes when the entire business depends on that single course continuing to sell indefinitely.
One “spread your eggs” approach is to think about your course as part of an ecosystem…your ecosystem.
Your introductory course could lead to an advanced programme. A short course could introduce a more comprehensive certification. A consultant could use online training as the first stage of a larger consulting relationship. A training company could use digital courses alongside live workshops, coaching and corporate programmes. This gives you several ways to generate revenue from the same underlying expertise.
I learned something similar while working with the Chamber of Commerce. The training programme had to be reinvented rather than simply continuing with the existing system which was a disaster. The re-design, re-packaged result was a 300% year-over-year increase in revenue.
The lesson I took from that experience was fairly simple: Sometimes the opportunity is not sitting inside the existing product. It is in reconsidering how the product is packaged, marketed and sold.
This holds true if you want to sell online courses successfully over the long term.
There is a strong temptation to build your course business entirely on someone else’s platform. Platforms such as hosted course systems can make launching relatively easy. For a new course creator, that can be useful. You can get a course online, take payments and start selling without having to build the technology yourself. But there is a longer-term question worth asking.
Where does the business actually live?
If your brand, website, learner data, payments, course content and customer relationships all depend on another company, you have introduced another business into the middle of your relationship with your customers.
That does not automatically make a third-party platform a bad choice. For some businesses, it is exactly the right starting point. But if your intention is to build a substantial training organisation, I think ownership becomes increasingly important.
Your own LMS gives you greater control over how courses are delivered, how learners move through them, how your brand is presented and how the learning experience connects with the rest of your business. It can also make it easier to develop new revenue models as your business grows.
A five-hour video course can look impressive when you launch it, but what happens when parts of the content become outdated? If every lesson is one enormous video, updating a small section can become an expensive production exercise.
I have been on both sides of this issue over the years as part of the media creating and e-learning world. Earlier in my career, I produced long form content for the UFC and it was expected when FOX Sports wanted to air a half-hour show, but when it comes to elearning, I realised that the content needed to be broken up into 10-15 minute chunks to help maintain engagement of the learners.
This is similar to the old ‘commercial’ breaks I used to build into a half hour show, only now it isn’t to sell a sponsored product, it is to maintain attention and interest. Now, when a client requires an update to a video, it may only require changing one small segment and not the entire video. That training video approach changed how I think about digital content.
Good content needs to work today, but it also needs to be manageable tomorrow.
Breaking courses into sensible lessons, modules, assessments, downloadable resources and shorter media assets makes future updates much easier. It also creates opportunities to reuse content in marketing, social media, email campaigns, webinars and future courses.
The same principle applies to your course website. Keep the content modular. Keep your media organised. Keep your source files. Keep your intellectual property under control.
Your future self will thank you.
Video remains an excellent format for teaching, particularly when learners benefit from seeing and hearing an expert explain something. But video alone is unlikely to be enough for every subject.
Modern learners increasingly expect flexibility and clear connections between learning and real-world outcomes.
That means your course might combine video with quizzes, assessments, downloadable resources, practical exercises, discussion, scenarios, simulations, certificates and feedback.
Microlearning is another useful approach. Shorter learning units can make it easier for learners to fit training around work and other commitments, while also giving you more reusable content. Current e-learning research continues to identify microlearning as an important part of modern training delivery.
You do not have to turn every course into a collection of two-minute videos. The point is to give yourself options. Goster can help you explore some of these options during your free discovery chat
Build Courses in Small, Reusable Components:
A modular course lets you replace one lesson without rebuilding the entire programme. It also lets you reuse particularly useful lessons in other courses, programmes or marketing campaigns. From what I’ve seen, this can save a surprising amount of production time as a training business grows.
Plan for Regular Content Reviews:
Give every course a review date rather than assuming it will remain accurate forever. This is especially important for subjects affected by legislation, technology, regulation or industry practice. A simple review process can prevent an apparently successful course from quietly becoming outdated.
Create Content That Can Be Repurposed:
A good lesson can potentially become a short video, article, webinar topic, downloadable guide, social media post or assessment question. This makes your original investment in course development work harder. It also gives you more ways to attract people who may eventually buy your courses.
AI is going to change online learning. That much seems difficult to argue with. Current L&D research points towards increasing use of AI for content creation, learner support, personalisation, adaptive pathways and assessment.
The mistake would be assuming that means you should simply generate a course with AI and put it on your website.
I would be cautious about that.
AI can help you research, structure, draft, summarise, generate questions, create variations of content and support learners. It can potentially reduce the time required to maintain a large course library.
But your expertise remains the thing that differentiates your training business. Your learners are not paying you because an AI can produce 5,000 words on leadership. They can already get that elsewhere.
They are paying because you know the subject, understand the problems your learners face and can help them achieve a useful outcome. Use AI to make your business more efficient. Do not allow it to erase the expertise that made people interested in your course in the first place.
This is one of the less glamorous parts of running an online course business, but it can make a huge difference. Keep your original videos, graphics, scripts, audio, presentations, photographs, worksheets and course files organised.
I learned the importance of this while working in television production. At the UFC, I helped support senior leadership by organising and maintaining a storage network for digital assets. The volume and value of media assets made organisation more than an administrative task. It was part of keeping the production operation functioning.
The same principle applies to an online training business. Imagine having 30 courses and thousands of individual media assets, but nobody knows which version of a video is current.
That becomes expensive very quickly. A sensible digital asset management system means you can update, reuse and repurpose content without constantly recreating work you have already paid for.
A future-proof online course business should have more than one route to revenue.
You might sell individual or bundled courses directly to consumers or you might offer subscriptions. You might sell courses to companies, license your content or even combine online learning with consultancy or coaching. The exact mix is going to depend on your expertise and market.
I experienced a version of this in my role as Training Manager for the Chamber. An Excel online assessment tool generated nearly £1,000 a month in additional revenue. It was simple, we offered 4 levels of Excel training and we wanted potential clients to get the best value for their money so I created an assessment tool using SurveyMonkey so they didn’t take courses to advanced or too remedial for them: our Excel course bookings exploded.
My point is that it isn’t necessarily about creating another huge training programme but rather about identifying something customers needed (or wanted) and turning it into a useful digital product. Sometimes future growth comes from relatively small additions to what you already know.
Own Your Brand:
Your brand should remain recognisable regardless of which technology you use behind the scenes. If you change LMS platforms, payment systems or marketing tools, your customers should still know who they are dealing with. Your reputation belongs to your business, so build your course experience around it.
Own Your Learner Data:
Your learner relationships are valuable business information. You need to understand who buys your courses, what they complete, what they struggle with and what they might need next. A platform strategy that gives you useful control over your customer and learner data can make future decisions much easier.
Own Your Intellectual Property:
Make sure you understand who owns the scripts, videos, graphics, assessments, workbooks and other materials created for your business. UK guidance on course businesses highlights that paying someone to create content does not necessarily mean your business automatically owns the copyright.
In additional to changing technology, your LMS, AI, video formats, payment systems and most importantly if you sell online courses, learner expectations will change. As I’ve already mentioned, trying to predict every change is probably a waste of time. Instead, build a system that can accommodate change. That is another reason I prefer to think about the learning platform as only part of the business infrastructure rather than the entire business.
This may be the most important question. If you are currently a consultant selling your time, do you want your online courses eventually generating revenue without requiring you to deliver every hour personally? If you run a training organisation, could your courses become a scalable part of your offering?
Those possibilities become much harder if you build everything around a single course and a platform you do not control.They become much easier if you think about the business architecture from the beginning.
I think future-proofing an online course business is less about trying to predict the future and more about making sure you can respond to it. Build around your expertise. Own your brand and your intellectual property. Develop content that can be updated and reused. Keep your learner relationships close to the business. Use AI where it genuinely improves your operation. Give yourself several ways to generate revenue.
Most importantly, build a course business that can evolve.
I started in video production 25 years ago and as I pivoted into broadcast television, digital media, SEO, corporate training and LMS development I can tell you first hand, the technology has changed dramatically, but the underlying requirement has stayed remarkably consistent: create useful content, understand the audience and find better ways to deliver it.
That is probably the safest strategy I know for anyone who wants to sell online courses for many years rather than simply launch one and hope it keeps selling. Reach out to us for a free 15 minute discovery call to explore your options for integrating useful technology into your online training courses.
Let us show you the many options available to you to create a manageable, affordable, scalable online course—no obligation.