Digitally She Does It Podcast

EPISODE 85: Choosing the Perfect Online Course Platform

• Karen Davies • Season 1 • Episode 85

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In this episode, I dive into the pivotal topic of choosing the right platform for your online course. With the e-learning market continuously expanding, making the right choice has become increasingly challenging. I share valuable insights on how to make this crucial decision.

I also talk about 3 specific platforms that I have used, sharing their unique strengths and potential drawbacks. With valuable tips and real-life experiences, this episode will guide you in choosing the perfect platform for your online course. 

Tune in to find out more!

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Karen Davies [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to the Digitally She Does It Show. This is episode 85 and in today's episode I'm going to be talking about online course platforms and how to choose the right one for you. So let's jump right in and let's get started.

Welcome to the Digitally She Does It Show. I am your host Karen and I'm here to lift the lid on what it actually takes to create a successful business. If you are an ambitious creative ready to build a business on your own terms and without compromise, then this podcast is perfect for you.

With my award winning approach to marketing and expert knowledge in creating online courses, this show will leave you inspired, energised, and ready to bring those big dreams to life. Join me each week for a dose of motivation and marketing know how along with actionable step by step strategies to help you accelerate your businesses grow.

Karen Davies [00:00:59]:
So, let's dive in and don't forget to subscribe to all my upcoming which drop every Wednesday. Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining me today. I'm your host, Karen. And I really appreciate you hitting the play button to listen to today's episode. So today, I'm talking about tech and I'm gonna be talking about online course platforms because this is the number one question that I get asked all of the time. So today I'm going to dive right into this topic. But before I do, I just want to talk about the Digital Creators Hub.

Karen Davies [00:01:42]:
This is your one stop shop for getting started online. If you're not in the hub, you need to be in the hub because this is going to be where your online journey starts. Now the hub is full of so many good things to help you get started. I've got resources. I've got a business planning tool in there. I've got time saving templates. I've got training and I've also listed my recommended tools that is going to make your life so much easier to get started. And I've laid it all out there and the best thing about the hub well, it's not the best thing because the best thing obviously is the content in the hub.

Karen Davies [00:02:24]:
But the good thing is that it's completely free, which means that there is no charge and you can have this just by signing up. To do that, just head on over to www.pink-lemondigital.comforward/hub. So if you go over to my website, you'll be able to access the hub, join for free, and get access to a treasure trove of goodies that is going to help you to get started online. And why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to get started online? You're looking to scale your business or you're looking to drive more time back in your business or to create a bigger impact and do all of that good stuff that you know your business can do, then this is where you get started. It's all happening online. So go and head on over to the hub and get yourself in there so that you can access all of these goodies. Okay. So let's go back to today's episode.

Karen Davies [00:03:27]:
And today we are talking about online course platforms because as I said earlier it's the one thing that I get asked all of the time. And it's a minefield. It's an absolute minefield. How do you know what platform to choose for your online course? And the reason I say that is because since COVID especially, the elearning market has grown exponentially. It is just buzzing with so many new platforms out there. And that's great in one sense because it means that there's a lot of choice but it's also challenging in another sense because there's so much choice and it can be overwhelming. And what How do you even know what you need? And if you don't know what you need, how can you choose your platform? So this is what I'm gonna talk about today and hopefully I can break it down a little bit to make this a little bit easier for you to understand, but also to just take that step forward and pick a platform. Because obviously if you wanna get your calls out there, you need a platform to obviously put your calls on.

Karen Davies [00:04:36]:
I'm also going to share a little bit about sort of my experiences with platforms that I've used. I have tested and trialed a lot of different platforms. I'm a bit of a tech geek. I love diving into new platforms and things and having a look how they work. And I don't know if it's just because I'm nosy or because I'm obviously interested for my job or I just like having a play. But I do enjoy the whole kind of working out a platform, working out how I can use it and then what it can do. So I'm gonna share a little bit of that with you today which I'm hoping will also help you as well. But before you choose your form I just want to talk about 3 things that I really feel you need to have nailed because now I've worked with a lot of clients and as I said the tech thing comes into it a lot.

Karen Davies [00:05:38]:
And what I would say is that when you're deciding on what platform to invest in, and it is an investment, so this is an investment into you making money. So if you're thinking about your platform as an expense, it's another expense you've got to incur. Just before I share these three things, I just want you to try and reframe how you're thinking about this because the platform you choose, you're most likely going to be paying for. And what that means is that you're going to be investing in something that's gonna support you with your online course. So I would encourage you to think about it more as an investment than an expense because that's gonna shift the energy that you feel around the course platform that then choose. Because there are platforms that sit at all different levels with all different capabilities with all different functions and what you will need to decide is what is right for you. But what I don't want is the price to dictate the platform you choose Because you need to be choosing a platform based on your requirements and also your future goals as well. So the first thing that I wanna share with you if you are considering a platform or you're thinking about choosing a platform for your online course is to first and foremost define your learning goals.

Karen Davies [00:07:04]:
What I mean by this is why are you doing this and what are you looking to achieve from from doing this? Are you looking to build a community alongside your online course or are you just looking at delivering an online course? Is this a one time thing? So will this be a case of I'm gonna do it once but I'm not building anything else out so it's just a one time course? Or will you be looking to create other things that sit alongside your online course as well? So could you in the future be thinking about delivering a group program or a membership or other online courses or even creating digital products? If the answer is yes then that needs to come into the decision making process that you're gonna go through for when you pick your platform. So I want you to really think about what your goals are, why you're doing this and what it could lead to in the future. And it's okay not to have a defined outcome at this point Especially if you're new to creating online courses you may not know where this is going to lead you and that's absolutely fine. But if you think that potentially in the future there will be more to come then I want you to hold on to that because that will influence your decision on the course platform. The second thing that I want you to think about is as well are the kind of features that you're going to need in the platform that you choose. Now as I said earlier, the e learning market is huge. It has grown which means that there are so many platforms out there to choose from. It really is a a kind of buyer's market really because there are so many platforms.

Karen Davies [00:09:06]:
So so you have the top platforms but there's so many other platforms that are popping up as well. So for somebody looking to create online products it's great because it means that you get this variety to choose from. But again, what it also can lead to is overwhelm. So I want you to start thinking about the features that you may need as you deliver your online course. Now you might not know exactly what these are right now but this is where you need to carry out some research because the clearer you can get on your features if you like then the clearer it's going to be on picking your plat platform because you'll be able to say, yes. I need that. My platform has to have this. Now features can be anything like delivering live sessions.

Karen Davies [00:09:54]:
So if it it might be that you have a coaching element in your course then this might be important to you. You might want to deliver live sessions. It might be the fact that you want to have interactive quizzes available or maybe you want to build a community and so you need a forum available in your platform. Whatever that looks like, if you can get really clear on that upfront then it will then feed into the decision making process and make that so much easier for you when you are looking at what's out there. And then the third thing that I want you and then the third thing that you're you need to do is you need to check out user reviews. This is really important because who better to trust than actual users of the platforms? And there are platforms out there that are dedicated just to gathering reviews on online course platforms. So do your research and have a look at what people are saying. So what I would recommend is that maybe you have a top 3 platforms or you have top 5 platforms that you may be interested in go and check out the reviews around these platforms because you're going to then get a sense of the platform's reputation, user experience, and the overall satisfaction of the users that are using the platform.

Karen Davies [00:11:21]:
It's going to give you an idea on how good it is, how it actually works, and what you can get from it as well. So do your research. Have a look at the reviews and that will give you some insight into whether or not the platform will be right for you. Okay. So they're my sort of key factors that I would recommend that you think about before choosing a platform. So they are really important. So just to recap, I want you to get really clear on what your goals are. I want you to research what platform features you're going to need in advance of choosing a platform.

Karen Davies [00:12:02]:
And then I want you to check out user reviews as well. And if you can do all of those three things then it's going to help you when you decide on your platform. Okay. So now what I want to just dive into are some platforms that I've used. But before I do, I think it's really important that I highlight that whilst there are a lot of online course platforms out there in the market they all have their own little nuances. So they all have little things about them that sort of makes them that little bit different. So by understanding what you need and where you're taking this side of your business ahead of you picking the platform, then when it comes to you checking out individual platforms you'll have a better inclination to whether it's gonna be aligned with what you need it for. And I just wanted to point that out because as I said, you know, this can be quite overwhelming when it comes to picking a platform.

Karen Davies [00:13:08]:
And I don't want this to stop you in your tracks because people are not going to buy your course because of the platform that you're using. That's a really important point that I really want to kind of make clear. Nobody's gonna buy your course because you're on say kunjabi, or you're on teachable, or you're on podia. People don't think like that. People will buy your course because of the results that your course is going to deliver and the transformation it's going to and the transformational journey that it's going to take them on. They're not going to be sitting there thinking should I buy this course because it's on kajabi? So even though your online course platform is an important decision to make, because it's an investment and you're most likely going to be using this platform for a long time, equally, it's not going to make or break the sales of your online course. What it will do it will affect user experience. So when I say that your online course platform is important that's where I kind of come from.

Karen Davies [00:14:22]:
It is important because it's going to impact how students are going to be interacting with the platform. So you want to make sure that, yes, you have the right features, but you have the right user experience available to you that you want to deliver. So that's why getting really clear on your goals, getting clear on the features that you need, and and understanding the reviews out there are important because it's ultimately going to be the experience that your user is going to be encountering that's going to it's going to affect how people interact with your online course and the experience that they walk away with which of course is important. So I just wanted to really highlight that because this is a rabbit hole that you can end up going down and then getting stuck and then not making a decision. And I think what's important here is that you make a decision. You can always change your platform later on. I myself have changed a platform. I've I've actually done it sort of multiple times actually because as my goals have shifted and my desire about what I need has shifted, so has my expectation of the platform.

Karen Davies [00:15:44]:
And I what the platforms I'm gonna talk about, some of them have capabilities where others don't. And so it's really about whether the platform aligns with your goals. But I just want you to know that you can change platforms. This is not a I've got to pick a platform and then I've got to live with it forever. Not at all. There there is of course work involved in shifting platforms, but it might be that down the road it's it may be the decision that you might need to make. But if you can try and avoid that at the beginning by getting clear on what you need then of course it's gonna save you a lot of time and effort in the future if you do need to change. So again, I just feel like that is something important that I need to highlight because once your course is on the platform really what you want to be doing is focusing on selling the course and ultimately making money from it.

Karen Davies [00:16:40]:
Okay. I just want to talk about some platforms that I have experience in and why I've changed platforms and also what my favorite platform is right now. So as I said, I am a bit of a tech geek, so I love trialing platforms. And because I build websites, I sort of come with this ability if you like to to pick things up quite easily. So I do try and look at things from the perspective of a lot of my clients who maybe don't feel as comfortable with tech. So because of that there are some platforms that I've trialled and I've completely discarded because the technical ability that's needed is really high and anybody starting out in this area may not have that to slot start with. And actually what you don't want to be doing is wasting so much of your time trying to figure out the tech that it's stopping you making money. Like, we do not want that.

Karen Davies [00:17:41]:
We want to be getting our content on a platform, setting it up, and then getting it out there so that peep so so that students can actually start getting results from from what we are what we have created. So my first platform that I wanna talk about is Kajabi. Now in the online course space, there are platforms that vary in price. So you've got platforms that start at from a little as $20 to platforms that are literally in the 100. Kajabi is considered a premium platform. It starts at around a $120 I believe maybe a 116 for the most basic tier and that's because it's an all in one system. So if you are looking to create an online course but you want a platform that equally provides you with sort of the marketing tools needed to be able to market your online course then kenjabi is a really good choice. I was on kenjabi for, I would say, probably about 3 years.

Karen Davies [00:18:49]:
I do enjoy kenjabi. It's a very good, well built platform. It's got great customer service. It is easy to use. I mean, when you're learning anything, when you're starting out with anything, there is always a steep learning curve. So it doesn't matter what platform you're going to choose, there is a steep learning curve. But once you've figured it out and you have spent some time and given yourself time and grace to learn it then you're away. And I feel with Punjabi that it's got a really good user experience, it works really well and it's easy enough to learn.

Karen Davies [00:19:27]:
It's not highly technical so I think somebody that has limited skills with tech could adopt Punjabi as their platform and be okay with it. The problem with Punjabi, so so just looking at sort of obviously the negatives, is that it is really expensive. So if you're starting out in the online course space and you're building your very first course, you don't really want to be taking on a $120 monthly bill. It's a lot of money and you don't need to because there are platforms out there that equally do just as good a job, but they're but they're cheaper. So I just wanted to highlight that that Kajabi is a really good platform. I've got a lot of experience with Kajabi. It does the job. It does it well, but it is more costly because you're paying for more things.

Karen Davies [00:20:23]:
One of the reasons why I have moved from Punjabi there there were a couple of reasons. I sell digital products, and I wanted a platform that made it so much easier to sell digital products alongside my online courses. And I felt that although I could do it in Punjabi there were other options out there for me. The other reason I decided to move from Punjabi is because I didn't particularly enjoy the, email marketing piece of it. I know it's an all in one which means you pay one price and you get all of these amazing tools but I do believe that you need to equally enjoy using the tools that you're using And also I felt like the email marketing piece was very limited as well. So what I decided to do was to move my email marketing onto a email marketing platform, and I currently use MailerLite, which I really like. It's absolutely brilliant. And all of my funnels and automation and all of that good stuff is on MailerLite.

Karen Davies [00:21:26]:
And then what I did is I moved my digital products and my online courses to another platform that I felt gave me what I needed in a in a much better way. Because I don't need all the add ons but I was paying for it. So then I moved over to a platform called MemberVault. Now interestingly, in my early years, when I was choosing a platform and I was unaware of the options out there, in the early time of me building my courses, MemberVault was one of the platforms that I looked at alongside Kajabi. But I thought I'm gonna go with Kajabi because it's an all in one system. I moved to Membervoll and I moved my online course and everything from Punjabi to Membervoll because I really liked the way that it does like a a a marketplace. Meaning that the way MemberVault sets up its products, it means that when somebody buys a product, they instantly have they can see what else is in your library as well. So the idea behind it it's a buy and sell marketplace.

Karen Davies [00:22:41]:
They buy one thing. They see all the other things that you have available and then they can buy other things as well. Now I really like MemberVault. My digital creators hub is on MemberVault. I really like it. I think it's a really robust platform. I I the way it presents content is very different to Kajabi. Kajabi has templates.

Karen Davies [00:23:04]:
It's there's more ability around Punjabi and in the way in which you can make things look. But I think the member vol has the capability to be equally as good. And I think that if you can be creative with the way you present your content there's no reason why it can't be consumed in a similar way. I do think with Memphault I think you need to maybe have some design flair to be able to kinda make your platform look really good. Kajabi, you can get away with just maybe having sort of basic imagery. But I just feel we're MemberVault and I've seen other people's marketplaces and I think design is so important because it really does convey what may come through the the training if you like. So I think things need to be presented in in a in a way that that screams quality and in an aesthetically pleasing way. So with that that kind of falls on the creator to make sure that things like thumbnails and banners and things like that are designed in a way that's going to appeal to their ideal person.

Karen Davies [00:24:21]:
So I really like Mentivolt. I think it's a really good well built platform. They're always developing Mentivolt, and you can connect to your email provider really easily as well. And you can also build in automation and it makes it easy to do that. MemberVault has a lot of training. It's also got a really great engaged community as well that you can be a part of. And look from and also one of the benefits of MemberVault is that you can start from as little as $20 You can have 5 products for $20 a month And I think that for $20 to be able to sell your products is pretty good considering what is out there on the market. So you can upgrade.

Karen Davies [00:25:12]:
There are different tiers. If you have 14 products, it's a bit more money and you can go unlimited. But if you are starting out and you just want to try a platform and sell your online course in a really easy and simple way then I would highly recommend MemberVault. The 3rd platform that I wanna talk about and I'm gonna talk about the 3 platforms in this because it is a bit of a minefield so I just want to limit it. But the 3rd platform that I want to talk about and that I'm absolutely loving is a platform called Searchie. Now this platform has been created by a guy called Stew McLaren who is the membership expert. He does all his stuff is about membership and so he's built a platform that is highly flexible that enables creators to create products the way they want their products to be created. What I'm loving about Searchie and my membership and my membership is being built on Searchie is that it's a bit like having a website.

Karen Davies [00:26:26]:
You have full design control as to how you present your content. Now this is something that Kajabi and MemberVault don't allow for. With Kajabi and MemberVault, it's a bit of a cookie cutter approach. You they have templates or they have a certain way of presenting the content and you just plug and play. You put your content in, you you put your colour scheme in, you put your fonts in, choose your imagery and you're good to go. And and that serves an audience. But if you're anything like me and you want to have full creative control on not only the user experience but also the way the content's being consumed then Searchie is absolutely brilliant. I've been using Searchie now for about a month or so so I'm still relatively new but it's absolutely brilliant and I'm finding that building my membership is super easy.

Karen Davies [00:27:24]:
They guide you along the way, make it really easy to bring in your content and to upload it. But I love the flexibility. And the other thing about Sachi that I really like is the fact that they because the name is called Searchie, what this means is that students can search all of your content in the platform by just putting in keywords. So a bit like somebody would do on Google in order to find something you they would put keywords in, It's exactly the same with this platform which means if they are looking for particular content around a certain topic then all they need to do is put the keywords in the search bar and it'll all come up. Now to my knowledge this isn't available on other platforms or I don't think it is. This is quite innovative for a platform and I think actually this is going to really be a game changer in the online course space. The other thing that Searchie has that I I'm just about to test is wisdom ai which means that you become the person that they're asking in the platform. So because AI is becoming such a big thing in the world of marketing as in other sort of, spaces as well, you would go to a platform and you would use their AI to answer a specific question or to give you something.

Karen Davies [00:28:51]:
In Searchie you are the ai. It's your content so whenever somebody puts in a question or they want to know something you're who comes up. You are the ai. And I think that is just mind blowing because it means that you get to serve your students at a far more deeper level than ever before. So I do think Searchie is a really good platform to invest in and I think it will be a game changer when it comes to the online course space. Now in terms of cost Searchie does have a trial period where you can try out the platform for 7 days, obviously, at no no cost, but then it goes up to $49, which is about £38. So it's not expensive at all. That gives you one hub and then you build out whatever it is you're building in that hub.

Karen Davies [00:29:49]:
But the capability is incredible And whether you are building a membership, you're building an online course, you're building digital products, it really doesn't matter. You can take it and you can build out whatever you want it to be. And there are lots of different features in there as well that I'm really appreciating because as I roll out my membership in the future there will be lots of things that I'll be able to integrate into that membership to make my member's life so much easier. So I think personally out of everything I've tried, Searchie at the moment is most is my my favorite. I am loving Searchie. Of course I've tried and tested other platforms but I would highly recommend Searchie. But if you are somebody that you just want to plug and play, you want to make it as easy as possible, you don't want to have to think about the tag and you just want a platform that just does what it says on the tin then I would recommend MemberVault for that. Kajabi is great if you want the all in one.

Karen Davies [00:30:55]:
But if you're just starting out and you want something really simple then go for MemberVault. But these are my 3 platforms that I have personally tried and I've tested and they all have their pros and cons. And probably in the future episodes, I'm I'm most likely going to dig into this at a deeper level because, like you say the world of platforms is huge. Today, of course, I've just sort of skimmed the surface. But go and have a look at them. Go and test them out. They all offer free trial periods and go and see what you think. So Kajabi is the premium platform, but it's the all in one.

Karen Davies [00:31:36]:
MemberVault is a really affordable platform that is gonna help you get started and help you get started quick. And then Searchie is perfect if you are somebody like me where you want full design control and you want to create an exceptional experience for your members and your students. Why don't you let me know how you get on? I'd be really interested to hear what your experience is, what platform you really enjoy using and any challenges as well that you have faced in creating your online course. Reach out to me at Instagram at karen_digitalcoach and I will come back to you and I will interact with you and we'll have a conversation around it. But I hope you found today's episode of value. I hope it's kinda shed some light on some platforms that are out there that you could dive in and use. And yeah, just let me know how you get on. Just before I finish up, I just want to remind you that if you're not a member of the Digital Creators Hub, then go and get yourself into the hub.

Karen Davies [00:32:50]:
There's lots of resources. It's completely free and you can gain access to all of this material. And also, the hub currently is on MemberVault. So even if you just want to go and check out MemberVault and what it can do, then sign up to the hub and go and have a look because it's all there. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's episode. I really hope you found this episode of value and of course please feel free to share it with anyone who you think will benefit from listening to today's episode. If you are feeling inspired and would like to know more about getting started with an online course or even just getting started online, then go and join the Digital Creators Hub at www.pink-lemondigital.comforward/hub. I will be back next week with another episode but until then have a great week.

Karen Davies [00:33:50]:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the digitally she does it show. Don't forget to check out the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned in today's episode. New episodes drop every week on a Wednesday. So, why not rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode? 

Thank you for tuning in today and I will see you next time.