We often find, with our own clients, that there is a direct line that can be drawn between the time you spend developing and designing your online course and the price point at which you can sell your online course. Generally speaking, online courses with more interactive materials embedded within their Learning Management System (LMS) can demand higher enrollment fees. Similarly, e-Course owners that have spent the time developing high-quality video demonstrations, screen captures, audio recordings and PowerPoint presentations also seem to be able to demand higher prices for their courses, as students are willing to pay more for professionally produced content.

THE TEMPTATION OF LOW HANGING FRUIT

On the other hand, in our experience, eCourse sellers who look for the “low hanging fruit” (i.e. the eLearning products that are easy and fast for them to make) often up up having to offer their courses at lower price points.

One eCourse development strategy isn’t better than the other, it’s just that each one has different risks and rewards.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RISKS WITH TAKING TOO LONG?

Developing an eCourse quickly can give you an immediate idea of how many people are interested in your educational material. However, if you’ve spent 2 years developing professionally produced content for your course, then tweaking your online course software to meet your needs, but then you find out the market is smaller than your research indicated (or maybe more competitors have entered the market), well then you’re stuck with an expensive course you’ll find difficult to sell.

There is, of course, certain precautions you can take (namely proper research) to ensure you don’t end up in the later camp. The ideal situation is to be able to offer a high quality, professionally produced eCourse for a reasonable price to as large of an interested audience as possible.

So let us know what you think! How long does it take you (on average) to develop and create an eCourse?