How to Teach Digital Marketing and Monentize with Online Courses

Every entrepreneur and their grandmother wants to promote their business online. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 10% increase in marketing job demand by 2026, outpacing the average for all careers.

So, if you have been thinking about creating a digital marketing course, there has never been a better time to do it. In this guide, I will take you through the process step by step, making sure your course is not just informative but actually keeps people engaged. Plus, you will find some real tips from marketers and course creators who have already done it and learned what works (and what does not).

7 Steps to create your first digital marketing course

To create and sell a digital marketing course, you first need to narrow down your audience and find a gap your course fills in the market. Then you can plan the course, create it, and launch it on your online course platform. Let’s discuss all that in more detail. 

“Before mapping out tactics, clearly define your target audience and core message, strategy must guide every promotion.”

Arman Tale

Editor‑in‑Chief at Brand Vision

Narrow down your audience 

Anyone who is interested in studying digital marketing is NOT your audience. 

As a marketer, you know that if you do not know who you are helping, you are not helping anyone. And when it comes to your audience, it is just about getting their demographic and psychographic information. It is also about getting specific on the particular group your course serves. For that, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• What is their identity?

First, think from a professional point of view. Is your digital marketing course for CEOs who want to improve their marketing skills, or perhaps for course creators who want to market their course business? Then, you can even go into personal details. For example, are they students who want to explore a completely new field or busy professionals? 

• Who can you help better based on your expertise? 

Most of the time, course creators offer programs for identities they are already part of. For example, if you are a CEO yourself, you know better what they are particularly interested in when looking for digital marketing courses. So, when choosing the audience your course serves, think about how familiar you are with the challenges they face. 

• What do they expect to achieve with your digital marketing course? 

Then, think about their goals when it comes to digital marketing. Maybe they just want to explore a new field, sharpen their skills, get a job in digital marketing, you get the idea. 

Devlin Peck, who is a course creator offering courses for instructional designers, suggests the following when it comes to selecting the right audience: 

“Starting broad and becoming more specific is a good way to test who you can provide the most value to.”

Devlin Peck

Course Creator

Related: How To Identify Your Target Audience For Your Online Course

Find the gap your digital marketing course fills 

You do not want to create just another digital marketing course on the list, do you? You want to create THAT digital marketing course people actually want to buy. 

That is why you want to think about what unique things your course brings to the table. To do that, you can check similar courses on popular course marketplaces like Coursera or Udemy. 

Let’s say you want to create a digital marketing course for students who are exploring a new field. This means that you are looking to make a course for beginners. On Udemy, there are currently 1426 courses on Digital marketing for beginners. What you need to do is filter the courses by rating and analyze them based on questions like:

• What is the main focus of the top-rated courses? Are they broad or niche?
• Do most courses follow the same structure? If yes, how can yours be different?
• What topics do they all cover, and what is missing?
• Are they heavily theory-based, or do they include practical exercises?
• Do they have a specific audience (business owners, freelancers, job seekers)? 
• How are they priced? Are there mostly cheap courses, or is there room for a premium, in-depth course?

Another great way to find gaps? Check out forums like Reddit or Facebook groups where aspiring digital marketers hang out. What are they struggling with? What kind of questions do they keep asking? If you notice a pattern, that is your golden opportunity.

In an interview with me, professional instructional designer and marketer Jessica Terzakis mentioned that you want to analyze how others frame those courses so you can know better what makes yours different. 

“Your research can literally look like, just looking at other people who are creating courses on your topic, not copying what they're doing, but seeing like, well, how are they framing it? How are they positioning it? And are they successful?” 

Jessica Terzakis

Curriculum designer, Business consultant

Create your digital marketing course outline  

Now that you have a better idea of what your students expect to get and how you want to position your digital marketing course, you can think about the structure of the course. What you want to include in your outline is

• The goal of the course and the objectives for each module
• The topics you want to cover
• The structure for the modules
• Any additional materials the students will need for that module, like infographics, PDF documents, templates, etc. 

As you have already analyzed some courses on digital marketing, at this point, you have a better idea of what lessons you want to include. The question is, how do you structure them into an outline? 

Most instructional designers and course creators prefer to work with the backward design strategy. Which is thinking about the end goal of your digital marketing course, and then the steps it takes your students to achieve that goal. 

For example, if you are teaching small business owners, they probably want more customers, more sales, and less confusion about marketing. So, what do they need to get there? They need to understand digital marketing basics, set up a website, master social media, run ads, and track their results. Each of these can become your modules. 

Now, every module needs a clear takeaway. If they finish the social media module, what should they walk away with? A plan? A skill? Your formula for coming up with content strategies? Whatever it is, that is your learning outcome. 

If you want to create the course outline quickly, I recommend trying Uteach’s outline generator tool. All you need to do is insert your course name, and you can get the outline that you can edit later. In the example below, I generated the outline for the course “Introduction to Digital Marketing Branches for Students”. And now I can edit the modules, lessons and add the lesson content. 

Related: How To Create a Course Outline The Easiest Way with a Template

Develop your digital marketing course content 

When it comes to the course content, nobody wants to sit through hours of plain slides with a voiceover. That is why you want to try mixing a variety of formats to keep students engaged all the way. 

Given the statistics, that 83% of people prefer to consume educational and information content via video rather than text or audio, you can start recording your course content in this format. In a variety of interviews, I asked successful course creators about their best practices when it comes to content. Here is what they shared:

• “I recommend that you just extract that audio and put it in the private podcast.”- Mariana Peña, instructional designer
• “Think about how long your student can listen to the material. Is it enjoyable? And if so, keep it under 9 to 12 minutes”. Angel Rodriguez, course creator at Uteach
• “Keep your content bite-sized and crisp so that you want to reinforce what you're trying to get across in that particular module”. Angel Rodriguez, course creator at Uteach

Some other formats you can use are PDF guides for those who want something to print and scribble on, quizzes to keep students engaged, interactive exercises so they actually apply what they learn, and live Q&A sessions if you want to add a personal touch.

And when it comes to content delivery formats, you do not want your course to sound like a lecture. To avoid that, you can consider the delivery formats like

• Best practices
• Case studies
• Common mistakes
• Myth vs. reality

That will keep the experience engaging and diverse. 

Build your marketing funnel 

In some cases, you will see people come across your courses and enroll. But, as a marketer, you know that for the other 90% of the time, you need to build trust and get them ready to buy your products. Here is an example of a typical marketing funnel most course creators use. 

Awareness 

To let your audience know about your digital marketing course, you want to share with them where they already are and drive traffic from those sources. 

“As a creator, you want to be thinking of how you can find the highest touch opportunities to get in front of your ideal client. Tell them about your course because your sales are just going to be so much easier”. 

Jessica Terzakis, Course Creator, Business Consultant 

So, you can get noticed as you

• Become a guest on someone’s podcast on digital marketing
• Host a live event on those topics yourself
• Use your own channels to share helpful content in multiple formats 

For example, Jenna Kutcher, who is a digital marketing expert and a course creator, uses her website, podcast, social media, and newsletter to share content. 

Consideration

Once you get noticed, you want to have an opportunity to connect with your audience that is potentially interested in your digital marketing course.  The most common way to do so is by using lead magnets. For example, you can place them

• On your social media or relevant YouTube videos, where you encourage them to go download
• Your website blog pages
• Or reaching out to your fellow creators who have an upcoming webinar or a podcast, and speak to their audience that is relevant to yours. 

For example, Vanessa Lau, who is a marketer and entrepreneur, uses gated content strategies for people to move forward in the funnel. She shares all the templates and guides in her blog articles. But to be able to read the blog content, you should first become a member and subscribe. 

Decision 

And now that you have their emails, you know better than anyone else how to use email marketing and other channels to get people to buy your course. To make that impactful, make sure you have

• A definite day when the enrollment stops, so that you can use natural FOMO strategies
• A pre-sell offer so you can sell your very first digital marketing course at a discounted price and test your course idea at the same time. 
• A money-back guarantee if you want to make your offer risk-free, especially if it is your first course. 

For example, Melissa Guller, who offers course creators programs on how they can maximize their earning potential, mentions her refund policy in one of the promotional emails. 

Make sure you have an established funnel for those who did not open your emails, who opened most but did not end up buying, and for those who enrolled in your course. 

Set up your course on a platform and launch 

As you automate the marketing funnel, in the meantime, you want to set up your digital marketing school on your course platform. 

Set up your website

For example, here is how you can set up your digital marketing school on an all-in-one platform like Uteach. You can choose one of the many templates for different niches, including business and marketing. It takes less than a few minutes to replace the existing blocks like your programs, testimonials, FAQs, instructor information, and everything else with your own content. 

If you need additional blocks, you can use the widgets on the site builder and make your website uniquely yours. 

Attach your payment method 

What is great about Uteach is that your choices of payment methods are not limited to PayPal and Stripe. Uteach supports local payment providers, so that you can choose one that you and your students use most frequently. 

Set up your automated emails 

Uteach offers templates for emails and notifications for different cases for you to send automatically. For example, students can receive emails when you reschedule a lesson, upload new course material, or make an announcement. 

All you need to do is activate the email and personalize the text in case you need to edit. 

FAQ 

• Are digital marketing courses in demand? 

Yes, there is great demand for digital marketing courses. The demand for digital marketing courses is driven by businesses' increasing reliance on online strategies, career opportunities, and the flexibility of online learning platforms. In fact, 

• 61% of companies plan to hire digital marketing specialists, highlighting the increasing need for professionals with expertise in SEO, social media, content strategy, and analytics.
• 56% of businesses modified their models to capitalize on digital opportunities 

Meaning that more and more people are interested in improving their digital marketing skills. When it comes to search results

• The keyword “digital marketing courses” has 100 K- 1 M results
• Online digital marketing courses have 10 K- 100 K search results

• Can I create digital marketing courses with minimal investments? 

Creating a digital marketing course with the least investment is possible. 

There are various free tools available online that you can use on the journey.

Also, you can repurpose the existing content, such as blog posts and webinars, to create an online course. This way, you will not have to invest too much time.

• How much can you earn selling a digital marketing course? 

Selling a digital marketing course can be highly lucrative, with earnings ranging from a few hundred dollars to six or even seven figures annually.

For example, let’s say you have a course priced at $299. And you have 5000 visitors monthly. Even with the lowest conversion rate being 1%, you can make $14,950. 

Monetize Your Skills Online

Take your first step toward success with Uteach! 

Imagine getting your professional website done faster than light travels from the Sun to the Earth. With Uteach, you can automate many processes. 

As a result, you will be able to dedicate MORE time to creating & selling whatever you want:  coaching sessions, training, and webinars. Triple your income with bundles and memberships. 

You can access special features such as  fully-automated coaching with calendar and booking system, integrations, and even your local payment gateway. 

Many online learners are waiting for you to light their way. Book your free demo with our expert now and see how you can become a better and more efficient business coach with the help of Uteach.