Increasing Business Profits through Online Learning: The Role of Educational Courses in Business Development

In recent years, the online learning revolution has transformed the educational landscape. With technology at the forefront, learning is no longer confined to traditional classrooms.

This digital shift has made education more accessible than ever before, empowering hundreds of thousands of individuals to acquire new skills and Specialized knowledge from their homes at their own pace, using either a desktop or mobile device. The e-learning sector is thriving, and it's here to stay. According to Forbes, the global e-learning market is expected to be worth a staggering $349.34 billion by 2025.

Establishing your company as a knowledgeable expert in your field and venturing into the online education industry can yield significant benefits for your business. In fact, nearly half of US organizations have seen an increase in their revenue since 2019 by leveraging e-learning's advantages.

As we stand today, the online learning industry offers a golden opportunity for businesses to amplify their revenue and achieve new levels of success. Let's explore the strategies that can make it happen.

2025 Benchmarks Report for Skyrocketing Revenue with Online Learning

Get a sneak peek into the benchmarks that define success with data-driven insights from 1,040+ industry professionals.

How Online Courses Can Propel Your Business Forward

Armed with online courses, your business will become more attractive to new audiences, penetrating new markets, and retaining customers. Let's delve deeper into the numerous ways that creating online courses can propel your business growth and significantly scale your revenue.

You're already excelling at running your business, offering your services and products to your customers. However, if you're looking to grow and diversify your revenue streams, you might be unsure of what steps to take beyond what you're already doing. Offering your knowledge and skills through an online course is an excellent way to attract new leads to your business, establish your brand's authority in your industry, and create a loyal customer base.

Take CFI, a leading Financial Analyst training company, for example. They generate revenue by offering financial analyst training programs and classes for individuals looking to improve their financial analysis skills. Their courses have been delivered to over 1 million students from 170 countries and have helped thousands of people become world-class financial analysts.

How Your Expertise can Fuel Additional Revenue for Your Business

Developing your first online courses with your business and customer's needs in mind will facilitate your business growth through customer attraction and retention.

Moreover, by offering your expertise through online courses to your customers, you can create an entirely new revenue stream for your business that scales seamlessly as you grow. Whether you're teaching your first or thousandth student, with online courses as your delivery method, you won't have to worry about the logistical aspects of organizing in-person training events, or escalating costs associated with increasing customers and expanding your audience.

How to Create an Additional Offer for Your Business

If you're looking to create a new revenue stream for your business through an online learning product, a good starting point is by considering the aspects below and thinking about how you can provide online learning support for what you already have in your business:

Is there a common question that your customers keep asking you?
Did you recently launch a new product or service and would like to offer training on its usage?
Is there a method that you can teach your customers to encourage them to use your product more effectively?
Is there knowledge and expertise that you can share with your customers through courses that will help them achieve their goals?

Give these questions some thought, think about your current top priority for your business, and start there.

2. Attract new audiences and educate prospective customers on the efficient use of your products and services

By leveraging accreditations, certifications, and partner programs, you can venture beyond your existing product and service offerings, reaching new audiences.

What are accreditation, certification, and partner programs?

Accreditation: Many organizations provide individuals with their seal of approval or recognition upon completing specific learning activities and requirements outlined by the organization. Accreditation allows those who complete the requirements set forth by the organization to perform tasks on their behalf and gain credit for the knowledge and experience they've gained.
Certification: Organizations may also offer certificates that verify an individual has completed a learning or training program. When it comes to online learning, organizations can provide certificates of completion for those who complete their courses, allowing them to become "certified" practitioners of a specific service after completion.
Partner Programs: By partnering with other organizations that share similar customer bases, businesses can amplify their sales and marketing efforts. Through online education, your business can educate your partners on best practices and certify them as partners, enabling them to deliver services and perform tasks on your behalf. While you educate your partners, you can rest assured knowing they have completed comprehensive training, so you can focus on growing your business.

How Accreditation, Certification, and Partner Programs can Boost Your Business Revenue

By creating online courses, you'll have peace of mind knowing that your customers and partners have gained their knowledge from a credible source and can prove it.

Furthermore, by reducing the amount of time you spend training your partners, you can educate them more efficiently. By offering your partners customized content, you can ensure they know your best practices, allowing them to perform tasks on your behalf and expand your customer base.

How to Create Your Organization's Accreditation, Certification, and Partner Programs

If you're thinking about implementing accreditation, certification, and partner programs for your business, the first step is determining where to start. Consider the questions below to get a better understanding of your business's current needs and objectives:

Could your business benefit from partnering with other organizations to amplify your sales and marketing efforts?
Are you seeking to add a new revenue stream to your business by providing accreditations and certifications to individuals for completing learning requirements outlined by your organization?

Once you've taken some time to deliberate, you'll know whether you're looking to build a partner program or start offering certifications.

Pro tip: by offering accreditation, you'll attract partners and new audiences by tapping into their existing customer bases. By providing certifications, you'll generate a new revenue stream by targeting people interested in gaining the knowledge and expertise you offer, helping them reach their objectives.

3. Enhance customer retention and satisfaction with a Customer Education program

What is Customer Education?

Customer Education is the process of teaching your customers about your product or service and equipping them with the knowledge and skills required to experience success and get the most value possible from what you offer.

Companies succeed with Customer Education when they take the time to understand their customers' experiences and pain points deeply, addressing their biggest obstacles when interacting with their products and services.

How Customer Education can Enhance Your Business

When your customers know how to efficiently use your products and services, they're more likely to stick around and continue investing in your business, reducing your customer "churn" rate.

By offering helpful information and education in an engaging and efficient manner when they need it, you can significantly reduce the number of customers that leave your business because of a lack of confidence using your products and services.

Example: Later, an Instagram scheduling tool, improved customer retention by 320% after converting their customer onboarding webinar into an online course.

How to Create Your Customer Education Program

If you're consistently answering frequent questions about the use of your products and services, it might be time to consider implementing a Customer Education Program.

You can leverage various formats of content to educate your customers, such as:

FAQ pages
Knowledge bases with specialized information on using your products and services
Blog articles that dive into topics your customers are interested in and help them succeed with your product/service
On-demand videos, tutorials, screen recordings, and product demonstrations
In-person training
Case studies

It's best practice to collapse all of the educational content you have available for your customers into a single, manageable channel, making it easy and effortless for them to access the information they need whenever they need it. This is where an online course comes in.

With on-demand online courses accessible to them, your customers can access all information they need in one place, learn at their own pace, and revisit lessons whenever required. They will become more confident in using your products and services and will interact more frequently and deeply with your business over time, increasing your revenue by saving you thousands of dollars in customer churn.

Create Your First Online Course for Business Growth

For businesses that have already created demand for their products and services, it's crucial to continue developing growth strategies to ensure long-term success.

Online learning can support your business growth in various ways, depending on your goals and objectives.

To expand your business and scale its revenue through online courses, you'll first need to assess your current position and where you're headed in your business. Gain a clear understanding of your business operations, offerings, customer base, and customer journey.

To gain more direction on where you want to go, have a discussion with your team and discuss your current priorities for the business:

Are you looking to increase your customer retention?
Are you looking to attract new customers and diversify your audience?
Or are you looking to create entirely new revenue streams by reaching into new markets?

Once you have reached an agreement on your top priority as a team, you'll have a starting point for creating your first course. Now, it's time to create your course content and choose the right platform to host online courses for your business.

Choose Your Online Course Topic

You've reflected on your business's priorities and objectives, gained consensus from your team, and have decided to create an online course for your business. Congratulations! Now, it's time to select your course topic, outline your course curriculum, and create your course. Consider the questions below when selecting a course topic to keep your business objectives in mind:

What is your customer's biggest pain point right now, and how can you address it by providing education and information in your online course?
What information does your ideal customer need to know to use your product/service effectively?
How can you share your knowledge and expertise with your audience in a way that allows them to apply and verify their learnings to achieve their goals?

Tip: Avoid information overload by focusing on subtopics when you start.

For example: Instead of teaching "Marketing", consider diving deeper into a sub-topic: "Real Estate Marketing Strategies"

Once you've considered these questions and narrowed down your course topic, you can start creating your course curriculum and content.

Outline and Create Your Course Content

When outlining and creating your course content, your goal is to deliver a transformative learning experience that brings your customers and/or business partners to their desired future state. You'll want to ensure that your content is structured in a way that keeps learners engaged, motivated, and satisfied throughout the course so that they are able to complete it efficiently.

Incorporate a variety of teaching methods in your online course to personalize the learning experience, such as:

Verbal lessons
Visual materials
Interactive elements
Quizzes and surveys
Video
Live lessons
Email check-ins

Remember to create opportunities for your learners to provide feedback and ask questions by including surveys, reviews, and FAQ documentation in your courses. This will help you understand the preferences of your business partners and customers, and make improvements to your course material for the future.

Selecting an LMS

Once you've outlined and created your first online course for your business, you'll want to select the right LMS to host it. When choosing between the various learning management systems available, consider:

Customization: Building dynamic lessons and courses with multimedia content in your program will help you keep your customers and business partners engaged and motivated to continue their learning journey. Ensure that you choose a platform for your program that allows you to bring your distinctive vision to life with flexible content options such as live lessons, unlimited video, communities, assessments, and much more.
Scalability: As your business and online programs expand, so will your customer base and online education needs. Choose a platform that can scale with you and cater to your business's growing needs without limitations.
Insights and Progress Tracking: Having an understanding of how your customers are interacting with your education program will enable you to identify areas of opportunity and improvement for the future. To provide a high-quality learning experience for your customers and business partners in your program and continue to optimize your learning content for maximum value, find a platform that allows you to track your customer's learning progress and provides insights on their experience as "students".
Producing online courses can help propel your business forward by making your company more attractive to new audiences, penetrating new markets, and retaining customers.
Offering online courses can establish your brand's authority in your industry, create a loyal customer base, and attract new leads to your business.
Creating an online learning product can generate a new revenue stream for your business that scales seamlessly as you grow, helping you achieve significant business growth and revenue scalability.

Increasing Business Profits through Online Learning: The Role of Educational Courses in Business Development