How To Develop An Online IT Training Course For Customers

The 21st century workplace has become one of rapid technical change. To adapt to this, companies now engage in non-stop training for their IT departments. This has led to a rise in companies producing online IT training, to meet the demand.  Any tech entrepreneur entering this field will find stiff competition and high standards. In this market, quality is important to personal development and organizational development as a whole. Here are best practices to consider when you’re developing an online IT training course.

Know What To Teach

The success or failure of any eLearning venture is hinged on teaching the right information. Before you even start to write out a plan, do a lot of research. Look at the sort of companies that might buy your course. What are there most common IT problems? What sort of equipment do they use regularly? What sort of solutions do they already know how to try? Moreover, what IT solutions are they likely to need training for as they buy new equipment, and upgrade the old? Your course should be tailored to provide them with the information they desperately need.

A Visual Is Worth A Thousand Words

Despite the cliché, people do process complex information better when provided with visuals. IT support is no exception to this rule. A good way to improve the quality of your material is to include clever visual marketing graphics. For example, when covering the how to debug a program, include step-by step photos of what you’re doing on the computer. Beyond the coursework, these graphics would be a good reference tool for you students. If they get stuck, while doing something you taught, they can look back to the photos to help. High quality and well thought out graphics will not only aide in education, they’ll make your course look more professional.

Teach In Simple Sized Units

It’s important to factor in student patience in IT eLearning. Since IT staffers are constantly being trained for new problems, lesson should be short and sweet. Focus on developing lessons no longer than 15 minutes. That should be enough time to cover one or two clear objectives. This will ensure you don’t lose the student’s attention. Moreover, a 15-minute lesson is easy to schedule. Your student is also a full-time IT staffer. Giving them flexibility with short lessons will help your course stand out from the rest.

Offer Plenty Of Support

How you support your students is just as important as what you teach them. Students need to be able to address issues with you directly. It can also be useful for students to talk with each other. A good IT eLearning course should support online discussions and groups among the students. This way they can learn and help each other. You should also provide an online tool kit of resources, to encourage students to learn more and augment what you taught them. This sort of online support is essential to bridge the gap between the online classroom and the workplace.

The Sales Funnel

How you get paid is just as important as how you teach. However, you didn’t enter this industry to be a salesperson. You’re here to teach. The best way to get sales work out of the way is to build a sales funnel. This is a process that allows the client to research your course, and buy it using secure payment, without dealing with a salesperson. In this process, the funnel locates potential buyers, then directs them to a sample class that sells them on the course. The benefits of this sort of system is it takes almost no staff to oversee it, keeping your costs down. Low staff costs also means it’s easy to scale it up marketing as your company grows. With a sales funnel, the process does the selling for you.

The market for online IT training can be daunting. It might seem too broad and too competitive. However, for the crafty entrepreneur, there’s plenty of room for a new course. Following the above practices will guarantee your course will be what people want. It will teach the right things the right way.

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