How to Start Your Own Online School from Scratch in 10 Steps

Are you looking for a correct way of starting an online school? Yes, it's true that this generation doesn't need any manufacturing raw materials to build a school; you need a computer, where you can create your own school with the help of a different Learning Management System.

That previous traditional style of schooling era is obsolete now. It's the era of digitalization, where everyone and everything is available online anytime. This young era sometimes called an online addicting generation because young youth are more into the internet and different online social media.

Simultaneously, this new thing of online schooling has been undergoing a massive boost up into a developed spurt. Compared to the past few years, the number of students engaging in online learning is 24%  and soon tends to increase. 

The Perfect Time to Start Your Own Online School 

If I illustrate more on this matter, I have to mention the recent pandemic COVID-19. About 1.2 billion students face the consequence of school closure, and everyone is choosing the online education platform as a blessing to continue their studies. Hence the system we used to apply for our process learning is now history. Now the future of education is over online. And this is the new gift to our present.

Photo Courtesy: Kung Fu Panda Quote 

It was never a matter of astonishing that an online learning management system will soon take over the whole education process. Many enthusiastic learners practice education both online and offline to polish up their academic and intellectual knowledge and upgrade themselves. 

Over the past few years, an e-learning business has shown the enormous success of $255 billion and continues to climb in the mature stage of the product life cycle. People are now more focusing and growing trust in online teaching platforms. 

Online Learning The Futures of Education 

The future of online schooling is new and the trendiest business. Some now utilize this online schooling to learn new skills, and some are using online schooling to pursue their passion. 

Today’s generation of youth always chooses the shortcut and independent way for education. Independence in learning gives them the freedom to learn at their own pace, from anywhere, anytime, and by anyone.  

Establishing an online school for students requires general knowledge of tech-related information, software design, and development. This article specially dedicated to those who have ZERO knowledge about this whole online school cycle can help you create a new opportunity to earn money. Besides, let you know about the competitor analysis to reach the correct target audience. 

Thus, if you think you have the potential skills for teaching, knowledge to share, and wisdom to connect with the students. In this article, I will explain the 10 steps to start your own online school.

10 Essential Steps You Need Follow to Start Your Own Online School 

We all heard and believe that; we don’t have any fixed age for learning. Straight from school students to professionals, everyone needs to learn to fulfill the hunger and curiosity for knowledge. Online schooling favors the most, who feel shy to join a physical class because society might judge them for their different backgrounds or countries. Remember, if your desire for education is vital, no one can stop you from achieving it. 

Thinking of building a successful online school, then you required to follow these steps:  

Step 1: Select a Learning Management System Platform 

Selecting a platform is the first step for building a learning management system. A platform is considered to be the main body of the website. A platform or management software is a must-needed resource for you because it helps to organize the entire online school effectively. Therefore the interface of the whole website should be dynamic as well as user-friendly. Always keep in mind; that this is the place that will enhance and host your whole online school to everyone. 

Therefore, selecting a smart elearning management software is necessary; here is a blog that not only suggests you but also helps you choose the perfect learning management software. 

After selecting the online learning platform, you need to place a unique template or personalize them as it fits your website interface. With the assistance of some functionalize tools, you can set the logo, theme color changing, font, featured image, and tagline setting. 

Complementing The Appearance of Your Online School

To maximize your website facilities, you can also apply many different tactics to enhance customer accessibility. You can add the “About Us” section, where you can share the story of your establishment. Can add a “Subscription page,” through which you can quickly gather leads and user's information, etc. Besides, it can add a “Testimonial Page,” where students can share their experience and review the courses and website accessibility.  

Step 2: Set the Outline For Your Online School 

Since you’re buying an online learning platform. This blog provides you a complete solution to your questions of “What is an online learning platform?”, “ How to handle it?” “Why do you need it?”. Thus apart from knowing and organizing the online learning platform, there is another important job: Setting the outline for an online school. 

After you buy a learning management platform, you have to fill up with the virtual courses either of your own or other instructors’ courses. Setting the online course will add some extra flexibility to the learners’ usability. 

You can divide the module into different folders and subfolders and name each folder with a different topic. While planning, think like a learner and try to determine the flow of the learners’ content choosing strategies. You can also organize the courses to contain both the primary and advanced level course. So that learners get all the courses in an organized manner and also all in one solution way.  

Online School Fulfill the Training Goal 

Organize the course chronologically and with a separate folder, each defined topic, and sector. So that learner here, not only gets benefited by academic purposes but also by training and professional knowledge.

On the backend of the software, you can set the module by naming them with different intents. 

And each intent will carry that particular side of the learning sectors. Such as 

Step 3: Prepare and Plan the Learning Method 

Apart from setting the course outline, you also have to prepare and plan the learning method. The learning method is very much important because if the instructors fail to explain the contents to the learners, ultimately the whole learning software fails. 

Therefore, if you're a platform owner, then you have to make sure that the contents you are allowing in your online learning school are well organized and good explaining capabilities. Have a transparent approach by the instructors, provide the necessary examples for better understanding, and show the learners' helpful nature. 

In addition, you also have to make sure that the instructors are giving the relevant chained video contents, pdf documents, or blog posts. Don't make mistakes in understanding the bulk quantity into good quality. All the content should be clean and precise and choose only those which have a relevant alignment with the learning objectives. 

The course Should Hold a Problem Solving Formula.

The course should have clear objectives of fulfilling the intellectual gap of the learners. And based on the subject category, there are several pedagogical techniques:

Besides video content, pdf documents, and blog posts, your learning management platform should contain an ebook, audio tutorial, and gamification tactics, such as test, quiz, certification, etc. Furthermore, it would be best to have a separate module to support the discussion forum, live quiz, infographic content, etc.

Step 4: Bundle of Marketing Tools

Marketing is the central pillar of every business. Marketing helps to push the whole business towards your potential customer. Like any other business, an online schooling business also needs to maintain the consistency of your online education's growth and success. 

If you think that your learning management software website is dynamic and carries many advanced and helpful courses, and is enough to reach your customers overnight. Then I think you are wrong, and it isn't enough; you also need to make some extra effort to be aware of the potential customer. Exposing that you are offering this kind of online courses and advertising some of the Features and Benefits of Learning Management Software.

Furthermore, there are bundles of marketing tools, which you can use to promote your virtual schooling business. You can also utilize social media for promotion since social media is considered to be the most powerful marketing technique and the speediest way to enhance growth. 

Promotional Tactics

• In addition, you can also use tricky marketing strategies such as; promote your platform by using short clips or teaser type videos of the course over social media platforms.
• You can use email, SEO, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin marketing, etc.

• You can also sponsor many education-related programs over TV, Radio, Podcast media, or different social media Live sessions to gain popularity and reach your target customer. 

Step 5: Identify The Lead

After you establish your LMS platform, now it's time to search for your potential customers and build a fruitful connection with them. By applying pull marketing strategies, you can collect leads, whoever signed up for your classes. In addition, you can keep track of and nurture them. The main important thing you need to keep in mind before accepting anyone signed up request is to clearly optimize the users' persona and social journey. 

Only through research, can measure the authenticity of the users' character, behavior, age, and location, etc. Track the users' social media, "How active are they?" or "What kind of lifestyle they are leading?" or "Are dedicated towards education/extracurricular activities?".

Now, let's talk about those audiences who aren't aware of any learning management system and still following the traditional schooling business style. For them, you have to do proper advertising by applying different marketing tactics. Mentioned Above.

Step 6: Competitors

When starting a business, competitor analysis is as necessary as market analysis. Emphasis on the market size and the competitors' understanding of the strategies they follow must be a core of your research list. A Lot of people are now utilizing this trendy online learning business. 

Photo courtesy: Sun Tzu comment on his enemies 

You don't need any certified academic degree to run or start Learning management software. Therefore required to analyze those competitors who are in this niche and build a learning management software. You can explore, "Which courses they are offering?", "Who are faculties?", "How flexible their open-end interface is?, "What promotional strategies do they follow?" 

The indirect competitor tools; use to run their virtual learning business:

1. Google Meet 
2. Zoom 
3. Youtube 
4. Facebook Live 
5. Google classroom 

These direct competitors are those; Have learning management system software, who sell and post the other instructors course:

1. EduTask
2. eClass
3. Proacademy 
4. Minorah Directory
5. Teachify-LMS

Step 7: Measure Engagement Through KPIs Metrics

After you purchase an online schooling software, tracking the performance and progress with useful KPIs metrics is vital to maintain the business. Here is a list of those metrics, which you need to measure for your online schooling business:

• Track the student’s progress
• No of course per student completed 
• Total no, of course, sold 
• Which is more effective, on-the-job training or off-the-job training? 
• No of students joined monthly and yearly
• No of the teacher uploaded their courses
• No of an hour, the students engage with the courses
• The bounce rate of the teacher and students 
• Which course sold the most?
• The commission box 
• Review/star measurement 

Apart from the above-mentioned KPIs, there is another way to measure your online school flow.

1. Buy an online schooling platform.
2. Select and “set a group” of learner and teacher 
3. And tell them to figure out all the problems, such as the training process, the setting for the system, and the lack of online school software.
4. Take their feedback and so as their user experience of your online schooling. 
5. Through utilizing those feedback, you can easily solve the glitch. 

Step 8: Create a Separate Module for Live Online Class

Doing live sessions is the new trend now. People now enjoy live sessions more than watching television or recorded videos. Since this generation is more into the desire for “instant solution for every problem.” 

You might think that live sessions can only happen on SOCIAL MEDIAS for Online Clothing Stores etc. But because of technological advancement, the educational sector has adopted the live session part too. Live lecture or live class, education from home is now the latest trend. But I have to firmly admit that this online schooling sector got a massive push over because of the recent pandemic when the entire world faced a complete lockdown. 

As a result, all of the education institutions got closed, and as an alternative temporary solution, everyone shifted to the virtual platform. The E-Learning platform. 

Revolution Of Online School Start 

The revolution of online schooling shows the world; how this virtual school brings all the learners or students distributed in different states can come together under one online roof just by one click. 

Not only that, but it also shows online education can be interactive, flexible, hugely time-saving, and reduces travel time. This virtual schooling has now proven to be the one-stop solution for education and an effective way for the teacher training process. According to a source, it shows that $72.41 billion in the 2020-2024 period, therefore, will have exponential growth in the future.  

Step 9: Real-Time Automated Notification System 

Notification systems are good practices for every business as we live in a digitalized generation, where everyone likes to stay updated within realtime. Notification conveys "Informing" that the users will be informed through an automated notification system whenever anything comes up. It also indicates that the notification system helps to engage the targeted user with your system. 

A constant reminder maintains the sustainable connection between the sender and receiver. This notification is the part through which half of the communication process happens between the sender and user. With this automated notification system's help, learners will get to know more about the courses, discounts, quiz tests, live sessions, subscription offers, and many more.  

There are several kinds of notification criteria: 

• Enrolling email notification
• Post-registration email notification 
• Post subscription email notification 
• After-sale support notification 
• Notification for learners'
• Live session notification 

 Remember# You need to use different, innovative, and smart techniques to send these notifications to users. The notification system itself is an interruption process in the user's regular life. If anyhow you are sending excess NOTIFICATION, users might get too irritated with the "NOISE" and may "TURN OFF" the notification system.   

Step 10: Effective Payment Gateway

The transaction procedure works as a third-party application yet, an essential module for any management system software. Since this online teaching system is completely held online, the whole payment process is also performed online. 

This online payment gateway will assist and make it more accessible for every user, whoever wants to buy or sell the course. This virtual online payment procedure will take care of all the transactions securely between the sender and receiver. The online teaching platform manager should also keep a separate module for refund options, such as the multiple payment gateways, or keep the option for add-on for a new type of payment gateway. 

Remember to maintain an easy, simple yet secure payment gateway so that users get the best user experience with their online teaching management system. 

89% of American instructors believe that this new digital style for education is proven to be Cost-effective and time-saving 

Yes, this new education style has proven to be more cost-effective and a time-saving process for every instructor. Never had any instructors realized or imagined before that this online schooling could be cost-effective and time-saving for education. One of the essential sources mentioned that the corporate e-learning process had been 40% to 60% less time wastage than traditional learning.

By utilizing this new education style, instructors can save the rental cost, electricity bills, and other miscellaneous expenses involved with a traditional education style. 

Now any instructor can be more time-efficient, punctual, and can take multiple sessions. In addition, they attend more sessions than they used to do for a traditional class. Therefore this new digital style for education has shown exponential growth over the past few months.  

Almost 75% have proven that the Online Schooling platform is the bridge between educator and student. 

Since the recent pandemic introduced to everyone, online schooling has proven to be the "new normal." A virtual solution for everything. Thus, this online platform has also taken over the education business and transformed into an online schooling platform. 

After establishing the online school, both learners and students faced a huge constraint with the communication process. Later, online schooling proved to be the best and the easiest and flexible effective way of communication. 

Here, no one knows anyone, so there's no point left for Judging because of appearance or no pain of hesitation to talk with anyone. Here the main focus is only on communion; therefore, online schooling builds the perfect and best communication bridge between students and educators. New education style becomes a new trend, which every student is loving and even preferring than you ever imagine. 

Therefore, I think this is the perfect moment for YOU to collaborate with Learning Management System

My Final Thought 

I know what you are thinking, whether you should start an online schooling business right away or not?. To eliminate any further confusion, I think this will be perfect for you, especially since THE TIMING is perfect to start your online school platform. 

Let me tell you how it is the appropriate time; every one of us is very familiar with this recent pandemic that hit the world. And just after the pandemic appears, everyone was instructed by the World Health Organization(WHO) to lock themselves up in their own house. Hence not only the whole economy but also the whole education system suffered a huge FULLSTOP and, no one was able to understand what should be a temporary solution. 

That was when virtual online schooling started and is now proven the best way for education. Therefore getting yourself with Learning Management Software will be the best decision ever for you right away !. 

Would you like to read more: Top 15 eLearning Software and Online Tutoring Software