How to Build a Course

Creating a course within the CRM is a critical step in delivering well-organized and engaging content to your audience. By following the outlined steps, you can effectively design, tailor, and manage your courses, ensuring they align with your students' needs and the goals of your curriculum.

Getting Started

Begin by navigating to the "Memberships" area on your dashboard. Within this section, you'll find the "Products" tab, where you can either explore existing courses or initiate the creation of a new one. Selecting the "Create Product" option gives you the flexibility to choose between using a pre-existing template or building a course entirely from scratch.

For this guide, we will focus on the custom creation approach.

Course Creation and Customization

The initial step in developing your course is to give your product a name. This name should clearly reflect the course's content and objectives, as it will be visible to your students.

Once you've named your course, proceed to the customization phase, starting with the "Details" section. Here, you can edit important information such as the course title, description, thumbnail, and instructor details. Additionally, you have the option to add custom code and make other key adjustments to the course structure.

The recommended image dimensions are as follows:

• Product Thumbnail: 1280x720

• Instructor Headshot: 300x300

• Logo: 640x64

• Favicon: 32x32

In the "Customize" section, you can further personalize your course page by selecting colors, background images, and adjusting various sections and lessons to align with your branding. You can also save these themes for use in future courses.

The "Offers" tab allows you to manage offers related to the course, such as setting titles, prices, and customizing checkout options.

Once you've linked an offer to the course through the Membership > Offers section, you will have the ability to view and modify the checkout page.

The Checkout page consists of:

• Offer Details: You can edit the offer banner, video, poster image, Logo image, and checkout copy.

• Extra Contact Info: You can enable the Collect Address and phone number.

• Service Agreement: Enable or disable the Service Agreement as a requirement. You can also customize your agreement text.

The "Comments" area is where you can monitor and respond to student interactions in your lessons and assessments.

The "Certificates" section lets you manage certificates for course completions.

Managing and Organizing Your Course

With your course structure established, it's time to build the content. Start by organizing your course into categories or modules, which can include lessons, subcategories, and assessments. Adding lessons is central to content creation, allowing you to incorporate text, images, and files. Ensure that each lesson is properly titled, categorized, and set to "Published" so that it is accessible to students.

The drag-and-drop functionality simplifies the process of arranging modules and lessons, making it easy to manage extensive content. Simply click on the three horizontal lines next to the content you wish to move, then drag and drop it into the desired position.

To assess student understanding, incorporate quizzes or assignments into your product. Ensure that each assessment is titled appropriately to maintain organization within your course.

Actions Menu

The Actions menu provides several options for managing your lessons, subcategories, and assessments:

• Draft Mode: Keep your course in Draft Mode to make edits before it goes live.

• Published: Once your course is ready, switch to Published mode to make it available to students.

• Locked: For courses with multiple categories, use the Locked mode to require students to complete one category before accessing the next.

• Drip Mode: Control when each category becomes accessible to students by setting a delay after purchase.

• Collapse/Expand: Adjust the display of each category by clicking the up-down arrow next to the visibility mode menu.

• Preview: Click the Preview button in the upper right corner of the Outline page to view your content.

• More Actions: To clone, share, or delete your product, click the three-dot menu next to the Preview button.

Managing Your Course Offerings

After your course is set up, you can manage all your course offerings from the "Your Products" page. Here, you can preview, edit, clone, and share courses by hovering over the course and using the three-dot action dropdown. This centralized hub simplifies course management and keeps your offerings organized.

Troubleshooting Tips

To ensure a smooth course creation process, keep these tips in mind:

• Preview Your Course: Regularly preview your course to ensure everything looks and functions as intended.

• Check Visibility Settings: If a lesson isn't appearing as expected, double-check that it's set to "Published."