Learning Management System – Importance of Owning Content

Have you been thinking about how to make money? Are you looking for new revenue streams for your business? Consider setting up a Learning Management System (LMS).

Once you choose the right LMS, you can tailor your content updates to offer personalised experiences to your students.

Keep reading to learn why you should use your own LMS and not a third-party platform.

More Control

If you want to have full control over your course content, you should use a Learning Management System right on your site. LearnDash is an excellent LMS that lets you have control over what you do with your courses.

When you use another platform, such as Teachable, you have to follow their guidelines. You may not be able to add as much content or as many courses as you like. You’d also have to follow that platform’s terms of service to keep your courses active.
Using a course platform that helps market your courses, such as Udemy can also take away some control. Since Udemy markets your courses, they take up to 75% of your course fees. And they run frequent sales, which can lower the amount you make as well.

If you’re willing to market your courses yourself, you can retain more control over everything. Then, you can make as much money as you want, and you can offer courses that your audience needs and wants.

Easier to Update

If you need to update your courses, it will be more convenient when you have them on your website. You won’t have to remember another username and password, and you won’t have to worry about changing to a different LMS if your current one won’t support your content updates.

You also won’t have to worry about a third-party provider no longer hosting your courses. Instead, you can update your course content just like you would any other webpage.

Log into your WordPress dashboard, head to your courses section and edit as necessary. And you can update your LMS plugin with the rest of your plugins on the WordPress updates page.

If you’re busy running your business, being able to edit everything in one place is super helpful. Then, you won’t have to waste time switching back and forth between platforms, and you can use your current LMS even as your business grows.

Create Custom Options

Another problem with third-party providers is that they may have limited options for your course. You may not be able to add worksheets or other materials without paying for the most expensive tier.

Some platforms may also limit the number of courses you can create or how many students you can have. That can be a problem if you want to add more content and offer a more personalised learning experience.

If you want to offer slightly different courses for different levels, you can do that with your own LMS. Then, you don’t have to worry about people not getting the information they need from your course.

Retain Traffic

Getting traffic to your website can be difficult, and it can feel even harder to convert visitors to paying customers. If you do get people to buy but you host your courses with a third-party provider, you’ll be sending customers away from your site.

Then, they may start to explore the other website, or they may simply move on from your site. But when you can keep people on your website, you can convince them to stay and read your blog or buy another course or product.

Once someone enrols in your course, they’ll also have to come back to your website, giving you even more chances to sell to them. If they have to log into a different platform, they may not think to visit your site in the future.

Your students could miss out on new courses and offers, and you could miss out on sales. Keeping your traffic on your site is essential if you want to get repeat customers and students.

Capture Leads

When you host courses with your own Learning Management System, you also have the ability to capture leads for your email list. If you ever update the course or add a new course to your site, you can contact current students.

Your students have already purchased from you, so you already have a relationship. Because of that, it will be easier to sell new courses and offers to those students.

While you can use social media and other methods to get new students, that can take time. You have to build that trust with those potential students and customers.

And if you use a third-party course platform, you may not be able to get customer email addresses. Then, you won’t have a way to tell them about new offers in the future.

Ability to Scale

Another benefit of using an LMS on your website is that you can scale and grow as you get more students. You won’t have to worry about reaching the maximum number of students like on a course platform.

Instead, you can add as many students and create as many courses as you want. Then, you can continue to scale your business and earn more revenue.

Now, you may reach the maximum amount of storage for your hosting account. However, you can easily upgrade through your WordPress hosting provider, and you don’t have to rebuild or change your website at all.

If you do need to change hosts, you can export your website and then import it to the new host to transfer everything. As your business grows, being able to scale easily can save you a lot of time and money.

More Payment Options

When you set up your own LMS, you also have more control over how students pay you. Whether you want to take payments via PayPal, Stripe or another option, you can make it happen.

You don’t have to wonder if the platform will let you use a particular payment gateway. Now, a basic LMS plugin won’t come with a ton of payment gateways, but you can add more as extensions.

Having more payment methods can help you get more people to enrol. Your students don’t have to use a specific method, so they can feel more in control when paying for your courses.

Add Features as Necessary

You can also use extensions to add more features to your LMS plugin on WordPress. Extensions give you more functionality in your courses, such as forums or membership programs.

Some extensions cost money, but some are free, so you can add more features without paying more. However, with a third-party provider, you usually need to pay more to access more than your basics features.

If you want to add more to the user learning experience without paying more, you should use extensions or add-ons. Then, you can add more features without paying tons more each year or month.

Accept More Students

Some course platforms charge a hefty fee for removing a cap on enrolments. As your course business grows, you should have space for more students to join your courses.

But if you don’t want to upgrade a course hosting plan, you can use your own LMS. A good plugin won’t limit the number of users who can sign up for your course, or the plugin will at least give you enough room to start taking students.

You may need to upgrade your hosting when you have a lot of students. But that will be one upgrade, and it may be longer before you have to pay more.

Maintain Your Branding

If you want to build your business, your branding is crucial to building a name for yourself and getting people to recognise you. From your logo to your fonts and brand colours, you want to include your brand elements in everything.

When you put your courses on a platform such as Teachable, your students will see that name in their browser when going through your course.

But if you keep them on your website, they’ll see your domain, and they’ll connect the name to your brand colours. Then, they will remember you when they need another course or something else you offer.

Reduce Your Business Bills

Using an LMS on your website can also reduce and lower your business bills. It can reduce the number of bills you have to pay because you can start with a free plugin and free extensions to start your course.

And it can lower the amount you pay because you only need to pay when you need more features. You don’t have to pay for another full hosting account just for your courses, so you could save a lot of money each year.

Then, you can use more of your profits to invest back into your business or to give yourself a raise.

Owning Your Learning Management System

When you decide to start selling online courses, you have to consider which Learning Management System (LMS) to use. You should choose a platform that offers the features you need and the price you need.

But some platforms are better than others, especially if you have full control over your content. And you can only get that if you use an LMS on your website.

Do you need help building out your online course? Contact us to get started on your project.