How to turn a webinar into an online course

You ran a webinar. People came, stayed to the end, asked plenty of questions, and a few of them emailed you afterwards asking whether you had more on the subject. That's the moment a lot of teachers and consultants realise they already have a course. The material exists, the audience has shown interest, and what's left is putting it in order.

This guide walks through getting from one webinar, or a few, to an online course you can sell. You don't have to start from scratch. You also can't just upload the recording and call it a course.

A webinar and a course do different jobs

A good webinar answers one question and ends with a next step. It sparks interest, gives a few useful insights and shows the viewer you know your subject. A course has to take a student from one point to another. By the end, they should be able to do something they couldn't do before.

So the webinar recording is excellent raw material, but it usually isn't the course itself. It has an introduction for people who don't know you, other people's questions, moments of "hang on, let me share my screen", and an invitation to buy. Inside a course, all of that gets in the way.

Step 1: check there's demand

Before building anything, it helps to know someone wants it. Your webinar already gave you that information for free. Look at:

• How many people registered, and how many actually came.
• How long they stayed. If most viewers stayed to the end, the topic holds attention.
• What they asked. "How exactly do I do that?" questions are a good sign. They mean the audience wants more depth than you had time for.
• Who got in touch after the broadcast.

If you're still unsure, ask. A poll at the end of your next webinar ("Would you want a full course on this?") gets you a quick answer. Add a second question about what they most want to learn and you have part of your syllabus too.

Step 2: write down what the student will be able to do

Before you touch the recording, write one sentence: "By the end of this course, the student will be able to..." That sentence decides what goes in and what stays out. Every lesson should move the student towards it. A lesson that doesn't, however interesting, can become a bonus or a separate webinar.

Then list the steps. What does the student need to know first, and what comes after? You'll usually end up with somewhere between five and ten steps, and each one becomes a lesson or a short chapter. Our guide on how to structure an online course goes deeper into this part.

Step 3: take the recording apart

Now go back to the webinar recording with your list of steps beside you. Watch it and note which step each section belongs to. Sections that fit cleanly can become lessons almost as they are, with a little trimming.

Things to cut along the way:

• The "who I am and what we'll cover" opening. In a course you do that once, in the first lesson.
• Technical hiccups and waiting around.
• The pitch at the end. Anyone in the course has already bought it.
• Viewer questions, unless one clears up an important point. Those are worth keeping, because they remind students that others get stuck in the same places.

Short lessons beat long ones. Sitting down for ten minutes is much easier than committing to an hour, and finishing a lesson gives the student a sense of progress.

Step 4: fill the gaps

You'll almost always find some steps missing. On the webinar you skipped them because there wasn't time, or because they seemed obvious to you. In a course you can't skip them.

There are two ways to fill them. You can record short lessons on your own, to camera or with screen sharing. Or you can run another webinar, this time on the missing piece, and use that recording too. The second route also brings you a new audience, new questions and more material.

Beyond video, it's worth adding:

• Downloads: a summary, a template, a checklist. Things the student uses after the video is closed.
• A short quiz at the end of each chapter, so the student knows they've understood it.
• One exercise per lesson, even a small one. People remember what they did far better than what they heard.

Step 5: set a price and a release pattern

Pricing deserves its own article, and we wrote one: how to price an online course. The short version is to price on what the student gets out of it rather than on the number of hours of video.

You also need to decide how lessons open up. You can release everything at once, open each lesson after the previous one is finished, or open a new lesson every few days. A gradual release helps students keep a steady pace and stops them feeling buried under material on day one.

Step 6: sell it through a webinar

This is where things come full circle. The webinar the course grew out of is also the natural way to sell it. A free webinar on the topic gives people a taste, shows how you teach, and at the end you offer the course to anyone who wants to go all the way.

• Give real value on the webinar. A viewer who learned something useful trusts you more.
• Say plainly what's in the course and who it's for. And who it isn't for.
• Let people buy while they're still watching, when interest is highest.
• Send the recording to everyone who registered but didn't come, with a link to the course.

We've written about a webinar structure that sells, and about how to sell an online course once it's ready.

A common trap: waiting until it's perfect

It's easy to keep putting the course off because one more lesson is missing or the recording quality isn't quite right. In practice, students forgive a simple recording if the content helps them. Opening a first version to a small group, hearing what's missing and improving it tends to work better than planning for months. Feedback from your first students is worth more than any amount of guessing beforehand.

Try it without committing

On Kolcast, webinars and courses live in the same account, under the same brand. A webinar recording becomes a course lecture in one click, and during a live webinar you can put a "Buy the course" button on screen. Students pay on your own payment page, with no fee taken on sales. You can start with one free course of three lectures; more on the courses page and the plans and prices.