A paywalled website is still a business.  Every successful business has the same three requirements:

1. An easy-to-access market who can afford – and are prepared – to pay.
2. A product or service that this audience wants.
3. The ability to create and deliver that product or service [affordably].

Micro-learning: Is there a market?

If you want people to pay for content, you need to offer something of at least equal, preferably more, value.

For most people, their biggest income generator is steady employment.  If you can offer a service that improves their chances of winning a job (or a paid project), most people will consider that a good investment. Job-seekers are relatively easy to find on LinkedIn.

Micro-learning: Is there a product or service they want?

Many LinkedIn posts describe the frustration of real job hunters:

1. Fierce competition amongst candidates.
2. Employers want unicorns, employees who are multi-skilled.
3. Automated screening processes that must be fed with keywords. No humans.
4. Lack of feedback – you don’t know what you are doing wrong!
5. Disillusionment and fear.

Can these needs and frustrations be translated into a service?

LinkedIn Learning has tried to corner the market, but their “hands-off” business model has flaws. To attract participants, you need to improve on them.

Let’s look at the 5 frustrations, and how your micro-learning experience could solve them:

1. YES: the right skills – soft and hard skills – makes a candidate more desirable.
2. YES: someone who has a few top skills, can add some minor skills that not only improve their chances, it might open new job opportunities.
3. YES: IF your micro-learning course can include a community. If you have contacts in an  industry, YOUR course could be better than automated, LInkedIn Learning videos. Even if you can’t compete on your professional course material, perhaps you CAN be the right person if you can create referrals.
4. YES: IF your micro-learning course offers something like peer review, and you (as the moderator or mentor) have the business skills, you can help people be better prepared for a pitch, a presentation or an interview.
5. YES: During the pandemic I joined GLDC. The Global Learning and Development Community. I met people from all over the world. I “pitched” myself. I heard their stories, I told MY story. I learned more about networking at GLDC than I had in 20 years of networking. Because we were fun, and inclusive and SUPPORTIVE.

Micro-learning: Can you deliver this service?

If you read the 5 points above you have realized there is a lot more to a course than the courseware itself.

Was your idea to create a bunch of videos, put them online and head to Bali while the money flows in? Sorry, that ship has sailed. Pages with embedded YouTube videos DID work in 2020 when people were bored and scared, but we’ve moved on.

That’s the big question: can YOU mentor a supportive community that helps participants achieve all five requirements above?

• Do you have experience in education to deliver a service that will sell. Not just as a content creator, but as a mentor and teacher? Do you have the empathy and passion to guide others to grow and succeed?
• Who can you connect your participants with. How can you introduce them to people with work, jobs, and hands-on experience? If you are an “influencer” on LinkedIn, you might be the right person to run a micro-learning business.

Your community might do better with several leaders. The more people who commit to it, the greater its chance of success. More people means bigger networks. It also reduces the workload per person over time.

Tools for Delivery – managing the technology

Well-known “platforms” like Thinkific, Teachable, Udemy and even LinkedIn Learning make life easy for course creation and payment, but they have negatives.

It’s like renting a shop in a mall – yes there are passersby, but you are up against a LOT of competitors for a potential learner’s attention. Their setup is fast and affordable, but they deduct commission on each participant. If you ARE going this route, try Thinkific first.

Publishing your learning material on WordPress

Of the plugins I tested*, I prefer LifterLMS. The layout isn’t sophisticated, but the free version gives enough functionality to start publishing learning content. My three key takeaways are:

• It’s flexible about content format. Other plugins assume your primary content is YouTube videos.
• If you have a plugin like “Otter” to add exciting blocks, you can create dynamic content without paying for the Pro version.
• You can expand your website beyond micro-learning content.

Once you have some paying learners, LifterLMS can automate tasks with the Pro version.

What I learned about LifterLMS

I only tested LifterLMS for a few days, but this is what I found.

1. User-Friendly Course Creation:
   • The course builder is intuitive, with drag-and-drop functionality.
   • I’ve studied learning theory – this has some surprising features that will help to improve course quality.
   • With only the free LifterLMS plugin, you can create courses and memberships that include engagement (i.e. achievement badges, certificates, automated emails and quizzes)
   • With Pro, you can add advanced quizzes and assignments. People hate tests, but they are the only way to beat Imposter Syndrome and build confidence.
2. Membership and Course Bundling:
   • You can offer memberships and bundle multiple courses together. You can have a subscription-based model, and offer content that is NOT part of a course!
3. Drip Content and Prerequisites:
   • LifterLMS has “Drip content” functionality.  You can release course content gradually over time, which enhances learner engagement. They keep coming back for more.
   • You can set prerequisites, so you can sell beginner courses together with complex advanced topics.
4. Flexible Payment Options:
   • With the free LifterLMS plugin, you can sell courses manually (but not accept credit card or PayPal payments). You can offer one-time purchases, subscriptions, payment plans, and even free courses to attract learners. See below for examples of pricing options.
   • The Pro version offers additional payment methods.
   • There are ways to add payment gateways outside LifterLMS, although that means less automation. But be honest, if you have dozens of students registering each day, you can AFFORD the Pro version.
5. Engagement:
   • Motivate learners to complete courses and engage with achievement badges, certificates, and progress tracking.
6. Integrated Membership Sites:
   • LifterLMS simultaneously creates a basic membership site, so you can offer forums and community features to members.
7. Detailed Reporting and Analytics:
   • You see insights into course performance, learner progress, and engagement. Use these to optimize your courses and improve the learning experience.
8. Customization and Branding via WordPress:
   • Because it’s WordPress you can add LifterLMS to an existing website. You can customize course layouts and branding elements (to an extent, depending on your theme).
9. Support:
   • LifterLMS has good documentation and friendly support. I was struggling with a setup parameter, and they responded by email in 24 hours – and I was only using the free version.
10. Pricing Models: Scalability and Growth:
    1. One-time payment pricing is a good place to start, especially if you’re not adding additional content as time goes on.
    2. Flat Recurring Payments (monthly or yearly).
    3. Payment plans are often used alongside single payments. Offer 3 installment as a higher rate instead of a once-off large amount.
    4. Free with membership pricing allows members to access courses (in that tier) and/or other non-LMS content.
    5. One dollar trials are designed to give initial access to a course before a more expensive recurring payment begins.
    6. Free trials are the same as the $1 trial except the trial period is completely free.
    7. Sale pricing allows a temporary reduction in price.

*My opinion of the other tools and plugins I tested

LearnPress

• While the free version offers many features, you need premium add-ons to access advanced capabilities like reporting and certificates.
• I found it too limited around what you can put in a course – “in-the-box” traditional thinking.
• The free version isn’t scalable, especially around accepting payments (just PayPal and Offline payments). Woocommerce is a truly massive – and rather dated – plugin. Integrating with it can cause both theme issues and plugin conflicts.
• It doesn’t offer membership/subscription. To me, the “community” aspect of learning adds real value, and encourages people to pay for a course. They don’t just want to learn, they want a feeling of belonging. Only the Premium version adds this. It’s possible to add this capability with a second large plugin but joining 2 large and complex plugins is fraught with risk!
• No assignments. A quiz is considered the very lowest level of assessment – it test that you can recognize the right answer. A non-randomised quiz is about as weak as assessment gets. But then it’s easy to do assignments offline.

NamasteLMS

NamasteLMS has potential as a full-scale LMS, especially if you want to run “classes” more than a course. It is complex, because it expects a teacher to be managing and tracking progress, giving marks, and working directly with students. I feel it is too small, and that it will struggle to grow with so many  competitors in the eLearning sector.  Big corporations are retrenching, I feel it’s a risk.

TutorLMS

I’m still assessing this eLearning plugin. In the free version, it appears one is limited to PayPal. That means integrating with other plugins, and TutorLMS has a reputation for not playing well with others. However, if you are happy with an annually-paid fee, this offers more than most. Their site has countless spelling mistakes, which bugs me.

MasterStudy

The user experience for viewing, accessing and navigating courses is very professional, but everything costs extra – even adding a file download. It doesn’t use the WordPress interface, so you are limited to what they permit. This is clearly a commercial plugin, and I never like being locked in.