In today’s digital era, education is accessible and affordable through the internet. Gone are the days when you had to undergo a college degree to learn to code. Learning Management Systems (LMS) allow learners to get access to a wide variety of curated courses offered directly by experts online. While this is an excellent development for students, it is an even more significant opportunity for online educators and entrepreneurs who want to serve by providing online learning services. There are multiple learning platforms that online educators can use to teach people. But, do you have to rely on other LMS, or can you not start your entrepreneurship journey hosting your learning system? Let us help you get answers to this question by looking at the five perks of hosting your own learning platform.
1. Highly Customizable:
One of the key perks of hosting your own LMS is that you control and customize the experience that learners have on your website. On third party e-learning platforms, the structure of your course should be in line with the host site. There is a small room for customizing the experience of your customer or standing out among your competitors selling similar courses on the site. You cannot control website policies like payment methods or refund policies. However, on a self-hosted website, you make your own decisions, and you can set your own business policies. Some of the examples of customized features in a self-hosted LMS are a personalized user dashboard and full integration of your brand into the online training material. Third-party LMSs allow you to personalize your platform in a limited manner, but self-hosted platforms offer more flexibility.
2. Full access to user analytics:
As a course instructor, you must understand your customer’s behavior and needs. A simple way to understand audience metrics is by reviewing the website analytics data. Other Learning systems do not share with you a comprehensive analytics data. With your own learning system, you can know what pages your prospects or customers entered and exited. You can also check how much they read or scroll down the page and where they clicked. Through analytics, you get to know how much your learners engage in a course, or generally what they do on your website. Analytics are a must in today’s web-based businesses. Most third-party learning systems provide only basic customer analytics. With your own LMS, you can extract detailed insights using tools like Google Analytics or Inspectlet. Completing accounting courses can create new job opportunities and help to grow your career.
3. More profits:
Third-party Learning Management Systems make their profits by taking a percentage of the total sales launched on their hosting platform. You need to pay a cut on the courses that you offer regardless of the content, duration, or quality of the course. This approach puts a cap on the number of profits that you can make as an education entrepreneur. However, when you host on your own platform, you have a stake on all those profits. Even your customers are also entirely yours. On other hosted platforms, your students are not your customers but rather customers of the platform. Therefore, you cannot serve them directly or market your services to them directly, which limits your profits. Hosting your own e-learning platform gives you full access to your learners. It allows you to interact with them and generate more customized courses as per their needs. You can charge them as per your business strategies and improve your courses through continuous feedback from customers. If your goal is to make a living out of selling online courses, then a self-hosted learning platform gives you unrestricted profits. It provides full access to customers with more significant responsibilities.
4. Lower Expenses:
Most third party LMS have a pay as you go, i.e., monthly or yearly subscription fees. While this type of payment scheme may look economical initially, as you continue the subscription, the cumulative cost escalates. You end up paying a more substantial feel compared to the profits that you make. On the other hand, if you host your own learning system, you may have to pay a higher cost upfront. However, it is a one-time purchase that grants you unlimited license and access to the system. You do not have to pay continuous monthly or the exorbitant yearly subscription fee to keep the system running. Hence, in the long run, you pay less on a self-hosted platform when compared to other LMS. In a self-hosted LMS, it is easier to calculate your online training budget accurately in advance. Compared to other hosting platforms, when you host your own LMS, you can plan your maintenance fees and upgrades. It leads to an efficient allocation of resources and better ROI on online training.
5. Full IT integration and better adoption of technology:
One of the headaches of providing a full-fledged e-learning service is the number of software or tech tools that you have to use to create your content. On other hosting platforms, you need to purchase additional software tools which further adds up to the cost. Additionally, some hosting platforms may not be compatible with the software that you use. A self-hosted LMS allows you to integrate your tech tools seamlessly fully. You have total IT control over the Learning Management System. For example, you can use your choice of WordPress LMS plugin to create and edit your e-learning videos for your own WordPress based LMS. Another aspect of e-learning platforms is data security. Most third party LMS providers offer rudimentary data security. However, a self-hosted LMS allows you to put customized security measures like limiting user access to specific sections of the platform or prevent hacking through advanced encryption. You can also choose your own data storage and data management system. You can select how much data to store and where to save it, i.e., using cloud-based CAPs and remote servers.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, if you are creative and have the enthusiasm to add value to your students, then you can create online courses hosting your own platform to develop a highly profitable venture. With other LMS, you can make some money, but you cannot do business as you will always be a part of someone else’s business. The above benefits will help you start your own learning system and develop yourself as a brand.
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