The Benefits Of Building An Online Course For Your Health & Wellness Business

As a health practitioner, you have a vast wealth of medical knowledge and expertise that can help people lead healthier, happier lives. Unfortunately, the traditional 1:1 model of medical care is limited, both in terms of the number of people you can help and the amount of income you can generate. Factor in that many chronic health challenges may benefit from diet and lifestyle changes that can be difficult to implement without guidance and encouragement; it makes total sense that many practitioners are adding online programs to their core offerings.  

Creating online programs is a strategic way to leverage your medical knowledge to help more people in less time while providing the community support that may help improve outcomes. Since group programs also protect you from burnout by adding scalable profits, it is a strategic move to bring work-life balance back to the lives of highly deserving health professionals worldwide. 

Since your expertise lies in the medical realm and not online health business strategy and marketing, let's empower you with a primer on how to efficiently add more revenue to your health business without overwhelming tech challenges or adding expensive team members. 

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Run The Numbers

Since the business model of most health practitioners involves trading time for money, it is wise to start by exploring the financial possibilities that open up when you add scalable online programs. Without this crucial step, it is challenging to fathom the drastic differences between offering exclusively one-on-one care and adding one-to-many programs. 

Most practitioners do not realize that each online program you create can provide two additional revenue streams. The first income stream comes from offering the online program live at a higher price point with access to you. The second comes from providing the recordings as a more affordable self-study version that requires almost none of your time. The Million Dollar Practitioner Calculator is free and can help you see the financial possibilities, including the potential increase in testing and supplement sales that can come with offering group programs. 

How to Identify Your Ideal Client 

You likely have patients you truly enjoy working with and those that, to put it politely, are more challenging. When transitioning from serving in a 1:1 setting to helping large groups of people through a specific challenge, it is extremely important to pick a target market that you will be happy to serve long term. The creation and marketing of your program will set you up as a leader in that niche, so you'll want to be certain that attracting so many of that particular type of client will be rewarding.

Attracting the community you enjoy serving requires creating a clear picture of who you want to help. Do a thorough assessment of not only their symptoms but also the many downstream consequences arising from their health challenges. Understanding and openly acknowledging the emotional, financial, and psychological impacts of a health challenge helps you become the obvious choice for your ideal clients. For help with this, you can use a tool like the Avatar Accelerator, a video, and a workbook that prompts you to identify and effectively attract more of the type of people you'll enjoy helping. 

How to Choose Protocols That Translate Well Into Your Online Programs 

Once you've identified your target market, the next step is developing a program structure. This involves breaking down your medical knowledge into modules or lessons that can be delivered in a membership portal that houses your video and written content, along with any additional resources, including access to testing, supplements, and other products that may support program participants in reaching their health objectives. 

It is essential to keep in mind that online programs are generally classified by the Federal Trade Commission (which, among many other responsibilities, governs online transactions) as education and entertainment. Obviously, no online program should profess to be medical care. This is why it is crucial to select a specific topic or challenge that you can educate people about to such a degree that they are empowered to make health-elevating changes based on knowledge and support in implementing what they learn. 

Transitioning From Patients to Participants 

The difference between what you can do for patients and for program participants can be very challenging for practitioners to wrap their heads around, so let’s go deeper on this point.

It goes without saying that you can do whatever you are licensed to do for patients in whichever territories you are licensed to practice. On the other hand, program participants are students of what you choose to provide in your online programs, which can be much more than you might suspect at first blush. 

Consider all the high-level medical-focused classes from prestigious universities currently available to the public and the increasing volume of direct-to-consumer testing. This gives you a sense of how you can empower people to make informed decisions about their health by sharing your valuable knowledge, expertise, and experience. 

One of the most common questions about offering online programs is how to provide a quality educational experience when one-on-one care must be so highly customized for each patient. Since programs focus on knowledge sharing, the emphasis is on diet and lifestyle changes and clarity around how to advocate for the medical care participants may need to seek from their local providers. 

The questions we ask that illuminate what's possible for the practitioners we work with are the same questions you can answer now to see if you have knowledge that could provide significant value when presented as an online program.

• What initial testing do you choose for patients with this specific challenge? Is it available directly to the consumer? If not, can you tell them how to advocate to get it from their Primary Care Provider?
• While you are waiting for those test results to come back, what protocols do you start people on for some immediate relief or symptom management? Are those suggestions generally available without a prescription?
• What diet, supplementation, detox, and lifestyle strategies generally support this type of patient?
• When the test results come back, what are the most common profiles of imbalance you find? Are they infinite, or do they generally fall into common patterns?
• Do you have a general protocol for each of those unique variations? 
• If a patient presents with more than one, do you have a way to prioritize which result-specific protocol to do first and/or clarity on which protocols that can be done concurrently? 
• Do you have mindset components or stress management techniques that help your patients?
• Lastly, how much of what's listed above is so common that you find yourself repeating the same things day in and day out, patient after patient, to the point that you feel like a broken record?
  

Instead of enduring that monotonous repetition, what if you recorded videos, branded your handouts into professional PDF guides, and provided education in all these areas by creating an online program that leverages your medical knowledge?

That's exactly what practitioners who leverage their knowledge with online programs do. The results are more lives impacted, a higher return on the practitioner's time, community support for program participants, and less burnout for practitioners and their staff. 

No prescriptions. No medical care. Just a knowledge share on Functional Medicine strategies that may help with chronic health challenges. Since online programs empower people to take advantage of the growing selection of direct-to-consumer testing now available, oftentimes, programs include a detailed interpretation of what each item on a specific test indicates, so participants are empowered to customize actions based on what they learn.

Obviously, there are highly nuanced differences between how you talk to program participants and actual patients, and you must clearly communicate that programs are no substitute for medical care. Within those constraints, online programs are an empowering way to educate people about specific health challenges and provide community support as they embark on implementing that knowledge to make diet and lifestyle changes that Functional Medicine recognizes as extremely important in chronic conditions.   

Using Lab Shops With Your Course

Labshops through Rupa Health allows you to create a custom e-commerce page to make testing available to your practice's community or educational program participants. Many practitioners are now using labshops to offer over 3000+ testing options to their participants and increase the value of their educational content. When you walk people through each item of a sample test result, they see your expertise in action while being empowered to understand what's happening in their unique physiology.

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Creating High-Value Content For Your Participants 

The success of your online program depends on the value of the education, and access you provide. This means creating informative, engaging, and - most importantly - actionable content. Consider incorporating case studies, client testimonials, and other real-world examples to illustrate the impact of the education provided in your program.

Choosing The Right Platform 

One of the biggest concerns for health practitioners looking to create online programs is technology overwhelm. Fortunately, many tools and platforms are available that can simplify the process of creating and delivering online programs. 

Check out this affordable platform that allows you to have the membership site, the sales funnel, and even an affiliate portal for peers to recommend your program. Whichever platform you choose, look for pre-built templates, step-by-step guidance, and strong customer support to help you easily navigate the technology.

Selecting Your Marketing Strategy 

Creating a great online program is just the first step. You'll also need a marketing strategy to promote your program and attract ideal participants. You can start with organic marketing like social media and email marketing, add professional peers as promotional partners (referred to as affiliate marketing), and move slowly into strategic paid traffic by advertising on major platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google Ad Network, and YouTube to reach your ideal clients and build interest in your program. 

Monitoring Success and Adjusting As Needed 

Finally, it's essential to monitor the success of your online program and make adjustments as needed. Use metrics such as program enrollment, participant feedback, and revenue to gauge the success of your program and make improvements over time.

By following these steps, you can efficiently add online profits to your health business and leverage your medical knowledge to impact more lives and make more money. Don't let technology overwhelm hold you back - with the right tools and approach, you can create a successful online program that helps you reach your financial goals while making an even more significant difference in the world.