You have an idea for an online course, a skill you know could help people. But before you spend months creating content, there’s a crucial step that many creators skip: asking the right questions.
Building a course without asking questions is like trying to sell a solution without knowing the problem.
This guide is designed to walk you through the two essential conversations you need to have. First, with your audience to validate your idea, and then with yourself to build a course that truly delivers on its promise and sets you up for success.
Questions to Ask Your Audience When Creating An Online Course
To make it easier for you to understand and implement these questions, we divided them into 5 different categories.
Category 0: Demographic & Background Questions
The goal of these questions is to paint a clear picture of who your audience is. Understanding their background, profession, and context helps you tailor your examples, marketing messages, and course content to be as relevant and relatable as possible.
1. What is your current job title or professional role? (If not applicable, how would you describe your primary occupation, e.g., student, stay-at-home parent, retiree?)
Why this is crucial: This is the most direct way to understand your audience’s professional context. Knowing if you’re talking to managers, freelancers, junior employees, or entrepreneurs allows you to frame the course benefits in a way that directly relates to their career path (e.g., “get promoted,” “win more clients”).
2. In which industry do you work? (e.g., Technology, Healthcare, Education, Arts, etc.)
Why this is crucial: This helps you create case studies and examples that resonate. A marketing course for tech startups will use very different examples than a marketing course for local artists, and this question tells you which examples will hit home.
3. How many years of experience do you have in your current field?
Why this is crucial: This adds another layer to their knowledge level. A “beginner” in your topic with 15 years of professional experience will learn differently and have different goals than a “beginner” who is also a recent college graduate.
4. What is your primary reason for being interested in [Your Topic]? (e.g., for my current job, to change careers, for a personal hobby, to start a business).
Why this is crucial: This question uncovers their core motivation and the “hat” they are wearing when they come to you. A hobbyist has very different stakes and expectations than someone looking to make a career change, which impacts everything from your course’s tone to its price.
5. Where do you typically go to find information or learn new skills about topics like this? (e.g., YouTube, blogs, books, podcasts, professional workshops).
Why this is crucial: This tells you where your audience already hangs out online and how they prefer to consume content. This is pure gold for your marketing strategy, as it shows you exactly where you should be creating content and advertising to reach them.
6. Which age range do you fall into? (e.g., 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55+)
Why this is crucial: While not always essential, age can provide context for life stage, career priorities, and communication style. It can help you make your content and marketing feel more culturally relevant to your target demographic. Note: Always make this question optional to respect privacy.
Category 1: Understanding Their Biggest Pains and Challenges
The goal of these questions is to uncover the specific, and often unspoken, problems your audience is facing. A successful course sells a tangible transformation, not just a collection of information.
1. What specific part of [Your Topic] makes you feel “stuck” or want to give up?
Why this is crucial: This question pinpoints the exact moment of maximum friction for your audience. Knowing this allows you to dedicate a specific module or lesson to overcoming that single, critical hurdle, which can become a major selling point for your course.
2. What are the consequences of not solving this problem in your daily life or work?
Why this is crucial: This question uncovers the real-world, negative impact of the problem, moving beyond theory into tangible pain. You can use the exact language from their answers in your marketing copy to show you understand their reality and the true cost of inaction.
3. What bad advice have you heard or followed regarding [Your Topic]?
Why this is crucial: This helps you identify common myths and misconceptions in your field. By directly addressing and debunking this bad advice in your course, you position yourself as a trusted, authoritative voice who can cut through the noise.
4. If you had an expert on call for 15 minutes, what would be the first question you’d ask them about [Your Topic]?
Why this is crucial: This question reveals your audience’s most immediate and pressing knowledge gap. The answer is often the perfect topic for a lead magnet, hosting a webinar, or the introductory lesson of your course because it addresses their most urgent need.
5. What tools or resources are you currently using to help with [Your Topic], and what do you wish they did better?
Why this is crucial: This uncovers gaps in the current market solutions your audience is already using. Your course can be designed to fill those gaps, perhaps by teaching them how to use existing tools more effectively or by providing templates and workflows that the tools lack.
6. Is there a specific skill related to [Your Topic] that you believe would unlock the next level of your career or personal growth?
Why this is crucial: This question directly links their problem to their ambition and aspirations. Framing your course as the key to a promotion, a new business opportunity, or personal fulfillment is a powerful way to communicate its value and justify its price.
7. What questions do you have about [Your Topic] that you’ve been too embarrassed to ask?
Why this is crucial: This uncovers the foundational, often simple, knowledge gaps that many people are afraid to admit they have. Answering these “silly” questions makes your course feel like a safe, judgment-free space for true beginners and builds immense trust.
Category 2: Defining Their Desired Transformation
These questions help you understand what success looks like for your audience. This is crucial for pinpointing your course’s promise and marketing message.
1. Beyond just learning the skill, what feeling do you hope to have once you’ve mastered [Your Topic]? (e.g., confident, secure, creative, free)
Why this is crucial: This question uncovers the core emotional driver behind their goal. People often buy feelings, not just outcomes, so marketing your course as the path to “confidence” or “creative freedom” can be far more powerful than simply promising a new skill.
2. What new opportunities would open up for you if you successfully achieved [The Desired Outcome]?
Why this is crucial: This helps you connect your course to second-order benefits that your audience may not have even considered, like new job prospects, side-hustle opportunities, or the ability to lead new projects. Highlighting these “hidden” benefits adds significant value to your course offer.
3. What’s a specific project or task you would immediately start (or finish) if you had this new skill?
Why this is crucial: This makes the transformation tangible and immediate. You can use their answers to create a “capstone project” for your course (e.g., “Launch Your Podcast,” “Build Your First App”), which gives students a concrete, motivating goal to work towards from day one.
4. Who in your life or industry would you love to be able to help or impress once you have this knowledge?
Why this is crucial: This question taps into social and professional motivators like gaining respect from peers, providing value to clients, or helping family. It reveals their desire for status and connection, which are powerful human drivers you can appeal to in your messaging.
5. How would your daily or weekly routine change for the better after achieving this result?
Why this is crucial: This grounds the transformation in the reality of their everyday life. If your course can save them five hours a week, eliminate a stressful task, or make their workday more enjoyable, that is a highly compelling and practical benefit that makes the investment feel immediately worthwhile.
6. If you were to explain the value of mastering [Your Topic] to a friend, what would you say?
Why this is crucial: This question forces them to articulate the benefit in their own simple, natural language. The answers you get are pure gold for your marketing copy, testimonials, and sales page because they reflect how real people think and talk about the value you provide.
Category 3: Gauging Their Willingness to Pay
By asking these questions, you’re not just asking “what would you pay?” You’re having a sophisticated conversation about value, investment, and return. The answers will empower you to price your course with confidence, knowing that your price is aligned with the transformation your audience truly desires.
1. What is the value of the time you would save if you could do [The Desired Outcome] efficiently?
Why this is crucial: This question reframes the course price from an expense into an investment in their most valuable, non-renewable asset: time. If your course costs $300 but saves them 10 hours of work they value at $50/hour, the course effectively pays for itself and then some.
2. If a solution guaranteed you would achieve [The Desired Outcome], what would that be worth to you in a dollar amount?
Why this is crucial: This is a direct and powerful question that anchors the value in their mind. While they might not pay the full amount they state, their answer reveals the perceived monetary value of the transformation, giving you a ceiling for what you could potentially charge.
3. When you invested in other solutions that didn’t work, what was the price point, and what did you feel was missing that would have made it worth the cost?
Why this is crucial: This gives you two critical pieces of data: the price points they are already comfortable with and the specific value gaps in the market. You can design your course to include those missing elements (e.g., community, expert access, better templates) and confidently price it higher than the failed solutions.
4. At what price would this course be an instant “yes” for you, assuming it delivered on its promise? At what price would it start to feel too expensive to consider?
Why this is crucial: This is a classic pricing psychology question that helps you find the “sweet spot.” The first number gives you a floor for an irresistible entry-level offer or downsell, while the second number gives you a ceiling, helping you avoid pricing yourself out of your audience’s reach.
5. Would you prefer to pay a one-time fee for lifetime access, or a payment plan (e.g., 3 monthly payments) to make it more manageable?
Why this is crucial: This isn’t about the total price, but about the accessibility of the price. Offering a payment plan can dramatically increase conversion rates by removing the barrier of a single lump-sum payment, even if the total price is the same or slightly higher.
6. Besides the course itself, what additional support would make this a premium, “must-have” investment for you? (e.g., live Q&A calls with me, a private community, one-on-one feedback on your work?)
Why this is crucial: This question helps you identify what your audience perceives as high-value support, which is the key to creating premium tiers for your course. By understanding what they’re willing to pay more for, you can create a pricing structure with a basic version and a high-ticket “VIP” version.
Category 4: Understanding Their Learning Preferences
By asking these questions, you’re essentially co-creating the learning experience with your future students. You’re not guessing what they want; you’re building a course that is tailor-made to help them succeed in the way that feels most natural and motivating to them.
1. Think about the last time you successfully learned something online. What was it about that experience that made it so effective for you?
Why this is crucial: This question moves beyond abstract preferences to a concrete, positive memory. Their answers will reveal specific, proven elements you can “borrow” for your own course, such as the structure, the community interaction, or the quality of the materials.
2. When you get stuck on a lesson in an online course, what is your ideal way to get help? (e.g., a searchable FAQ, a community forum, live office hours, email support?)
Why this is crucial: This question prepares you for the inevitable moment when your students need support. Knowing their preferred support method allows you to build the right systems from the start, which prevents student frustration and reduces your support workload long-term.
3. How important is it for you to connect with other students who are at the same level as you?
Why this is crucial: This directly gauges the demand for a community component, which is often a huge value-add. If the desire for connection is strong, you know that investing time in building a community (like a Slack channel or Facebook group) will be a major selling point.
4. To feel like you’ve truly mastered a topic, do you need to see examples, do it yourself, or teach it to someone else?
Why this is crucial: This question helps you understand their “learning modality” on a deeper level. If your audience needs to “do it themselves,” you know to prioritize worksheets, projects, and hands-on assignments. If they need to “see examples,” you should focus on case studies and demonstrations.
5. Would you be more motivated by a structured, week-by-week schedule or the freedom to jump around to the lessons that interest you most?
Why this is crucial: This reveals whether your audience craves discipline or flexibility. A structured (“drip”) course can improve completion rates for those who need accountability, while an open (“all-access”) course appeals to those who want to solve a specific problem immediately.
6. What kind of “wins” would you want to celebrate along the way? (e.g., finishing a module, completing a project, getting feedback?)
Why this is crucial: This helps you build motivating feedback loops into your course. You can use their answers to design gamification elements like badges, certificates of completion, or community shout-outs that keep students engaged and moving forward.
Category 5: Gauging Their Current Knowledge Level
This helps you tailor the course content to the right level, whether it’s for beginners, intermediate learners, or experts.
1. Which of these terms related to [Your Topic] are you already familiar with? (Provide a list of 5-7 key terms, from basic to advanced.)
Why this is crucial: This is a practical, jargon-free way to assess their expertise. Their answers will immediately show you whether you need to start with basic definitions or if you can jump straight into more complex concepts, saving everyone time.
2. What is the most advanced thing you have already done or tried regarding [Your Topic]?
Why this is crucial: This question helps you identify the true ceiling of their current ability. It gives you a concrete benchmark for their practical skills, not just their theoretical knowledge, ensuring your course starts at a point that feels like a genuine next step for them.
3. Are you looking for a course to help you start from scratch, fill in some specific knowledge gaps, or become a recognized expert?
Why this is crucial: This question clarifies their ultimate goal and manages their expectations. It helps you segment your audience into “Beginners,” “Improvers,” and “Masters,” which can inform your marketing and even help you create different course offerings for each level.
4. When you read articles or watch videos about [Your Topic], do you find yourself more drawn to introductory “101” content or advanced, specialized case studies?
Why this is crucial: This reveals their current content consumption habits, which is a strong indicator of their perceived knowledge level. It tells you what kind of information they are actively seeking, helping you align your course’s depth with their current intellectual curiosity.
5. If you were to start learning today, what’s the first specific question you would Google about [Your Topic]?
Why this is crucial: This is a brilliant way to identify their “Point A.” The answer is the real starting point of their learning journey, and it’s likely the perfect topic for your course’s first lesson or module to ensure you meet them exactly where they are.
How to Get the Answers You Need: A Quick Guide
Once you have your questions, the next step is getting them in front of your audience. Here’s a simple guide on where and how to ask, plus tips to get more people to respond.
Where to Ask: Go Where Your Audience Already Is
- Your Email List: This is your most valuable audience. They know and trust you, making them the most likely to provide thoughtful answers.
- Online Communities: Find your people on Reddit, Facebook Groups, or niche forums. Don’t just spam your link. Participate in the community first, then ask for help to ensure you’re seen as a member, not a marketer.
- Social Media: Use Instagram/Facebook story polls and question stickers for quick, easy feedback. Post one powerful open-ended question on LinkedIn or Twitter to spark a conversation.
- 1-on-1 Interviews: For the deepest insights, invite a few survey respondents to a quick 15-minute video call. The details you’ll uncover are pure gold.
How to Ask: Make It Easy and Worth Their While
- Use a Simple Survey Tool: Google Forms is free and effective. Typeform is more visually engaging.
- Frame it as a Collaboration: Use language like, “Help me build this course with you.” People are more willing to help when they feel like a co-creator.
- Explain the “Why”: Briefly state that you’re creating a new course and their input is crucial to making it truly valuable.
5 Tips on How to Get More People to Actually Respond
Getting honest feedback is an art. It’s less about demanding answers and more about making people want to help you. Here are some tips, inspired by real-world community-building advice, to make participation feel rewarding.
1. Offer a Meaningful Incentive: This is non-negotiable. You can offer a “thank you” gift to everyone (like a helpful checklist or template) or enter everyone into a raffle for a bigger prize (like a gift card or free access to the course when it launches). The goal is to show you value their time.
2. Communicate the “Why” Clearly: Don’t just ask for data; share your mission. Explain that you’re collecting feedback to build a solution that truly solves their problems. When people understand your goal is to serve them better, they are far more likely to get on board.
3. Ask at the Right Time: Timing is everything. Instead of asking a cold audience, try running a freebie campaign first. Offer a valuable download, and then, as part of the welcome email sequence, ask for their feedback. They’ve just received value from you, so they’ll be much more receptive to giving something back.
4. Build a Small Community First: People in a community are more likely to engage. Before you even mention a course, create a small Facebook group, Slack channel, or email list focused on your topic. Share tips, ask questions, and get conversations started. Once that sense of community is established, asking for feedback will feel like a natural part of the group’s conversation.
5. Show Genuine Appreciation and Make It Memorable: When people take the time to participate, make them feel seen. Don’t just send an automated “thanks.” A genuine, personal thank you goes a long way.
Better yet, make participation feel truly rewarding with a small, unexpected free gift—something they’ll remember. This builds immense goodwill and turns survey respondents into loyal fans.
13 Questions To Ask Yourself When Creating An Online Course
Now that you’ve listened to your audience, it’s time for a gut check. These questions are designed to align your expertise, passion, and resources to ensure you can deliver on the promise you plan to make to your students. This is where you build your strategic foundation.
1. Why am I the right person to teach this specific topic?
This isn’t just about your credentials. Go deeper. What unique life experience, hard-won victory, or disastrous failure gives you a perspective no one else has? Your unique story is the heart of your brand and the reason students will choose you over a more generic competitor.
2. What is the single, undeniable transformation I am promising my students?
“Learning SEO” is not a transformation. “Getting your first 100 organic visitors from Google” is. Be ruthlessly specific. Your course must be a bridge from a painful “before” state to a desirable “after” state. If you can’t articulate this in one sentence, your course idea is too vague.
3. Who is the one person I am creating this for?
You cannot help everyone. Picture a single, ideal student. Give them a name. What is their current job? What are their fears? What is their secret goal? When you create for this one person, your message becomes incredibly clear and potent, and it will attract thousands just like them.
4. Am I genuinely excited about this topic, or am I just chasing a trend?
Creating and supporting a course is a marathon. Your enthusiasm (or lack thereof) will be palpable to your students. If the topic doesn’t light you up, you will burn out, and your students will feel it. True passion is a magnetic force that creates better teaching and better results.
5. What is the absolute minimum amount of information my student needs to achieve the promised transformation?
Your job is not to create the most comprehensive encyclopedia; it’s to create the most efficient path to a result. This question forces you to cut the fluff and fight the “curse of knowledge.” Every lesson must be a necessary step on the journey; otherwise, it’s just noise that leads to overwhelm.
6. What is the “one thing” I want my students to remember and apply a year from now?
This helps you identify the core, timeless principle of your course. This “one thing” should be the philosophical anchor for your entire curriculum. It’s the lesson that transcends the tactics and delivers long-term value.
7. How will I prove to my students that they are making progress?
Progress is the engine of motivation. You must build in “quick wins” and clear milestones. Will they complete a specific project, fill out a worksheet, or pass a quiz? Seeing their own progress is what will keep them from giving up.
8. What is the most common failure point for people learning this topic, and how can my course pre-emptively solve it?
You’ve likely seen hundreds of people try and fail to learn this skill. What was the common hurdle? By identifying this “great filter” and dedicating a specific module or resource to overcoming it, you create a massive point of value and a powerful marketing claim.
9. What does “success” for this course look like for me, beyond just income?
Define your personal win. Is it the freedom to work from anywhere? The authority and speaking gigs that come with being a recognized expert? The fulfillment from seeing student success stories? Knowing your own “why” will sustain you through the hard work of a launch.
10. What is my “unfair advantage” in marketing this course?
Do you have a large email list? A popular YouTube channel? A strong network of potential affiliates? A knack for writing compelling stories? Your marketing strategy should be built around your unique strengths, not a generic “launch blueprint.”
11. What is the simplest possible version of this course I could create to test the idea?
This is your escape hatch from perfectionism. Instead of a 50-video epic, could you start with a paid 2-hour live workshop or a short PDF guide? This “pilot” or “beta” version allows you to validate the offer with real, paying customers before you invest hundreds of hours into the full-scale course.
12. How will I collect and showcase my students’ success stories?
Testimonials and case studies are the lifeblood of your future sales. You must have a system for this from day one. Will you use a survey at the end of the course? Will you personally reach out to successful students? A great course with no visible proof is a hidden gem that will stay hidden.
13. How does this course fit into my business ecosystem five years from now?
This question forces you to think beyond a single product and envision a sustainable business. Is this course a one-off product, or is it the entry point to a larger ecosystem? Could it lead to a more advanced course, a high-ticket coaching program, a membership community, a book, or a certification? Thinking about this now ensures you’re not just building a product, but an asset that grows in value over time.
Start a Conversation with Your Potential Students Today!
Creating a successful online course doesn’t have to be a gamble. By starting with these questions, you shift from guessing what people want to building what you know they need.
You build with confidence, knowing you have a validated idea and a solid plan. The journey starts not with recording videos, but with listening.
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