Online classes are becoming more popular nowadays, and there is no exception when it comes to online cooking classes. People realize the convenience of online learning and becoming an online cooking teacher can become quite lucrative. So, how do you start paid online cooking classes?
To start an online cooking class, you need to determine your cooking niche and what you are going to teach. Then plan a menu to teach within that niche, pick a platform to host your classes on, work out the pricing out your cooking classes, and lastly, market your cooking classes.
How do you figure out what platform to use for your cooking class? What factors should you keep in mind when planning your cooking class menu? We will go through these questions in this article.
How To Start Your Online Cooking Classes
Starting a cooking class can be fun, but it is still a lot of work; there is a large amount of preparation and organizing that you will be required to do.
There are several aspects that you need to take into consideration; these aspects could determine what your cooking classes will entail. Let us go through these aspects more in-depth so you can create a successful cooking class business.
Determine Your Niche
If you want to start a cooking class, you first need to determine what type of cooking class you are going to have on offer. There are several ideas that you can choose from in cooking that you can teach on.
You need to choose if you will offer basic cooking classes, advanced cooking classes, or even specific niche cooking classes. You should choose the type of class you offer based on the kind of food you have the most experience making.
For example, if you have a good amount of experience and know-how cooking Italian food, you should consider offering classes in the Italian cooking style. Or, if you have excellent knife skills, you may want to consider making a few cooking prep classes.
You can also choose to do specialty classes for parents with young children and do some classes where the parents can include their children in the cooking process to help them with kitchen safety and to get them started on their cooking journey.
Another class idea is a general cooking class; these types of cooking classes focus on recipes that are made using fundamental ingredients that most people usually keep in their pantries. These recipes are quick and easy and typically take only between 5 to 10 minutes.
Choosing what type of cooking classes, you are going to offer will also help determine how long your lessons are going to be, the more technical the cooking, then the longer the class. In general, it will usually take twice as long to prepare a recipe when you are teaching it compared to when you are just making it for yourself.
Plan A Menu
Next, you need to start developing a menu that consists of a few recipes that you are comfortable with; you need to do this so that you know what you are going to start with, and you can make sure that you have all the necessary ingredients that are needed in the recipe.
If you are doing an introductory cooking class or a class that involves children, then you need to ensure that you pick recipes that are easy to follow and are suitable for those specific skill levels. If your class is a bit more advanced, then you can up the skill level, and you can keep increasing the difficulty of the recipes as the lessons progress.
If you are offering a specialized cooking class, then you need to ensure that you give your students a list of the ingredients ahead of time so they can go and get any specialized ingredients that they need to participate in your lesson.
Planning your menu will help you get organized for the first few classes in advance; this will allow you to make any lists for students in advance too, which will make your class prep easier.
It is an excellent idea to offer alternative ingredients if an attendee has a food allergy or intolerance, this way, they can still participate and have fun, and this will encourage them to promote your classes more too.
This is another reason why it is a good idea to get started on your menu plan early, so you have time to research alternative ingredients.
It can be a good idea to choose recipes that are as hands-on as possible; this will ensure that your cooking classes are fun and engaging for your attendees.
Find A Platform
Once you have a menu, you now need to think about what platform you are going to use to give your cooking classes on. This can be determined by several factors such as the length of your lesson, if you want the class to be live or not, your budget, as well as the amount of time you have to create your cooking classes.
If your lessons are quite short, then doing a live class may not be the best choice as the attendees might not the point of logging on to a platform for a 5-minute lesson. In this case, you could try and pre-record your classes and send your attendees a link to it once it is done.
Pre-recording your cooking classes can depend on your budget, however, as this does require good quality cameras and voice recording equipment, and possibly a video editor if you cannot edit it yourself. These things can be expensive.
But it is not necessarily a necessity to have these things if you are willing to cut down on a bit of the video quality, in which case you can get a friend to help you record the short class on your cell phone.
If you have a good budget, you could also get your own website developed where you can upload your classes, too, and people can pay to get access to the pre-recorded videos. This can also be a great place to advertise the live cooking specials that you can then offer whenever you want to.
If you want to conduct live cooking classes, then you may want to consider a platform such as Skype, Zoom, or Google Hangouts, or another platform with these same capabilities. Then you can charge people for the meeting link, and it can be a good way to interact with your attendees as you can answer their questions.
If you do not have the time to live stream a cooking class every day or week, but you have one day a week where you can pre-record a bunch of classes, then you can do this too; obviously, this will require more planning and a good budget.
Then you can upload your classes to your website or another website like SkillShare, where you can still charge for your classes.
Determine Lesson Prices
Now you can move on to what you are going to charge for your cooking lessons; for this, you will need to factor in your class length as well as your own cooking experience. If you are a qualified chef or have some form of cooking qualification, then you may be able to charge more.
A good way to determine what to charge your attendees is to google the price of other people’s cooking classes that are in your same cooking niche. This will help you price your classes according to skill level, class time, and your own experience.
While you’re cooking classes are new, you may want to consider offering a special price until your classes become more known to people, as this will help your class to gain traction.
Market Your Lessons
You need to market your cooking classes well, you should print out flyers and put them up at shopping centres, you can get your family and friends to put the word out about your classes to people they know.
A good idea is to offer one free cooking class, which can then get your name out there and show people the quality cooking class that you offer. Then you can offer the attendees of this free class a special offer or a voucher for the rest of your paid classes, which could increase your paid class attendee numbers.
Conclusion
Creating a paid cooking class does require a good amount of planning and preparation, but if you enjoy cooking and sharing your recipes, then this is a great job option for you. If you have the dedication and time that is needed, then you can create a very successful cooking class business without necessarily needing a big budget. Enjoy your cooking class preparation, and good luck with your classes!