5 Ways to Upgrade Online Courses to Increase Engagement

According to Inc, 92% of people do not achieve their goals. If you’re making money from knowledge commerce, this is your problem. Why? Because most people who sign up to do online courses, drop out before they’ve completed them, and that impacts your success rate, which impacts your profit. They key is to give participants small wins, and to make it easy for them to be engaged enough to cross the finish line. In other words, if you’re only providing text in your courses, it’s time for an upgrade.

Here are some options:

#1: Move to a knowledge commerce platform

Generally speaking, there are four ways to get your knowledge onto the digital sphere:Knowledge commerce platforms. These host your entire website, blog and online courses and is the easiest way to start selling your knowledge. You pay one amount for everything you need to set up, deliver and market your course/s. Marketplace platforms that host your course. These take a percentage of your sales, but setting up your online course is usually free. Learning management systems plugins for WordPress websites, which enable you to set up courses and sell them on your website. Membership plugins for WordPress websites to create and sell your courses from inside your website.

Knowledge commerce platforms ensure you have updated technology to maximize your results, and therefore your bottom line. In addition, everything you need is in this one platform, which makes life easier.

#2: Add rich interactive content

An interactive content plugin like H5p instantly brightens course content, making it fun and interactive. The greatest benefit is that many of these plugins are absolutely free, so if your online course is just text-based, there’s no excuse for not giving it an overhaul…This is a screenshot of a presentation, which is a feature of the H5p interactive plugin. With plugins like this, you can add features like:

Quizzes

Interactive video

Presentations

Games

Charts

Audio

Turning cards

Collages

Timelines

Flashcards

#3: Provide an immersive learning experience

Albert Einstein, who is viewed as the smartest man to ever live, said, “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information. ”The immersive learning experience transports the learner into a captivating scenario which provides a deeper level of understanding. This increases engagement and helps make learning more engaging and fun. Simulations, role play, and virtual learning environments are all immersive learning. Types of technologies which enable immersive learning are:Virtual reality (VR) is a recreation of a 360 degree video of a real life experience generated by computer. Augmented reality (AR) is a type of VR, but differs in that it only uses some virtual aspects mixed with reality to create something. Mixed reality is a mix of virtual and augmented reality. Learners can view and engage with virtual objects in the real world. Volumetric film is a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions. Immersive learning is not only for large corporations; small businesses are catching on to it.

#4: Jack it up with gamification

An entrepreneur offered well-made videos as part of a marketing campaign. After watching the videos, viewers were encouraged to comment on certain elements. When a comment was submitted, cheering voices together with floating balloons and stars would follow, making it fun to comment! Something like that will not easily be forgotten. That’s what gamification does for your online course – people come back to learn because now learning is fun. Who wants to wade through a bunch of boring theory when they could be playing games? 79% of university/college learners say they would be more productive if the environment were more game-like. In a survey by TalentLMS, 79% of learners said they would be more productive if learning was more game-like. In your online training, offer (via gamification):

Rewards

Recognition

Interactive features

Tracking credits and points

#5: Boost engagement with webinars

Marketers claim that meeting software is one of the best technologies as a marketing medium, with conversions of between 10 – 20% as opposed to other methods which don’t deliver even half the conversion rate of webinars. Webinars – which are online seminars – work well because they are the closest thing to face-to-face interaction online, barring technology like Skype group video chat. For online training, they work particularly well because:Learners feel part of a group instead of going through the paces alone. Learners are able to see and hear the presenter, so you become more human to them, which makes them bond better with the course. Learners are able to interact with you and others, even if they are all situated in different parts of the world.

In summary

The fact that the majority of online courses are never completed, is your problem. The more engaging your course, the better your profits. So. . . if you are still using plain text to teach online, you need to seriously consider giving things an overhaul. Here are the summarized ideas:Move your entire business to a knowledge commerce platform

Make content interactive

Make learning a rich experience rather than boring theory

Add fun to retain information

Add regular webinars for interaction.