Congratulations! You’ve poured your heart and soul into creating an extraordinary online course. You’ve taken the time to get clear on your audience, develop your signature method, create your videos and tools, and conquer all the ‘techie’ tasks, and you’re finally ready to unveil it to the world.
But here’s the thing: even the most impeccably crafted course won’t make the difference you’re hoping for if your participants aren’t fully engaged. If your students don’t feel motivated and connected to the result, they may never complete the lessons or put their new skills into action.
Many of the strategies below involve live or interactive elements. If you’re running a fully self-paced course, here’s how to keep students engaged without being available 24/7.
Unfortunately, the industry average completion rate for online courses is less than 8%, and refund rates on courses can be as high as 30%.
The good news is you can increase online course engagement and dramatically improve completion rates with a few intentional design choices.
The online courses our team has designed get up to 88% of students to the finish line with approximately 3% of students requesting a refund.
In this blog post, we’ll cover 6 proven ways to keep your students motivated and on track, so you can build a reputation for delivering transformational content and see a steady stream of new clients eager to do the work with you.
6 Strategies to Include in Your Online Course to Increase Engagement and Completion Rates
Make it Easy for Your Students to Quickly Get Started
Quick wins are one of the easiest ways to increase online course engagement and keep students moving toward completion. Seeing progress motivates your students to keep going. The faster they start achieving results, the more engaged they’ll be when they continue progressing through your entire program.
Providing a fast track resource is one of the best ways to increase engagement and ensure your students get maximum value from your online course. Give them a quick, impactful start and they’ll be excited to reach their end goals.
We recommend including a Fast Track Guide when there is an aspect of your topic that will help your students move faster to get results. This could include anything that is a “prerequisite” to your main result in your course. One of the simplest ways to do this is with well‑designed online course worksheets that guide students through those early steps (we share exactly how to design those worksheets here).
These types of guides work great as bonuses, as well.
Examples:
- In our Get Corporate Clients Masterclass, we include the 30-Day Backyard Blueprint, which helps our participants create a 30-day plan for finding corporate clients in their local areas. This allows them to get started quickly, finding potential clients and generating revenue.
- An expert in helping women start coaching businesses included a “fast track guide” for building a simple website. Since many in her audience didn’t have a website yet, this is a topic they were eager to learn more about prior to launching their coaching businesses.
Build Excitement and Community with Hot Seats
Engage your learners by offering “hot seats.” In this interactive component, you will hold a live session (on a platform like Zoom or GotoWebinar) and choose a client to bring live on the call to receive coaching and feedback in real-time. During the session, you will work with them to improve their work, ask questions, and get specific feedback on whatever they are working on. This encourages active participation, allows the other students to learn from each other’s challenges, and also encourages students to submit their own work for a hot seat opportunity.
Your clients will look forward to their turn in the hot seat and benefit from witnessing a colleague’s breakthrough. They’ll also build accountability by committing to show up live.
Examples:
- A client who helps business owners with their elevator pitches did live “pitch hot seats” where the student delivered their pitch and then received feedback in real-time. These hot seats were incredibly popular!
- A sales coach set up live “closing hot seats” helping his students navigate objections and learn how to close more deals.
Provide Accountability and Collaboration with Implementation Workshops or Co-working Sessions
Accountability is a major driver when you want to increase online course completion rates. Implementation workshops or coworking sessions provide dedicated time for your students to work alongside their peers to actually get things done. They are a great way for everyone to block off dedicated time to work.
Examples:
- In our Launch Lab program, we held Implementation Intensive Workshops to focus on one aspect of the launch funnel every month. For example, we might work on writing a sales page or creating a Facebook ad. The key to the workshops was focusing on one item and getting it as close to finished as possible during our time together.
- A book writing coach held a weekly “writing workroom” for her clients to block off two hours each week to actually write their books. In the live session, everyone had their cameras on but were muted, so participants could see each other writing.
If you want to build these kinds of support systems without them taking over your calendar, here’s how to create high-touch student support that scales.
Dive Deeper with Live or Virtual Events
Consider organizing longer (one or more days) live or virtual events related to your course topic. These events provide an opportunity for learners to interact directly with you and their peers and deepen their understanding of the topic. Live events create a sense of community and foster engagement, while virtual events ensure participants worldwide can join in.
We recommend creating an agenda that flows between teaching sessions, group work, solo work/reflection time, and Q&A. You can also provide participants with pre-event materials so everyone comes prepared to maximize the value from the session.
Bonus points: you can record the event and sell access to it for folks who are not able to attend live.
Examples:
- As a next-level offer for our customers, we created the “Course Create-a-thon,” a one-day virtual event to walk through the fastest way to complete an online course. There was solo working time, teaching sessions, and feedback opportunities.
- A health coaching client held a two-day in-person event that included time for teaching, solo meditation/reflection, and group activities like cooking a healthy dinner together.
Bring In Guest Experts to Provide Insight
Invite industry experts related to your course content into your community for guest interviews. These interviews provide a fresh perspective and real-world insights, making your course more compelling and relevant.
It’s important to keep the interviews short and tactical so they apply to what your student is learning in your course. You could also ask your students to submit questions in advance of the interview to ensure they’ll be interested in the conversation.
When choosing experts to interview, keep the topics complementary to your course. For example, if you are a health coach for midlife women, you could bring in an expert in exercise for women. If you are a leadership coach, you could bring in an expert to chat about compensation or how to have difficult conversations. It’s critical that the interviews don’t distract your students from finishing your course, but add to it and give them more context and value.
Examples:
- A client who teaches social media marketing included short, tactical interviews with a web designer and copywriter on what to think about when designing and writing for social media
- An expert in performance and mindset for athletes brought in a nutritionist who specialized in helping athletes use nutrition to increase performance
- An expert in team building brought three course graduates on to chate about their journeys, team leadership, and hiring
Show How You Would Take Action with Over-the-Shoulder Tutorials
Give your learners step-by-step demonstrations of how to apply the concepts taught in your course with “over-the-shoulder” video tutorials. These demonstrations can be recorded with screen sharing software or using your phone or camera. Visually guiding learners through the process helps them truly understand all of the little details and tips that you may not naturally include in written materials.
Examples:
- A copywriting expert included over-the-shoulder email writing videos, showing her process for brainstorming, choosing a concept, writing, and editing emails for her client’s launch
- In a course for parents of children with Type 1 diabetes, the expert provided video tours of her pantry, kitchen, and go-to quick snacks and meals (using just her iPhone)
And if you’re designing or refreshing your course right now, make sure the structure itself supports adult learners. This article on how to design online courses adults actually complete shows you how to set up your modules, pacing, and implementation so engagement is built in from day one.
Next Steps
If you implement just one or two of these strategies, you’ll start to see a big difference in engagement and completion rates. Your clients will become more invested in the content, connect with you and each other, and most importantly, take action. Once they take action and get results, they’ll become raving fans who tell others about the amazing experience they had in your online course.
Which strategies will you put into place in your online course? We’d love to hear how you plan to engage and support your students.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start, and don’t have the time to lead the strategy, hire freelancers, and manage your project, our Course Creation Support team is here to help. We have the expertise and resources to guide you through the process and set you up to create your own transformational course (often in less than 90 days).
Don’t let your busy schedule hold you back from creating an online course that can have a significant impact on your business.
Take the first step and reach out to our Fast Track Coaches to discuss your ideal level of support. Once you share your business or course idea, our team will reach out with next steps.
Click here to share more about your business or course idea