How To Use Course Roadmaps To Increase Participation - Corinne Lennox

Corinne now shares all her best course and design tips and tricks through her business, Maree May Design Co. You can find her at www.mareemaydesign.com or on instagram @mareemaydesignco and you can grab her Course Roadmap Canva Template Pack freebie (which pairs perfectly with her talk on How To Use A Course Roadmap To Increase Participation) as part of this bundle or at www.mareemaydesign.com/courseroadmapgiveaway

00:00
Hi, I'm Corinne from Maree May Design Co and I'm here today to talk to you about how you can use a roadmap to increase engagement within your courses And this will work for you whether you've never run a course before and you're creating your very first one, or whether you've been running courses for a while now and you're not getting the engagement that you expected.

00:19
Or you're not getting as many people completing your course as you would like So let me reassure you straight off the top here that there is no such thing as a 100% completion rate within the course industry And that goes from training institutions like universities, community colleges, TAFEs here in Australia Industries Certification courses, anything like that.

00:43
They don't have a hundred percent completion rates, right down to your typical small business owner who's running a course to share their knowledge, which is more likely who I'm speaking to today So let me reassure you again straight off the top that there is no such thing as a 100% engagement rate. And don't put pressure on yourself to reach 100% An average course completion rate is somewhere between 10 to 20% for a self guided or self paced course And up to 40% for a cohort course. And what I mean by a cohort course is that you're running.

01:16
Your course in a specific time frame for a specific group of people With a community engagement part of it. So they're learning with you and they're learning with the other people that are participating in the course So if you're somewhere between that 10 and 40% You're actually doing an amazing job.

01:36
But obviously all of us would like to increase that. Because we created this course to share our knowledge with the world and help people improve their lives through whatever your course may be. And so you want as many people to get the benefits out of that as they can. And so you want to increase the engagement within your course.

01:56
So let me just quickly give you a little bit of my background so you understand why I'm here talking to you about this today.

02:03
So as I said at the beginning, my name's Corinne, I'm the founder of Marie Mae Design Co, which is where I bought together my two loves, creating courses and designing courses and my corporate training background. So I've actually was a corporate trainer for over 20 years before I started this business.

02:21
So a lot of my job was creating courses and training trainers, showing them how to create a good course and how to increase the engagement within.

02:30
Their courses, which there are a Number of ways to do. But a course roadmap. Sorry, a course roadmap is right up the top there With one of the best ways to actually do that So there are a number of reasons why People sign up for courses and then never finish them. And we've probably all been guilty of that. You've probably been guilty of that. I know I've been guilty of that.

02:54
And it's because they might not be able to fit it into their schedule or they've taken on too much, or they've signed up with the best of intentions that yes, I'll start that next week and next week never comes Or Life just happens. There could be any number of reasons why They someone buys a course and then doesn't engage in it or complete it.

03:15
The main reason though Is that when they sign up, even if they try and start the course and immediately after they've bought it Is that they're not sure what they're going to get out of it and how long it will take them to get. That benefit. Whatever the course results are. They're not sure how long it will take them to get there. Even if you've laid that out perfectly on your sales page Not everybody reads the sales page in full. They just read some of the benefits and think, oh yeah, I love that. I want to learn this.

03:49
Hit the button and sign me up So Even if they have read the page in full or they've done a too long don't read kind of thing and they've signed up Those few seconds between when they've hit the button and when they bought it, or when they've actually logged in.

04:05
They're no longer sure what they're getting out of it So The first way that you can actually Start increasing engagement within your courses is, is to have a roadmap be the very first thing they see when they log into their course So that's especially important for people that might have bought a course and it's a cohort course. So they're not starting that course straight away. It might be a couple of weeks before.

04:30
They actually start the course from when they've. They've bought it from you Or for a self paced course, it might be that yes, they've signed up, but they're not intending to start it straight away So having a course roadmap as that very first Step in their course, before You get into any of the lessons Increases your engagement because it helps them figure out.

04:52
How this is going to fit into their life And how their life is going to be better Once they've actually completed the courseAnd it does this in three ways So the first way it does this is by giving them a timeline Which helps them build it into their schedule So if you have a roadmap And your roadmap is really just simple, doesn't have to be complicated, it's just a one page roadmap which is an overview or an outline Of what's actually going to happen in the course.

05:22
So if you've got six modules, you'll have a six step roadmap. If you've got four modules, you'll have a four step roadmap. If you've got 10 modules, you'll have a 10 step roadmap So again, it's just an overview and an outline of how your course is actually going to run And what they, what they'll be learning along the way.

05:42
Which gives them a timeline That helps them build into their schedule. So they can say, okay, I can see that I'm actually learning these 10 things over 10 weeks, or I'm learning these six things over six weeks I'm learning these four things over four weeks, whatever, however long your course is So by giving that them their timeline, it helps them work out where in their life they can actually fit this in. Where in their schedule they can actually fit this in.

06:08
The second way a roadmap helps you increase course engagement is by clarifying the outcomes for them So they can immediately see from this roadmap, it's a constant reminder of the benefits of completing your course, the reason that they signed up for the course in the first place Whatever it is That they've signed up for, it's something that they want to improve about their life. Whether it's their business life or their personal life, there's a reason that they're signed up. And if they can see The Outcomes and the benefits of your course in a concise manner.

06:41
It will encourage them to remain engaged with the course and complete it And again, because you're just outlining your modules in your course roadmap That's what your benefits are. What they're going to learn in each module will then help them see Keep seeing in their mind that this is what they're going to get out of your course, this is how their life is going to improve Once they've completed this course And the third way a course roadmap helps increase your course engagement is it gives them milestones that they can measure along the way So not only is it showing them the timeline that they're going to complete it in and what the benefits are, what the outcomes are going to be for them.

07:22
It gives them a way that they can measure How this is helping them and how this is improving their life So that they can feel like, yes, that the time that they're spending is actually helping them, it's actually benefiting them. So like I said, it gives them the milestones that they can measure along the way. And a tip I've got for you for this is to have your roadmap at the beginning of your course. But at the beginning of each module as well, and highlighting the step in your roadmap that they're learning in that module so that they can see that, oh yes, I'm completing these things along the way, I'm actually learning something.

07:59
Which encourages them to keep taking the next step and keep finding time in their schedule to actually complete it. So hopefully this has given you. A quick overview of how you can use a roadmap to increase your course engagement. It's given you some ideas. I do have a course roadmap template pack for you as part of this summit, so please take advantage of that. And a quick reminder that the three ways that. Course roadmaps will help you increase your course engagement is one, by giving your students, attendees, clients, whatever you call them.

08:34
A timeline which helps them build that into their Schedule 2, it clarifies the outcomes for them so it reminds them of what the benefits of completing your course are, how it's going to help them and improve their life. And three, it gives them milestones that they can measure along the way so that they can see that, yes, they're actually achieving these things and their life is actually improving the way that they wanted it to.

08:57
Which is why they sign up to your course in the first place So if you'd like to find out more You can always find me at my website, which is mariemadesign.com or or come and hit me up on Instagram, which is Marie Mae Design company.

09:11
Thank you for your time today and happy course creating.