How to Drive Learner Engagement?

Online academies and courses require a lot of effort and energy to maintain and to create an effective course and a learning path for the employees. A training course can only be as good as it’s adoption rate and hence you need to increase the learner engagement so that they get involved in the course.

It is a common challenge that the learners do not have enough time to engage themselves with courses and thus the various aspects of e-Learning like microlearning and personalization help to improve a particular individual and there are various ways to improve learner engagement like;

1. Utilize Email marketing

Email Marketing was always the most valuable tool for a marketer and it continues to be so. It can be used to increase learner engagement and initiate conversations. You can follow the below frameworks for an email campaign ;

A. Divide your audience into different segments

Despite the training being organisation-wide or for everyone, you should divide your audience and make different emails for different divisions of the organization.

Like the salespeople will care for the course differently than the accounting people and you need to make them both understand that the course is important for both of them. Creating Different emails for them can enable you to highlight the different propositions to the various audiences and encourage them so that they can take the training positively.

B. Don’t stick to a bland Subject Line

Always give your emails a catchy Subject line. A catchy subject line ensures that the receiver opens the email. You can insert some humour or get creative with the body to make them stand out in your inbox.

C. Make your emails Catchy

No matter what your email might consist of, a simple banner, text or whatever be it, always try to make the email catchy. You can add a button which can link to your course and thus you can increase your learner engagement for a course.

2. Host competitions

Creating a friendly competition based on your training materials is a great way to increase the interest and drive learner engagement. It can be used on social media frequently and various marketers use this tactic to improve the learner activity.

You can have a physical prize or a recognition to motivate the learners. The most common methods for such competitions are :

• The highest score for a particular course
• The total number of courses completed in one year or quarter
• Prizes for the tangible performance which can be a result of a specific training

3. Aspects of social media learning

Social media and it’s a continuous stream of likes comments and shares are very crucial for marketing online courses. Learners of all ages have active online profiles across various social media platforms. When it comes to learning and online course marketing, online activity is very crucial.

Surveys and reports have collected data that today’s workforce prefers to belong to numerous communities and forums. They value the ability to collaborate, ask questions and share experiences via forums or sharing platforms. This shows that social media and social learning have a strong place in today’s learning world. Here are a few ways in which you can utilise social media to drive up your learner engagement.

A. Forums and Community Mixers

Forums are a great place for students and educators to mix and discuss several threads about courses, doubts, questions or more. Educators can even take up casual conversation threads to build bonds with their learners. Gamification is also a great learning tool which can be utilised via forum threads. Create small games where course knowledge needs to be applied and leak it over the forum to increase learner engagement. Adding rewards to the games also adds extra motivation for learners.

B. Organise mixers with successful peers

Learners are particularly motivated by stories of success and words from leaders in the field of their interest. You can organise mixers with small and medium enterprise leaders to inspire your learners and increase their drive for gaining success. Students may gain knowledge about various aspects by mixing with subject matter experts as well.

C. Encourage safe threads of discussion

Social media and learning communities need to be a safe space for learners to become an effective tool. If forum threads and other community spaces are not a safe place for knowledge sharing then most learners will not engage with their peers over that platform.

Ensure safety and also keep introducing games and specific content to stimulate the discussions that occur within the forum or community space. Keep sharing quality content that learners create to encourage friendly competition and the openness required for discussion over such platforms.

The above-mentioned ways and methods are some of the best ways to drive learner engagement and help them focus more on the courses and it will help you increase the learner engagement value.