Something Changes When You Gamify and Shoot for a Goal

You've probably heard how important it is to set goals and write them down.  I was just listening to an online presentation and the speaker said he wrote down his epic goal on an index card.  Then he taped it to his bathroom mirror and reviewed it daily as he brushed his teeth.

The same is true with your online programs.  If you offer an online program or some sort of course people take to learn something, giving your learners a goal to shoot for is critical.  It motivates a lot of them to stick with it to the finish line.

My team and I build a lot of membership sites and online courses.  Many of our business owner customers are successful at selling their programs and getting people started.  A lot of them are challenged when it comes to having learners finish.  This is a big problem because people that finish your programs are now ready to buy the next thing and are the ones most likely to refer you to their circle of contacts.

So setting that goal is key.

Now many people buy your program because they need to solve a problem you can teach them to solve.  Let's take something simple.  I want to develop a killer tennis serve.  You can deliver a set of lessons that gets them going.  Those lessons can include coaching videos, group question and answer sessions and some time with you or your coaching team members.  What makes a big difference is offering the learner something really concrete for finishing up a set of lessons.  You can offer them a certificate.  It can be a badge.  It can be listing their name and picture in a place where others in the program can see. You can include a point system for participating in a discussion forum.  There are lots of ways to do this.

It almost sounds stupid, but these gamification features motivate a lot of people regardless of their makeup.

Think about how getting through college works.  You are given a course of study that includes taking a series of classes.  If your experience was anything like mine was, a lot of the classes were really useful.  They were courses I knew would help me "in real life."  Others were...not so good.  You had to ask yourself, "When am I ever going to need this?"  Well you needed it to get your degree you so you put up with it.

In your online program, you have the same thing going on.  There are some things that don't make sense to your students.  They may feel like an unimportant topic or a tangent to them.  But if you have the learner signed up to get through the entire package by setting up a goal for them (and notice I'm saying you set for them and not the one they set for themselves), you change it up a bit.  They buy into your way of doing things  and they tend to stick with it.

If you add features to your program that reference that goal throughout your program, you have something that adds to your program's stickiness keeping learners engaged and moving  through it.  That is what you want...and what they want too.

Hope this helps!!