4 Ways to Engage Learners or Create Touch Points with Your Clients

originally published at www.clienteducationblog.wordpress.com

eLearning is on-demand self-paced learning and received more and more traction over the last 10 years. Learners like it because it consists of short learning segments that can be consumed anytime and anywhere. As with a lot of things, there are great examples of eLearning out there and not so great examples! I want to describe some of my positive experiences with this medium and what I personally found works for Client Education.

1. Compelling Layout

• The design and layout needs to be compelling. It needs to spike the learner’s interest just by looking at it. You want someone to click through the module, you want them to get excited and curious about a topic. So what are some elements you want to keep in mind?
• Text needs to be easy to read (think about your older client base!) so ensure that the font is big enough and ensure a nice color contrast to further increase readability
• Decide on a color palette and use it throughout your modules. Not only does this consistency help the learner, it helps your brand! Learners will recognize your offerings right away from the get go and if you already did a good job in building trust, the learner will be engaged from the start

2. Choices

• In one of my previous posts I talked about different Adult Education principles and we already discussed in detail that choices are important to the adult learner as every individual is at a different starting point when they come to your classroom or take one of your eLearning modules. (www.clienteducationblog.wordpress.com ‘Bridge The Gap Or Adults Are Relevancy Oriented, December 2014 ). So how do choices work in an eLearning module?
• The ‘next button’ needs to be available at all times. I know a number of my colleagues don’t believe in a ‘next button’ at all. In my case however, I look at educating clients and I can’t force them to work through a topic, I can only make suggestions. Therefore, the ‘next button’ is absolutely crucial
• You need to have an accessible menu, ideally one that is visible all the time (although it might not look that great!). It shows the learners what’s in store for them and they choose the areas that are of importance to them
• The module itself needs to have some branching so learners can make choices that will help them think through various situations. This will help increase retention

3. Media

• A module that only consists of videos or static elements won’t spike the learner’s interest at all; they will get rather bored and turn to something more exciting
• It is crucial to add various media elements to a module such as videos, animations and simulations that allow practicing a topic. In general, you want to follow the ‘tell, show, do’ approach to increase the possibility of clients learning most about a specific topic

4. Inclusion of Games

• There is an element of exploration to this medium which is why the inclusion of games in your eLearning module is so successful
• For example, learners have to work through different areas of one specific topic and after each segment, they collect a puzzle piece that they will need in the end of the module to complete the entire picture. It will motivate learners to work through all the different segments as they want to be able to complete the puzzle in the end! It sounds very simple, and it actually is, but is simply works!

So How Does This Help My Bottom Line?

There are of course many more elements you can list here, however I found the above the most important once to achieve good learning outcomes, and to help your customers be successful. We always need to keep our bottom line in mind and although the above reads as a list that might be more important to an instructional designer, it holds value to marketing and sales teams as well. For Marketing, it’s the recognition of the brand due to consistent design and layout. For the Sales team it is choices. Choices show learners what you have to offer, different products, services or options in general that will make them pick up the phone and call you. This is your chance to up- or cross-sell, it’s another touch point you can use to build more business.

What’s Next?

In my next post, I want to look at another engagement piece when it comes to Client Education: gamification.

What do you think about using eLearning for Client Education? How did it work for you? Let me know in the comment section below!

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