There’s a lot happening this September. Summer vacation is over, kids are back in school, and it’s time to get back to it. Everyone’s working hard … and here at Rainmaker HQ, we’re no exception. There’s lots to do before the end of the year and plenty of business goals still to hit — for both us and you, our clients.
We’ve just started a promotion where you can sign up for a free consultation on your landing page and get a second opinion on how to make it better. Sign up here before October 10:
https://rainmakerdigital.com/losing-landing-page/
And just as a reminder, we’re always available to discuss your content and digital marketing challenges — no cost, no obligation. Feel free to reach out whenever you need a hand.
Our development team has been busy the last few months. Our most recent enhancement was the addition of Google Pay and Apple Pay to the platform (more on that in a moment). We’re also rebuilding our podcast module for better performance, ease of use, reporting and integration with outside tools … stay tuned for that soon.
In the meantime, this State of the Platform will take you through our latest changes to the platform and give you some structure pointers on one of the most important types of content our clients create: courses.
Rainmaker Platform Updates 3.5.3 and 3.5.3.1
The biggest news from our last two updates is the addition of Google Pay and Apple Pay to Stripe for MemberPress. For more on how to use this functionality, please see the KB article “Enabling Google Pay and Apple Pay Through Stripe.”
We also added some Ninja Forms functionality for better third-party integration as well as updating our integration with Sumo to reflect its change to the BDOW branding.
For more information, please see the changelog.
How to Structure Your Next Course
Many of our Rainmaker Platform clients use courses to create value for their audience. Rainmaker Platform has two learning management systems that you can use: Rainmaker LMS and LearnDash. Rainmaker LMS was our initial solution for basic course needs, and still delivers over 50% of all courses on the platform. LearnDash is a newer, more feature-rich solution. But to use either you need to understand how a course should be structured.
Set Your Objective
To start building a course, you need to figure out your learning objective. This is your goal for the learner. Think about what information your users seek from you — what can you credibly talk about? What has value to them?
As you’re figuring out what you want to teach, be careful not to make it too broad or too narrow. If it’s too broad, there’s no reason to take the course — the information will be readily available elsewhere and your students will get bored. If it’s too narrow, you may not have enough audience to make the course worth it. Most people will err on the side of too broad, not too narrow. Use the SMART acronym to check your idea for viability (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound).
Your audience will decide the breadth of your course. Take rare coins as an example: if your audience is the general public, “common types of rare coins” may be a good topic for my course. However, if my audience is collectors, that theme is far too broad. It won’t get engagement. You have to go narrower, like “cleaning methods for PCGS Good-rated coins” or “how to find Carson City Morgan dollar coins in the wild,” or your audience will tune out.
Once you’ve decided the overall course objective — what you want them to learn — you need to break it down into bite-size chunks and figure out how to measure success, which may include additions like quizzes and questions. Let’s take a look at the overall structure.
Course Structure in Rainmaker LMS and LearnDash
There are three major components of any course. These have slightly different names in Rainmaker LMS and LearnDash, but in either one, they make up the building blocks you need for a viable course. Follow these guidelines for an effective course.
Subjects
Rainmaker LMS: Module
LearnDash: Lesson
Subjects should be manageable segments, able to be covered in a single short session (think 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the scope of the course).
How should you break your course down into subjects? Think of the old “how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” example. If you’re starting from scratch with someone who knows nothing, you have to articulate every step and break that overall “course” into subjects like “finding ingredients,” “assembling the sandwich,” etc. Each “set” of actions would be a subject.
Or maybe “basic skills of soccer/football” — each skill would be its own subject, like passing, dribbling and shooting.
These big building blocks will include smaller pieces as well; don’t select subjects that are too small.
Topics
Rainmaker LMS: Lesson
LearnDash: Topic
Topics are individual, specific pieces of information you want your audience to understand. Aim for about 5-15 minutes total for each of these, depending on the scope of your course.
Topics should break the subjects down into discrete skills or pieces of data. For example, in a baking bread from scratch course, the subject might be “leavening,” and topics might include “sourdough,” “yeast,” and “chemical rising agents (baking soda/powder).” Or in our previous example of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you might have “peanut butter,” “jelly” and “bread” under the “finding ingredients” subject.
Quizzes
Rainmaker LMS: Quiz
LearnDash: Quiz
A quiz tests the course taker on the knowledge they’re meant to have learned from the course. Quizzes can either test a small segment of knowledge or the entire course.
For each subject and topic, write down a few key takeaways you want people to remember, usually 5-15. Set these aside and use them to create your quiz. Focus on your course objective: what should they be able to do/understand when they leave? That information should be tested.
Use Strong Structure to Create Great Courses
Whether your courses are in Rainmaker LMS or LearnDash, these are the elements you need to understand. Use these to create content your audience will find valuable. And if you’ve built courses in Rainmaker LMS and want to transfer to LearnDash, you can use these as a template for how each piece transfers over … or ask us for help. We’re here to give you a hand with whatever you need. Just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services