Widely used in eLearning and corporate training, know more about what it is and how gamification can improve your online course.

Understand what is the gamification

Games stimulate and entertain people for hundreds of years, so it is no wonder that its use in the education process show good results.

Gamification is to use game techniques and strategies for other purpose beyond entertainment.

According to Karl Kapp, expert in gamification applied to education and learning and professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, “gamification is the application of game mechanical in a different environment, such as the corporate world.”

Quite in vogue, its main purpose is attract attention and increase user engagement by presenting challenges and offering rewards.

According to an estimate by Gartner, by 2020, 70% of the largest companies in the world will have at least one application that uses this concept, making it become something fundamental to the business environment.

It is easy to understand these numbers when we think about the power that the game has to make tasks something fun to do.

After all, in games the player always has a mission to accomplish, and phases that must pass to reach his goal.

Applying this logic to the educational and professional environment, you can see how to use gamification to transform routine activities into something more interesting, making the person feel inclined to solve their challenges.

Bringing the game dynamics to reality instigates the individual, increases their engagement, productivity, focus and determination.

According to experts, this happens because games supply other desires inherent to human beings, such as the need for competition, instant feedback, the ability to evolve quickly, search for tangible rewards and prizes.

That’s why the gamification is so efficient, more than a fun challenge, it makes people feel excited to fulfill certain task and achieve results.

Advantages of gamification to online education

To begin, gamification is the answer to the greatest evil that reaches the current education: lack of student interest.

In a scenario where traditional education seems not to work with connected minds accustomed to receiving information in an agile and dynamic way, the use of technology in education has been widely debated.

While to many teachers to use technology in education is something new, for a generation that grew up with access to computers and internet, is completely natural.

A research made by Spil Games shows that 1.2 billion people around the world play some kind of game; of these, about 700 million people play online. This represents 44% of the online population.

What can be concluded is that the technology is a familiar language, the logic of the games is easily understood and well accepted.

A good example is the Minecraft, game in which players must find resources, build structures and plant to survive.

Thanks to its great success among children, teenagers and educators, was launched MinecraftEDU, special version which is already used by nearly thousand schools in over 40 countries.

Use ready games, however, it’s not the only way teachers can follow, the important thing is understand how games attract people and use their techniques to teach.

Missions and challenges, for example, act as fuel for learning, capturing student attention and arousing their interest to participate and interact.

– 5 tips to attract students

In the educational context, especially distance learning, investing in gamification can bring many benefits to the student and even better results for his learning.

Check out some of the main advantages of using this strategy.

Active learning

Active learning is an educational approach that aims to encourage student participation and stimulate its commitment to the learning process.

With gamification the student interacts with the content and takes the challenge to win something, turning into the protagonist of his own education.

Through quick feedback, he correct his actions, learn faster and with pleasure.

Goal

The dynamics of the game is to give a direction that the player must follow to reach his goal.

Thus, in the educational context, the student sees clearly the steps that must meet, facing it as challenge and not like an obligation and routine.

It is important not to create obstacles that exceed their capabilities, but instead test to its limits, making the victory even more rewarding.

Engagement

The system challenges generated by gamification works usually through the accumulation of points, followed by a prize to every phase beat.

This process keeps the student motivated, interested to continue moving forward in search of the best result.

The sense of competition and evolution, as we said earlier, is inherent in the human being and stimulates their ability and willingness to go further.

How apply gamification in eLearning

When we talk about creating games, we often think about high investment values and complex development processes, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

There are several ways to use gamification in your online course using simple and easy to implement ideas. Check some below.

– How to set an online course

Score

Virtually everybody have received and solve some task based on a scoring and evolution system. Even the school tests work that way.

But if taking a test is seen as something bad and boring, the gamification came to make this process more interesting.

Create differentiated activities for your course and assign points to each. May be quizzes, tests, hit a percentage of questions in a challenge, anything that has a goal and a reward for those who comply.

Rewards

Everyone likes to feel rewarded for their efforts and see tangible proof that achieved its goal.

Offer rewards acts as a great incentive for your students to strive and evolve faster.  

Prizes can be varied and depending on what stage of the challenge has been complete. You can give greater rewards as a free module of your course or some extra study material or even stimulate competition between students.

Competition

Healthy competition is normal in games dynamic and serves to encourage the individual to overcome his limits.

Create a competition system in distance education is something few think is possible, but it is actually easier than you think.

You may provide a reward for the first five students who meet certain task, for example. Or offer a prize to anyone who obtains the highest score in an activity. The possibilities are endless, just use your creativity.

Storytelling

The storytelling is very attached to gamification concept, because is nothing more than telling a story to facilitate understanding of something.

Method easy to apply for online courses, instead of just creating challenges separately, you can create a story, linking all stages in an engaging and provoking way.

Just as in games, content would be explained by a character, for example, and each stage of the game comes to learning a specific topic, which aims to achieve victory, beat the boss and get a reward.  

The gamification through storytelling gives meaning and direction to your courses and makes it a lot more fun.

Gamification in Corporate Training

The gamification is no longer new in the corporate environment, where this strategy is increasingly used to train and empower employees.

– Elearning and Corporate Training

According to Flora Alves, founding partner of SG consultancy specializing in corporate learning, gamification in companies is focused on “Helping businesses to transfer learning to practice.”

The expert also points out that the technique can be employed in any industry and without restriction of age and education level.

The level of knowledge and skills required in business today is quite high, and few people are able to meet all the requirements requested.

Aware of this reality, business owners and managers use gamification to develop skills related to business strategy, resource allocation, conflict resolution, among others.

– Corporate Education in companies

“In a call center company, was a reduction of 55% in the consumer second call after training with gamification,” said Kapp, on a case study in which he participated.

The Gerdau Group used gamification to train their employees about safety.

To do this, one of the company’s units use virtual reality glasses and knowledge games to replace the theoretical training.

Another example of success, Deloitte Leadership Academy, a multinational business consulting, exchanged formal training for company executives and clients for gamification.

If before the course had poor adherence and completion, after this change was an increase of 47% among users returning to the site to do new tasks.

Among the benefits for the use of gamification in corporate training, we highlight:

• Healthy Competition;
• Winning feeling;
• Performance measurement.

There are numerous ways to use gamification in companies such as points programs, challenges, achievements medals and badges, scores of leaders, etc.

According to a report by global research company Markets and Markets, the estimate is that this year the gamification becomes a more than $ 5 billion market worldwide.

Gamification, Technology and eLearning

Undoubtedly the increasing access to technology and digital media had contributed to this popularization of gamification.

It also made easier to apply, as it was formerly need a lot manual work to create a scoring system, for example, today we have computers and softwares that make it in a quick and organized manner.

In the context of distance education, where technology has always been present, it is even easier use gamification as a differential to attract students.

In addition, the elearning market is a constantly changing environment and therefore, with the right tools, you can innovate and stay ahead of the competition.

Complete eLearning platform (LMS), the Coursify.me allows you to use several features to enhance your course.

– Content for online courses

By integrating with different platforms such as Dropbox, Youtube and Vimeo, you can upload content and differentiated materials to your online school page.

– Why use Vimeo to create great videos

This allows you create a complete course, which can be further divided into modules and lessons.

Present in more than sixty countries, Coursify.me is the perfect solution for those who want to create, sell and promote online courses.

Visit our website, test the platform, and start profiting by doing what you like without paying anything for it.

The post Gamification: what is and how to use in your online course appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Deliver content to the consumer is the basis of Inbound Marketing, unlike traditional marketing, it is focused on creating a relationship with the customer.

How to get students with free online courses and Inbound Marketing

Capturing students is a challenge to every professional who is starting to sell online courses.

– Learn how to sell online courses

There are several forms of dissemination and ways to communicate with your target audience, but for results, you need to know and study different marketing strategies.

– Digital Marketing and SEO

Currently, there are two ways to prospect new clients: passively, through inbound marketing, and actively, with outbound marketing.

As mentioned earlier, Inbound Marketing is to make the customer come to you, luring him with content of interest. Here some examples of how this can be done:

• blog posts;
• free online courses;
• webinars;
• eBooks, among others.

Outbound Marketing focuses on a direct approach, which is to identify your audience, go to them and offer your product. Some Outbound approaches are:

• billboards;
• banners on websites;
• television and radio advertisements;
• contact by phone, among others.

To get a better sense of other differences between the strategies, see the following diagram.

Source: BioStrata

In summary, while with inbound you create mechanisms to attract potential customers, with outbound you identify who has potential to become a client and makes an approach.

Both strategies have value, but you must remember that the Outbound Marketing uses means that require greater investment and therefore are not as accessible to a beginner.

Inbound Marketing, on another hand, is accessible to all, as the largest investment required is time and knowledge.

Direct result of the consumer habits change brought by the Internet, the also called Attraction Marketing is the market response to an increasingly digital society.

By offering the consumer something in which he has interest, such as free online courses, you attract it to your business and earn the opportunity to show your product/service.

From there, it is easier to present your solutions and turn them into customers and even promoters of your brand.

Advantages of Inbound Marketing to promote and sell online courses

Inbound Marketing is, above all, a friendly approach. Focusing on giving something of value, before asking anything, it seeks to approach and create a relationship with the customer.

This strategy does not interrupt the consumer but delivers a message and waits for him go to those who created.

Balanced way to attract potential customers, Inbound search lasting results, which generates many benefits for your business, be it big or small, B2B or B2C.

Method that has everything it takes to build a strong brand and increase sales, check out some of its advantages.

Qualified audience

When it comes to relevant content production, we mean just that: relevant content for your target audience.

This means that if you are launching a course on English Literature, for example, and create posts on the topic, people who reach your blog have done a search on the subject, ie, have every interest in what you have to say.

These people are considered leads with high potential for conversion because they are searching for what you offer.

According to Content Trends 2017, companies that adopt content marketing reach 2.2 times more visits compared to those that don’t.

Proving what we mean by qualified audience, the same survey showed that these companies also generate 3.2 times more leads than those that do not apply similar strategy.

Confidence and Credibility

There is a big difference between offering and pushing a product/service, especially when it comes to consumer perception.

For example, if you offer it free online courses with quality content despite you not be paying anything for it, plus the confidence that it generates, it is normal that the customer feel grateful and indebted to you.

This is a first major step in building a relationship of partnership with its audience, and very important for the sustainability of your business.

From this successful interaction, even if the customer is not ready to make a purchase, you ensure a potential lead, and continues to work yours relationship by delivering other types of content.

This is how you will gain more credibility and authority to your customers that also become promoters of your brand.

Short sales cycle

Sales cycle is the time taken from initial customer contact to closing the sale, considering all stages of the journey.

– Tips do make a Customer Journey Map

This is a very important aspect to consider when adopting a marketing strategy, because the higher the cycle, more costly it becomes.

According to Martech 2017 survey, 50.4% of technology companies that adopt Inbound Marketing have a sales cycle that lasts less than 30 days. Only 29.5% of those who use Outbound methods have this performance.

This is due to relevant and personalized content delivered to the lead, which accelerates their movement by the sales funnel to the decision making.

A shorter sales cycle is a great advantage for those who have little capital investment and need to attract new customers faster.

Reduced costs

Inbound means provide content to the consumer and, therefore, initially you only need internet and dedication.

Offer free online courses, for example, is a way to use inbound to promote and sell your course with little investing.

After all, what cost to you? Research time, preparation of the material and lodging in an online platform like Coursify.me. Only.

The same is true when writing articles for a blog, participate in webinars, podcasts, update your social networks, etc. Means for content production are available to all, and the vast majority, is free.

It is not necessary invest large sums in ads in newspapers and TV, as in outbound marketing, which generates a greater economy of resources for you to invest in more assertive and focused strategies.

Real time measurement results

Successful marketing is always results oriented, and for that we need to draw metrics to monitor the effectiveness of the implemented actions.

– How monitoring content can help your digital marketing strategy

According to HubSpot, 72% of organizations that calculate the return on investment say that their marketing strategy is effective.

With most of the actions of Inbound being held in the virtual world, there are several tools that enable the measurement of results.

In the case of blogs, for example, there is the Google Analytics, when it comes to social networks, the platform itself usually keep charts with access data, YouTube shows the number of views, and so on.

Monitor carefully the data from each of your strategies, and do not be afraid to try other approaches if the results are not going as expected.

Free online courses: how to use it in your marketing strategy

We already hit this button, but to prove that offer free online courses works, we brought a successful case of our own platform.

Rachelle-Ann Louear is a professional that has been building businesses for over eight years and is very passionate about assisting women to use their natural giftings to advance their careers or businesses.

https://unlock-the-you-within.coursify.me/

To disclose her course she released a first free module, and the results could not be better.

With the audience conquered, soon Raquel released a second lesson, which became a bestseller.

And this is not our only case, so trust us, free online courses as strategy to attract students work out!

Free online courses as complement to classroom lessons

Another idea we witnessed here that works, is the case of classroom teachers who decided to use the Coursify.me to host support materials for their students.

The concept is simple: provide content that could serve as an aid to study at home.

With this, the teacher has gained more credibility and recognition, and soon his students began to disclose its course to others.

The success was so great that the business quickly climbed to complete online video lessons, marketed by varying values.

Note that all started slowly with the teacher using material that he already owned and disclosing for whom it was his client.

Currently, much of the disclosure statement is made by the students themselves and the business continues to grow.

Free online courses in Coursify.me

The conclusion we reached is that the buying habits are changing and purchase products and services online grows in preference between the current consumer.

In this scenario, the great advantage of inbound marketing is that it allows creativity to attract consumer attention and differentiate a brand from others.

SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media are the three pillars of Inbound and make it clear that its focus is the delivery of content and creating a relationship with the customer.  

Complete elearning platform (LMS), the Coursify.me is optimized for SEO and is fully integrated with social networks.

The software also allows you to create free online courses without you have to pay anything for it.

The Coursify.me is the ideal solution for those who want to create, sell and publish courses on the Internet, investing only time and effort to start their own business.

Visit our website,  test the platform and realize how easy it is to profit working with what you love.

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