Why Knowing Your Audience is Important
Looking to create great eLearning content? First, you must understand the potential interest and who your course audience is. Therefore, you need to know who your learner is so you can create content they will find interesting. While it is important to create content you find interesting, you need to create content your audience will find interesting.
If you plan to sell your LMS course(s), knowing your audience is crucial to consistent sales. Having a clear picture of who you’re selling to, increases your ability to target interested customers who are more likely to purchase your course(s).
Who is Your Audience?
Defining who your course audience allows you to create content around what they want to learn or what they need to learn, depending on the circumstances. There are several factors including age, interests, and others which play into how you should construct your eLearning material.
Their Demographics
A common misconception when constructing online learning material is the assumption everyone learns the same. Not only do people of different ages learn differently, but children of the same age learn differently as well. The new age of technology and its ever-changing nature make it difficult for those in the boomer generation to keep up. Attention spans of children also differ greatly and can alter how much information they retain.
Audience Interests
Remember, don’t construct content you think people are interested in. Research what content your course audience is interested in. Is your course is geared toward pre-teens? Then, incorporate engaging content they’ll find interesting. Are you creating online courses for an auto mechanic certification course? Include gamification features those interested in automobiles would find engaging.
What is Their Skill Level?
Let’s say you are creating a course on beginner-level cooking. You wouldn’t include cooking recipes on complicated entrees like beef wellington. Instead, you would create a course around making spaghetti or baked chicken. If your course audience finds your content too difficult to understand or they do not feel challenged enough, they will become less engaged.
Required or Recreational Course?
Firstly, let’s go back to the auto mechanic example. When creating course content for something like an auto mechanic’s certification, you would need to include required portions, in accordance with company, government guidelines. Fun and engaging content in any course you create is important. However, focus on requirements for learners to pass.
Additionally, a recreational course in identifying species of birds could include more fun and entertaining aspects to make the course more fun for learners without having to worry about required time constraints.
What Goals You and Your Audience Have
What do you expect your course audience to know by the end of your course? Before creating any online content, you need to have a clear outcome defined for your learners. Moreover, establishing a goal at the beginning allows you to create better content around that goal.
Before learners begin your course, they should have a clear understanding of what they should know at the conclusion of your course.
Benefits from Knowing Your Course Audience
The main benefit of clearly defining your course audience is the ability to better target potential users and help maximize your ROI. Understand who your content is geared toward and target sponsored ads to people who will purchase your course. Engagement is instrumental in the success of online learning.
Knowing what users want out of your content enables you to create what they want to interact and engage with. If you are able to clearly define and build your LMS course audience, you can create more courses using the same concepts.
