How to Design and Launch an Online Course Training for Remote Teams

As more companies embrace remote and hybrid teams, keeping everyone up-to-date with a brand’s best practices is becoming increasingly challenging. Sure, companies have gained access to global talents, but they must find creative ways of training these talents to make them resourceful.

That’s where online courses come into the picture.

A well-designed online course training can help remote teams understand what’s expected of them at any company. However, with less than 15% of attendees completing online courses, you’ll need to be strategic if you want students to stick around and come out of the course with valuable skills.

This article will show you how exactly to pull that off.

5 Steps to Plan and Launch a Successful Online Training Course for Remote Teams

Here is a 5-step guide on how to launch an online course for remote teams.

1. Define your course objectives

The first step in creating and launching a successful online course is mapping out the objective or goal of the course. You’ll need to get clear and specific answers to several questions:

What do you hope to achieve with the online learning class?

What do you want your remote teams to get from the online course?

What’s the ideal outcome after the student has completed the online course?

The insights from these questions will set the tone for everything else. For example, they’ll make it easier to know what needs to be covered in the online course. This eliminates the risk of building a course that does not address the underlying issues that need to be addressed.

Understanding the objective also makes it easier to know what approach the course will take.

For example, let’s say the goal is to help your remote teams learn how to use a particular platform essential to your processes/operations. In such a case, your course will need to combine a lot of visual content with screen sharing and slides to ensure the students can follow along.

Speaking of students, you may also want to do additional research into your audience. You may need to find out their level of competence regarding the specific online course topic in question. This helps you know where to start and how technical you can get with the course.

For example, you’ll need to start with the basics if they're absolute beginners. On the other hand, if they already have some knowledge of the topic, you can go directly into the specific technical issues you want to address.

2. Choose the right format and tools

An online course can take several formats. You could have a video, audio, and text-based online course. Most courses combine different formats to keep their audiences engaged.

However, the degree to which you use a particular format will depend heavily on the topic and your target audience or potential students.

Here are some considerations to keep in mind:

• Video – Videos are super interactive, so they’re ideal when student engagement is key. You can use this format in different ways. For example, you could do slide presentations while taking students through a particular lesson. Another idea is to use screen sharing when showing students how to do something.
• Audio – Audio courses are very similar to podcasts. You’re essentially communicating through audio, which makes the format ideal for students who are on the go.
• Text-based – These will mostly feature text-based content with some infographics like charts and graphs. Think of an ebook, for example. The format is a great choice for simple courses that do not require a lot of visuals or presentations. They can even be presented via email, i.e., an email course.

The course format you settle for will determine the platform you use to create your online course. The best part is that popular online course builders like Thinkific or Teachable let users combine different formats when building their online courses.

However, you must also consider other factors like pricing and ease of use. Aim for a platform that provides all the tools you need to create an engaging online course. The platform should be easy to use when building your course content. It must also help you create a simple website where users will take the course.

3. Develop course content

Once you’ve figured out your course objectives, target audience, and correct format, the next step is creating the course.

But don’t just create one massive course content. This approach will likely fail to engage your students.

We recommend breaking down your course into modules. So, look at all the items you need to cover and split them into several modules. You can then focus on creating content for each module.

You may also want to include a quiz at the end of each module to test your student's mastery of the topic.

This approach makes the course easier for students to digest. It can also help you pinpoint specific topics/modules that students struggle with.

How you approach the content is also vital. Remember, very few students complete online courses. This may not be an issue if you were just a course creator running an online course business. However, since you’re creating the course for remote teams, your ability to help them master the topic will impact how they perform at their jobs.

Therefore, make sure the content is engaging and insightful. We recommend combining different content formats, i.e., visuals and text, to keep the students engaged. Also, avoid making the lessons too long. Having several short lessons under each module may be better to keep your students hooked.

4. Launch and promote your course

Your online course is finally ready, so it's time to think about launch strategies. But before proceeding with a full launch, we recommend opening the course for a few individuals first. These initial students will act as your beta testers (beta students).

The idea is to get initial feedback on the course and what needs tweaking. Therefore, it might be a good idea to have individuals already familiar with the subject take the course.

Let them share their feedback and then adjust the lessons accordingly. Once that’s done, launch the online course to everyone else.

Normally, course creators often promote their online courses through various channels, such as social media ads and email marketing.

Your approach will need to be slightly different since you’re targeting remote teams and not the mass population.

So, to ensure fast adoption of the course, you must promote it across all your employee platforms. For example, you can include it in onboarding materials for new remote employees. Let them know what the course is about and why it’s important that they complete it.

To enhance accessibility to tailored training materials, incorporate links, or QR codes to relevant courses into your digital business cards. Consider using a platform like Uniqode, which offers various customization options for creating personalized digital cards. Include these cards in onboarding packages and share them in email signatures to ensure employees have easy access to the training resources they require.

5. Evaluate and improve

Once your online course is out there, keep a close eye on its performance. You can approach this in several ways.

First, look at the performance metrics shared by your online course platforms. Kajabi, for example, lets online course creators see their churn rate, subscriptions, and student progress.

These analytics are really essential as they tell you where most of the students might be dropping off. This allows you to go back and analyze the course to make the necessary adjustments and optimize the completion rate.

Besides the analytics from the online course marketplace, it’s also advisable to get first-hand data from the students themselves. Part of this data will come from the quizzes you might have included at the end of each module.

For example, you can analyze students’ performance at the end of each module to determine which modules are problematic for them. You can then devise potential solutions, such as creating a follow-up lesson or reworking the module.

Additionally, run a survey at the end of the course to collect feedback from the students. This survey should ask several questions, including whether the student achieved their goal and their learning experience.

The analytics from your course builder and the qualitative data from the surveys should give you enough insights to see where your online course performs exceptionally and where it needs improvement.

Conclusion

Continuous training is necessary to keep remote teams aligned. This article looked at how you can design and launch an online course successfully.

You must start by outlining your course’s objectives. This will give you a clear picture of what needs to be covered and the teaching approach to adopt.

Next, determine the ideal course format to help you achieve the unique objectives identified in the first step. From there, you’ll need to create the course content on your preferred online course builder platform.

Once that’s done, launch the course and promote it through email and other internal platforms. Finally, evaluate your online course performance and make the necessary adjustments.

Follow this framework, and your remote teams will be thankful for your online course.