Offering a course certificate is a great way to give your audience members more value through your educational opportunities. Through your courses, you’re teaching skills they can use. A certificate allows you to take it one step further. It demonstrates students' achievement for completing the course and offers you a wide range of benefits.
The following are 10 tips for ensuring your course certificate is a success.
10 Tips for Certificate Program Success
1. Start with an Existing Program
Beginning from scratch is challenging, so choose an existing course and add or update content. Pick one that’s been successful so you know it’s a good fit for your audience.
2. Put Yourself in Your Participants’ Shoes
When brainstorming ideas for certificates, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What type of qualification will help them? Focus on what they can DO once the course is complete. Define learning outcomes.
3. Evaluate Skills
At the end of the course, provide an examination where you can evaluate whether they’ve mastered the material.
4. Brush up on Your Target Market
Before you start working on your course, conduct research on your target market. See what’s trending. Have there been any changes? Update your ideal customer profile so you can create the most appropriate course for them.
5. Set an Entry Requirement
You may want to set an entry requirement. Give potential participants a quiz to assess their level and ensure they’re at the right starting point to succeed in the program.
6. Use an Online Learning Platform
Your course doesn’t need to be all online but there should be an online component. The best practice is to combine learning IRL with online tools.
7. Give Your Course a Clear Name
Choose a name for your course that makes the topic obvious. The name should also make it clear that this is a certificate program.
8. Make Your Course Long Enough, But Not Too Long
Your course should be long enough to delve deeply into the topic and teach something students can apply during and after your course. However, don’t make it too long. A few weeks is a good length. If you require more content, break it up into multiple courses.
9. Set Financial Goals and Price Accordingly
Decide how much you want to earn through your course certificate. Estimate the number of participants and set prices accordingly.
10. Keep in Touch
Create a plan for keeping in touch with students after the course to check on each person’s success. Make further help and support available to former students.
Want to learn more about how you can create your own certificate program? Head over here: