In this article, we’ll share six examples of successful online courses and membership sites that use LearnDash. You’ll get an inside look at how these sites use LearnDash, Memberium and other WordPress plugins together to run a successful course or membership site.
You’ll get advice from other business owners about the important lessons they’ve learned along the way from launching their own course. So, by the time you’re done reading, you’ll hopefully be able to apply some of the same ideas, lessons, and strategies to your own course or membership site.
What’s LearnDash?
LearnDash is a learning management (LMS) plugin for WordPress that allows online course creators to create, and manage online courses. An LMS helps manage the learning process inside of your website.
There’s a lot of things that LearnDash allows you to do with your membership site or online course. You can create individual courses with lessons and topics grouped inside of them in a certain order. You can also include multiple choice quizzes or assignments that people can submit.
You can force students go through the lessons or courses in a certain order and control their lesson progression. Meaning they have to complete the lessons sequentially or complete the courses in a specific order before moving on to the next step. Students can track their progress by seeing where they last left off in their training.
There’s also a lot of things you can do to gamify your site’s learning experience, such as awarding points to students for completing certain steps or awarding certificates once a course or series of courses is completed. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what LearnDash allows you to do.
When you’re using Memberium with Learndash, Memberium gives you the ability to apply an Infusionsoft tag when someone completes a LearnDash Course, lesson, topic, quiz or assignment. This lets you do a lot in terms of automating your site and tracking your students’ progress.
Throughout these six case studies, we’ll show you more about what LearnDash allows you to do and how you can take advantage of it for your business.
6 Examples of LearnDash Courses
#1: Infusionsoft’s (now Keap) Employee and Customer Training Site
Infusionsoft (now referred to as “Keap”) is an all-in-one email marketing and sales platform for small businesses. They needed a way to effectively train their internal employees and train customers on how to better learn how to use Infusionsoft.
Throughout this video, Infusionsoft’s former Director of Customer Experience, Heath Smythe, set up two training sites powered by LearnDash and Memberium that allowed Infusionsoft to more efficiently train their employees and train their customers on how to use their software.
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Set up a tailored progression system for employees.
Setting up a tailored progression system for employees allows team members to log in and consume content that’s relevant to their roles in the company. In this way, you’re able to set up a tailored, dynamic learning path with LearnDash.
Prerequisites let you build accountability into your online courses.
LearnDash’s prerequisites feature allows you to build accountability into your online courses. So, if customers or employees want to access a particular course, they’ll need to complete the course prerequisites first. Members can also see where they last left off with LearnDash’ progression tracking and their members dashboard.
Achievements and gamification keep learners engaged.
Achievement badges give a visual overview of course progress. Gamification elements keep learners engaged with the online course. You can even tie it up with rewards or points to take things to the next level.
Always start simple!
It’s easy to get carried away with bells and whistles but first you need to set up the things that deliver true value to your learners. In other words, start with what’s absolutely necessary and add features and functionality to your site as you grow.
#2: $1 Million LearnDash Case Study With WP Elevation & Troy Dean
WP Elevation is an online business coaching program for WordPress consultants founded by Troy Dean. The website features an online course that teaches WordPress freelancers how to attract better clients, create consistent income and work smarter.
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Drip-feed content to reduce overwhelm.
Releasing your online course and training as a structured, drip-feed course improves user experience and reduces overwhelm.
Build a sense of community.
Often times, people feel isolated when they take online courses. Creating a forum lets you build a sense of community, keeps learners engaged with the course and improves completion rates. Integrating LearnDash with BuddyBoss and BuddyPress allows you to create a social experience for your students which keeps them engaged by letting them know what other members are up to and what badges they’re unlocking.
Identify opportunities to repurpose content.
If you’ve recorded webinars or other live training, consider including it as “bonus” content inside of your membership site. This way, if someone completes your course well before the next lesson is scheduled to release, you can offer repurposed content like this as bonus course material. This allows you to add more value and keep them engaged with your program as they’re waiting for the next steps to be released.
#3: Sane Crypto – A Successful Online Course Launched Without a Blog, Email List, Team or Huge Ad Budget…
In this video, serial entrepreneur and veteran finance expert, Kim Snider shares how she started her membership site Sane Crypto, and pre-sold her program all before she ever created a single piece of content for her members.
Sane Crypto is a membership site that gives baby boomers access to an online course that teaches them how to develop a strategy for investing in cryptocurrency with the goal of saving more for retirement.
She also shows how she built her membership site with Memberium for ActiveCampaign in just under 2 hours (this doesn’t include the time it took to create all the course content). People always think you need to spend a ton of time, money and effort in releasing the first version of their membership site. The truth is it doesn’t need to be that complicated!
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Adopt the reverse funnel concept.
Spend some time figuring out who your target audience is, identifying their pain points and developing your unique messaging (a hook) that would best resonate with them first before you build your site or do anything. Then, pre-sell access to your membership program or online course first before you build it.
Take the MVP approach.
In the beginning, focus on creating a minimum viable version of your online course so you can prove your concept will work. Instead of trying to implement lots of bells and whistles, start small and work your way up. In simple words: don’t invest too much time building the first version. Remember, it’s an iterative process – you’re always trying to make it better.
#4: LearnDash Course That Helps 10,000+ Dads Lose Weight & Lead Healthier Lives
The Fit Father Project currently has over 10,000+ members and was founded by Dr. Anthony Balduzzi, a men’s health expert who’s dedicated his entire life to helping busy fathers lose weight and build muscle to stay healthy for their families.
In this video, Dr. Balduzzi gives a firsthand look at the Fit Father Project members area. He shows us how it uses Memberium, LearnDash, Infusionsoft, BuddyPress and other WordPress plugins to create what he thinks is ‘hands down, the best membership site in the health space that’s currently on the internet.’
Dr. Balduzzi shares his inspirational story of why he decided to start the Fit Father Project, along with some of the most important things he’s learned along the way as his membership site and digital marketing efforts have evolved over the years.
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Offer high-quality lead magnets to generate interest.
Writing long-form content will help you generate organic traffic from Google. Offering visitors high-quality articles, videos, or additional resources (like checklists) is a great way to generate interest and generate leads for your membership site. You might even consider offering prospective students a mini version of your main course to give them a feel for what to expect.
Build accountability into your program.
Sending automated emails to learners based on their activity (or inactivity) allows you to build accountability into your membership program. Even if your content is great, learning can get boring at times and takes a lot of discipline for someone to complete a course on their own.
By sending out reminders to complete their training, you’re essentially taking responsibility and helping students progress through your course or training program. This helps you in the long run because if a majority of your students aren’t completing the first course they buy from you, they probably aren’t going to buy any of your other products after that.
Create a course roadmap.
Create a course roadmap to help prospective students get an idea of what to expect. This creates psychological security for people by letting them know what you’ll be covering in your course and persuades them to act on your conversion goal.
Understand your customer avatar.
Spend some time identifying and understanding your customer avatar because your goal is to deliver value to them. Before you create your course, develop an understanding of your target audience and their pain points and figure out how you’ll solve them.
#5: See How This Couple Used LearnDash to Help 100,000+ Students Prepare Themselves For Marriage
Since launching, their membership site has helped over 100,000 students prepare themselves for love and marriage. They take a unique approach to creating an authentic, close-knit online community that keeps their members highly engaged. In this video, you’ll get the inside story of how they launched their site and what it took to make their membership site so successful.
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Add call to actions (CTAs) to video lessons.
Adding CTAs to video lessons is a great way to encourage students to take action. For example, you might ask your students to share their thoughts by leaving a comment under lecture video. This helps build proof and motivates new students to watch the video lesson.
Focus on constant engagement.
People join membership sites (and continue their subscriptions month after month) for the community aspect. Once you have well over a hundred members in your course or program, make sure you’re focusing on constant engagement and building a strong, active community.
Create some content and then collect feedback.
When you’re starting out, create enough content to keep members and students engaged. One way to do this is to drip feed your content over a certain period of time to build anticipation. Once a student begins consuming the content, ask them for their feedback. This way, you’ll have some insight into what sort of content they’re most interested in and be in a better position to produce high-quality content for future students.
#6: See a Live Demo of a Course Built With LearnDash & Memberium
This is a live demo site of an online course that’s built with LearnDash and Memberium. The site features seven short video courses that show users how they can use Memberium to build their own membership site or online course.
Things you’ll learn through this LearnDash case study…
Use free online courses as lead magnets.
You can use free, mini-versions of your paid online courses to generate qualified leads for your business or membership program. It allows you to demonstrate your expertise and give prospective members an idea of the type of value they can expect to get from being a paid member.
Visually track course progress.
Use LearnDash progress tracking (such as progress bars, status indicators, points, and gamification) to help students track their progress throughout your course. This is a great way to motivate them to complete the course once they’ve started, thereby your improving course completion rates.
Want to see more examples of sites built with LearnDash and Memberium?
We explored some neat examples of successful online courses built with LearnDash and shared quick tips that you can apply to your own course.
Hopefully, you’re in a good position now to take the next steps.
If you found this article helpful and want more examples of LearnDash courses, be sure to check out the full library of walkthroughs of successful online courses and membership sites that use Memberium.
