What makes a good online challenge? Is it the challenge’s content? The delivery? The promotion?
If done right, online challenges can be a very effective way to attract qualified prospects to your business, build trust with them, and turn them into paying clients.
So what makes a good online challenge? And how can you make sure yours blows your ideal client away?
Check out my top 3 must-know tips for running a profitable online challenge!
Why Host an Online Challenge for Your Business?
Online challenges can be a fun, easy and fast way to bring in new clients and make money.
They work even if you don’t have a large following, or are just starting out in the world of online business.
Challenges attract participants who are already interested in tackling the problems your business solves…
Which makes it that much easier to convert them into paying clients once the challenge is over.
Plus, a good challenge can help you boost your “Know, Like, and Trust” factor much quicker than, let’s say, a paid advertising campaign, or even a long nurture email sequence.
Why? Because not only do people engage with you and get to know you – they also get to see that your advice actually WORKS.
A challenge is like a mini-program people can try for free before investing in the real thing.
If you make sure your challenge blows them away, your trust factor will absolutely soar.
By giving your challenge participants specific action steps they can follow, you will position yourself as someone with an established process – in other words, someone who really knows what they are doing!
This will increase your challenge participants’ confidence in you and your business, which will make them much more likely to purchase your paid programs or services later on.
Plus, once you’ve figured out the right challenge formula, you can keep doing them again and again…
This makes challenges a really cheap way to market your business and make sure you always have a steady stream of new clients coming your way.
What is a Good Challenge? 3 Secrets for Making Your Challenge Rock
1. Micro-learning
Micro-learning is a way of delivering content to learners in small, specific bursts.
It is designed to boost the learners’ engagement with the content and help them retain the concepts a little better.
Breaking your challenge content into small, bite-sized pieces will ensure that your challenge participants stay engaged with your challenge until the very end – which is when you may want to introduce them to your paid programs and services.
To accomplish this, I suggest you break your content down into 5 “pieces” and do a 5-day challenge.
Each day, your participants should get a 5-10 minute video with simple instructions guiding them through that day’s challenge task.
In this video, you should tell them about the day’s topic, why it’s important, and how they should approach their task for the day.
That’s the basis of a successful challenge. Simple, isn’t it?
Don’t worry if this doesn’t seem like enough content.
You can also send your participants a short PDF with task instructions or journaling prompts if you like, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
You should always give your challenge participants the least amount of information they need to accomplish their daily task.
It will help you avoid being overwhelmed (on both your end and theirs!) and make sure everyone sticks around until the end of the 5 days.
2. Micro-commitments
It’s easier to say “yes” to a 5-day challenge than it is to a 30-day one.
Think about it: how likely would you be to commit to 30 days of no sugar? Or 30 days of no social media?
That’s asking a lot from someone, especially if they are not familiar with you and your business just yet.
A 5-day commitment, however, sounds much more doable.
5 days of no sugar? Sure, I can do that!
The key to making these micro-commitments work?
Breaking them into even smaller ones and asking people to re-commit to doing that small thing every single day.
Have your challenge participants watch a 10-minute video, fill out a short worksheet, or post something to social media.
Just make sure the micro-commitments you choose for your challenge are actually micro, or relatively easy and quick to fit into a busy schedule.
3. Micro-wins
Give your challenge participants a micro-win every single day – and lots of support and encouragement along the way.
Even though it’s important to have an overall goal for the challenge, like improving sleep or building a better website, daily micro-wins are what keep people motivated to actually complete the challenge.
For example, if you are hosting a meditation challenge, remember to congratulate your participants on meditating every single morning, not just at the end of the challenge.
Or, if your challenge goal is to help your participants set up a simple WordPress website, congratulate them after they have completed small steps, like installing their first plugin.
Micro-wins will also earn you more likeability points from your potential clients.
People love feeling like they’ve accomplished something, and they will love you for making them feel this way.
Plus, if somebody helped you feel like a winner every single day, wouldn’t you want to see how you can keep working with them after the challenge is over?
Need More Help?
If you follow the 3 tips above, you will be well on your way to running a good challenge and turning your challenge participants into paying clients.
However, there’s a lot more that goes into running a profitable online challenge.
Want to make sure you nail every single aspect of your challenge? Download my FREE challenge checklist:
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