Before You Start

Before diving into student success strategies, make sure you have the right foundation. Implementing onboarding sequences and testimonial systems for a course that doesn’t exist yet is like decorating a house before pouring the foundation.

You Need a Published Course

This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many creators try to optimize student success before they have students. The strategies in this course require:

• A course that’s available for purchase (or free enrollment)
• At least a handful of students who have gone through (or are going through) the material
• A platform that gives you access to student data (completion rates, lesson progress, etc.)

If you haven’t launched your course yet, start with Validate & Launch to get your first version live. Come back here once you have real students and real data to work with.

You Need Basic Course Infrastructure

A Course Platform with Analytics

Most modern course platforms track student progress automatically. You need access to:

• Completion rates by lesson and overall
• Drop-off points where students stop progressing
• Time-to-complete data for individual lessons and the full course
• Login frequency to identify engagement patterns

Platforms like GoHighLevel, Teachable, Kajabi, and Thinkific all provide these analytics. If your platform doesn’t, consider whether it’s time to switch — see Pick Your Platform for guidance.

An Email System

Student success depends heavily on email communication. You need:

• The ability to send automated sequences (welcome emails, consumption emails, re-engagement)
• Segmentation so you can target students based on their progress
• Tags or custom fields that track where students are in the course

If you haven’t set up email marketing yet, work through Email Marketing for Course Creators first. You don’t need a massive list — but you do need the infrastructure to communicate with the students you have.

A Way to Collect Feedback

You’ll need a method for gathering student input. Options include:

• Google Forms — free, simple, gets the job done
• Typeform — prettier, better for longer surveys
• Your course platform’s built-in survey feature — integrated but sometimes limited
• A simple email asking 3-5 questions — low friction, decent response rates

Don’t overthink this. A Google Form with five questions sent two weeks after enrollment will teach you more than no feedback at all.

Helpful But Not Required

These aren’t prerequisites, but they’ll make implementing this course’s strategies easier:

• A community space (Facebook group, Discord, GHL Community) for peer support — see Build a Membership Community
• A testimonial collection tool like VideoAsk or Boast.io — we’ll cover setup in the testimonial lessons
• A virtual assistant or support person — helpful once you scale past 100 students

Your Readiness Checklist

Before moving on, confirm you have:

• A published course with at least a few enrolled students
• Access to student progress data (completion rates, lesson views)
• An email system capable of automated sequences
• A method for collecting student feedback
• Time to implement changes over the next 4-6 weeks

If you’re missing one or two items, you can still benefit from this course — but focus on the design and strategy lessons first, then implement the systems once your infrastructure catches up.

If you’re missing most of these, pause here and work through the prerequisites: Plan Your Course, Create Course Materials, and Pick Your Platform. Then come back ready to optimize for the students you already have.