How To’s

Increasing class enrollment can be a challenge for any course provider. It might be particularly complicated for theaters with arts education programs. The marketing plans and workflows you have in place for performances don’t necessarily translate into functional course enrollment tools. If your goal is to enroll more students in your performing arts classes in 2023 and beyond, this post is for you. 

Many theaters are just returning to normal programming after a tough few years. Maybe you’ve returned to entirely in-person events, or maybe you’ve found that online learning and events still add value for your audience. Our State of Informal Learning Report found that nearly a quarter of students still prefer online classes in 2022, even after the dramatic spike during the pandemic has started to recede. Either way, if you’re still working toward your enrollment goals, these strategies can help you register more students.

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Have you ever noticed how a new movie comes out and it seems like suddenly everyone is talking about it? Social media and online news certainly play a role in this phenomenon, but there’s something more basic happening here. People like to be in the know and feel like they belong. 

This human tendency to create and follow cultural trends can work to your advantage when planning and marketing classes. If you know what’s trending, you have a better idea of what’s likely to interest or excite your students. Just learning to spot these trends is half the battle. We’ll show you where to look for current cultural trends and how to use these events to build irresistible classes.

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Accessibility should be a top priority for any course content creator. Accessible content helps everyone access and engage with your lessons, whether you’re teaching in-person or online. That allows you to reach more learners and offer more engaging educational experiences. 

When you hear the word “accessible,” you may think of ways to make a building or website more user-friendly. This may include adding wheelchair ramps or using easy-to-read color combinations. When it comes to course creation, accessibility has much broader applications.  It’s about supporting every potential student regardless of their physical, cognitive, technological, situational, or socioeconomic challenges.

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Marketing kids’ art classes—or any classes targeted to children—is a delicate balance. Although you’re offering art classes for kids, or summer camps, or theater workshops, or any other youth classes, it’s usually the parents who are researching options and making the decision to register. As a result, your organization needs to advertise, promote, and share classes in a way that appeals to parents while making it clear that the class will be enjoyable for kids. 

Getting this right means answering all the questions a parent may have about the class while keeping a sense of playfulness and fun. We’ll show you how to strike this balance, plus give you some insight into what exactly parents are looking for when choosing art classes for kids.

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Imagine students eagerly enrolling in your program without any significant marketing efforts on your part. It is possible, if you do one thing: learn how to ask for referrals.

Referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations are some of the most powerful marketing tools you have. In fact, 81% of people say they trust the advice of friends and family over the word of a business. By encouraging students to talk about your classes to their networks, you can build a steady stream of high-quality leads who may become loyal students. 

When your students recommend a class to their friends and family, it’s not only an affirmation of your program. It’s also a way to increase engagement and build a sense of community among peers. We’ll share some tips on how to ask for referrals, as well as how to use them as part of your overall marketing strategy.

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Your nonprofit organization makes a big difference for the people and communities you serve. You want to impact as many people as you can, but your reach can only stretch as far as your budget will allow. Fortunately, there are valuable sources of funding for nonprofits if you know where to look. 

Finding nonprofit funding sources takes time—an asset already in short supply for many programs. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best ways for nonprofits to make and save money. Many of these resources can also help introduce more people to your mission so you can grow your support network.

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It can happen to any informal ed program. You check on the sign-ups for an upcoming class and realize enrollment is low. So low that you might have to cancel the class if you don’t get a few more students signed up quickly. Don’t worry—there is something you can do to boost last-minute enrollment and save the class.

Low enrollment warnings are emails sent to the students and instructor of a course that’s facing potential cancellation due to lack of sign-ups. These emails can mobilize students and instructors to take action and save a low enrollment course. 

Let’s take a look at why low enrollment happens and how you can use CourseStorm’s automatic low enrollment warnings to avoid having to cancel classes.

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For something that’s usually only a bit longer than the average tweet, a course description is a surprisingly powerful marketing tool. In fact, your course descriptions are one of the last marketing messages students see before they click “enroll.” Short but important, these can be tricky to write. That’s why we’ve put together some course description examples that will hook students and make your job easier. (If you’re wondering whether you should use AI to write your course descriptions, we wrote a whole separate article on that.)

Use these course description examples and our template below to write your own course descriptions that entice students to click “Register now!”

Along with sharing our list of best practices, we’ll dissect a series of examples so you can see exactly what works and why. Use these course description templates to make creating your course catalog a breeze! 

Course Description Example 1: Get Students “Hooked”

Open every course description with a sentence that “hooks” the reader and then conveys the essential information in an accessible and engaging way. A hook can be anything that captures the prospective student’s attention or encourages them to keep reading. 

These can take a variety of forms, including:

• A surprising statistic or number.
  Example: 70% of adults report that their sleep is insufficient at least one night every month, but you won’t be one of them after learning about sleep hygiene, sleep debt, circadian rhythms, and the link between sleep and overall health in this 2-hour session.

• A relevant quote from a famous person.
  Example: Meryl Streep says the essence of acting is to be “curious about other people,” and in this 6-week class you’ll get curious about characters from six canonical dramatic works as you learn how to break down a character, study a character, create a character, and become that character. 

• A play on a familiar saying or expression.
  Example: The early bird gets the worm, but you won’t need worms at all after this 3-session course on how to make your own plastic fishing lures to bring on your next trip to the water. 

• A callout to a specific audience. 
  Example: For a class on poker strategy, your “hook” could read, “Calling all card sharks for this 4-week class that will transform your poker game as you learn how to read your opponents, spot tells, understand game theory, check-raise, bluff, and more.” 

Hooking the attention of your ideal student is important, but it’s just part of what a strong first line can do. You can pack a lot of information into this one sentence! 

Course Description Example 2: Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

Keywords help search engines find your course descriptions, which helps students find them too. When you write a course description, try to use the words a student is likely to use to search for courses on that topic. Use a tool like Semrush or Moz to do some keyword research. Find keywords that you can target and build your course description around those terms. 

But don’t go overboard. Remember that course descriptions are supposed to help the student, not just fit an algorithm. Use the keywords that make sense in context and relate closely to your program. 

Here’s an example of a course description that uses keywords effectively: 

Course Title: Breaking and Baking Bread

Course Description: Not your average bread baking class, this 6-week course shares the joy of making bread from scratch by breaking down the essentials of a great starter and giving expert tips about yeast and flour. You will bake breads such as sourdough, rye, brioche, challah, ciabatta, and popovers while learning about oven heating, mixing, kneading, fermenting, egg washing, and more. Your guests will clamor for the bread basket at your kitchen table and luxuriate in the smell of warm bread in your home after you become part of the ancient tradition of bread baking. 

This course description uses variations on the keyword “bread baking” to optimize for SEO. Try to use your selected keyword in the course title. Include three to five relevant keywords in the description as long as it sounds natural to do so.

Course Description Example 3: Outcomes Over Operations

While instructors tend to focus on things like course mechanics, lessons, and assignments, prospective students are more interested in what they’ll gain from taking the course. Will they earn a certification? Will they be a member of a group? Will they have a new skill to put on their resume? 

Use the course description to tell students about the outcome, such as:

• A formal certification 
• An advanced understanding of the topic
• Access to an exclusive group 
• A tangible skill or experience
• A portfolio 

The outcome should be closely related to the class topic and something that the student is likely to value. For example, a course on finance might promise students a personalized plan for reducing debt while a course on fashion might help students define their own style. Outlining these outcomes helps the student recognize the value the course will bring to their life. It can also set your courses apart from others on the same topic.

The SWBAT strategy can help define the outcome students can expect from a course. This stands for “Students Will Be Able To …” by the end of the class. 

Define your program’s brand promise — the commitment you make to your students about the quality, value, and benefits of your classes — by pinpointing the outcome students can expect from each class. A simple way to do that in your course descriptions is by using the SWBAT strategy: this stands for “Students Will Be Able To …” by the end of the class. Whether it’s paint with watercolors, speak basic Spanish, or play a song on the piano, highlight the specific outcome for students.

Here’s an example of a course description that focuses on the outcome:

Course Title: Finding Your Voice Through Songwriting 

Course Description: Make music that expresses your true self in this 12-session class that studies wordplay, poetry, and phonics to help you write lyrics that resonate. You’ll write and workshop two full songs and perform one at the final class meeting so you can experience the full process of songwriting, from ideating and conceptualizing to drafting, editing, revising, and finalizing. You’ll break down classic songs, mix melodies, and learn how legendary songwriters mastered their craft to gain a new appreciation for the art of making music. 

This description outlines several outcomes:

• Writing two full songs
• Performing
• Experiencing the full process of songwriting

Each of these might be useful to the student on their own, but together they make for a unique and valuable course.

Course Description Template

We’ve covered a lot of examples, but let’s cut right to the heart of the matter.

A template that works for nearly every course description looks like this:

Course Title: Topic + Intended Audience (or) Topic + Outcome

Examples: 

• Topic + Intended Audience: Mindful Parenting for Busy Parents
• Topic + Outcome: Storytelling Through Portrait Photography

Course Description:

Sentence 1 hooks the reader by including the important information in an accessible, interesting way. 

Sentences 2-4 tell students what they gain from taking the course and include keywords. 

Sentence 5 tells students how to register. 

You can add a few more sentences if you need extra space to truly explain your outcomes and course structure. Just don’t get too lost in the details. If you do need to provide a lot of supplementary information like materials lists or policies, consider adding those as an attachment students can download and review. 

Here’s an example of how a course description comes together. 

Course Title: Make Your Home Garden Grow

Course Description: (1) Whether you have a green thumb or a brown one, this 8-session class will teach you how to grow and maintain an indoor garden of peperomia, snake plant, philodendron, English ivy, hoya, pothos, and calathea. (2-4) No matter the size of your space, you’ll create a thriving forest of greenery and gain access to a virtual gardening library which includes a comprehensive care spreadsheet for 200+ common houseplants, a guide to watering, an encyclopedia of perennials, and a manual for pruning. With a live online class format, you’ll get to work in your own garden space while learning about soil composition, sun exposure, seed germination, pest control, tool care, and more. (5) Register now!

A course description like this moves students to want to register. So make it simple for them to do. CourseStorm makes course registration simple and seamless. Add registration links directly to your course descriptions so students can go from interested to registered quickly and easily. Contact us today to get started or start your free trial now.

Couples are always looking for something new to do on date night. While dinner and a movie is a classic, it hardly stands out as an evening worthy of a memorable Valentine’s Day. As partners begin planning for a Valentine’s date that isn’t mundane or overdone, you can offer a solution in the form of couples classes. 

Positioning certain classes for couples doesn’t just provide students with a unique date night, it can also help you fill seats and bring new students into your program. When these students share the experience of learning with someone they love, they’re likely to enjoy the class even more. We’ll explain the benefits of offering couples classes and share some ideas for promoting them so this Valentine’s season is unforgettable for your students. 

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Anyone who has been involved in organizing both classes and events knows that there’s a big difference between the two. If you’re using event registration software to manage class registrations, your system probably isn’t as efficient as it could be. Both tools offer payment processing and online registration but that’s often where the similarities end.

Registration management tools have features specifically designed for either classes or events. If your goal is to manage class registrations, you need some specialized tools. Let’s take a closer look at what you need from a registration platform to help you decide whether a class management solution or an event registration tool is right for your program.

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