How To Promote Courses To Students
April 8, 2022
Whether you host in-person cookery courses or online music lessons, one goal is common – to sell as many courses as possible to grow the business. With demand for courses increasing, more competition will emerge, so marketing your course is more important than ever! Not only can marketing give your sales a helping hand, but it can also be a fun process.
To promote courses to students there are several strategies you can use. We’ll cover our top five in more detail.
Start a podcast
Between 2018 and 2021, podcast listeners increased by 29.5%, and its growth doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Podcasts are a great way to showcase your expertise on your course topic whilst subtly promoting your service.
One thing to be mindful of is the podcast’s content; you want to keep your free resources separate from your paid. Carefully plan out the information you’ll cover in the podcast and make sure that it’s different to your course. Paying course attendees won’t be happy if they find out they could have accessed the content for free!
Collaborate with other teachers in the community by inviting them onto your podcast to talk about industry news and insights. Having their support will position you as trusted and knowledgeable in your space. You can ask them to return the favour by championing your course on social media or even their own podcast if they have one!
Host a weekly webinar
Webinars give a taster of what students can expect from your course and are a simple way to increase sales. Your webinar should be around an hour long – this should include around 45 minutes to present and then leave 15 minutes for a Q&A at the end.
During your webinar, you should discuss your prospects’ pain points and strategies to resolve them before delivering a clear call to action. For example, if your course is about how to effectively network on LinkedIn, you would acknowledge the difficulties of growing a network before talking about how personal branding is used. This would be followed by a prompt to learn more by signing up for your course. The purpose of a webinar is to engage people so that they can see the value of paying for your course.
Offering free webinars will help you attract a larger audience but webinars can also be a great revenue stream. Read our blog on how to sell webinars online to find out more.
Offer discounts to new students
Everyone loves a good deal and this can apply to your course too. Offer a discounted rate to new students and you can bring in a larger audience and build traction.
When you’re just starting out, the more students you can teach to the better as this opens up the chance to collect reviews and testimonials. These are essential to building trust and authority in your teaching.
Offering a discount to every new sign up can’t last forever. This strategy can transition into a referral strategy. If students refer a friend and they sign up for a certain course, they can receive exclusive content or a discounted one-to-one support session.
Simplify the booking process
Sometimes, promoting your course doesn’t have to involve flashy marketing campaigns. Users just want a simple booking process. If your students need to go through a lengthy or confusing process to sign up for your course, they will change their minds and opt for a competitor. It’s the harsh reality. Therefore, the success of your promotional activity rests on getting your admin in order.
A software solution that can help you do this is our course booking system. Users can browse your available courses, find your availability and pay for them in five easy steps. You can also enhance your promotion efforts with our integrations including social media and Groupon integration.
Take advantage of email marketing
Email marketing works particularly well when it comes to promoting your course to students. During your podcast or webinar, direct listeners to your website where they can subscribe to your email list. Emphasise the exclusive content and deals available to subscribers to grow your contact list.
To set up and send email marketing campaigns, you can take advantage of BookingLive’s integration with Mailchimp. This allows you to send tailored emails to different audiences who are interested in various courses you offer. Since your subscribers have already shown interest in your courses, they will be more receptive to your marketing messages. Remember that this audience is very close to purchasing a course, they just need a final nudge.
Those are our top five tips to promote courses to students. If you’d like to learn more on this topic, read our blog on how to sell online courses.
Learn how BookingLive can help you promote your courses
BookingLive offers a comprehensive booking solution for training course providers both big and small. Our software takes care of the admin so you can focus on designing new courses. If you’d like to see our booking system in action, book a demo today.
Our expert team welcomes any questions you may have, give us a call on 0800 1310 342 or email sales@bookinglive.com.
Join Our Newsletter