How to Market Your Classes: Tips, Tactics and Strategies

There’s no doubt about it—planning and putting on successful classes is hard work. Even the most seasoned instructors need help transforming a date on the calendar into a vibrant class with happy students.

Eventbrite has assisted millions of organisers in planning their classes and events. While we often see an initial spike in registrations when an event is first announced, nearly 40% of classes and events sell less than half of their registrations until the final days leading up to the event. On top of the anxiety caused by slow registrations, it’s also nearly impossible to plan event logistics without knowing final attendance numbers.

Whether you’re a veteran photography teacher, an acting coach, or a new yoga instructor, if you understand last-minute buyers and the Registration Lifecycle, you can minimise the lulls with well-planned multi-channel marketing outreach. Check out our tips, tactics and strategies in the next few pages to help amp your marketing efforts and fill up classes of all kinds.

Step 1: Understand Your Students

The best way to connect with your students is to know what matters to them.
So do your homework first to understand who they are and what they want.

Get to know your target audience.
Understand: Do a full audit of your brand across search and social media.
Which social media platforms do students engage with most often? What are their motivations and pain points?

Determine your positioning: Craft focused messaging that not only resonates with your audience, but also differentiates you from other classes that might seem similar to a student evaluating their options. For example, if one cooking class highlights quick recipes, consider focusing your cooking class on cooking fast and healthy meals.

Use your data to understand where marketing opportunities lie.
Cross-sell: Do students enrolling in one type of class often end up enrolling in another class after? Seek opportunities to run cross-sell campaigns introducing current students to other classes they’re likely to enjoy.

Focused marketing: How do registrants differ between class types, skill levels, and durations? Do some classes drive more reliable regulars or one-time registrants? Use these trends to inform your marketing targeting and campaigns.

Step 2: Build Your Website

Successful classes start with a webpage that promotes the event and includes all of its pertinent information. The page should be visually appealing to the audience and reflect the look and feel of the class. It should also perform well in terms of converting website visitors into registrants. Here are some best practices for building high performing class webpages:

Build for conversion: Prime content areas on a webpage are the upper left hand corner, middle content area above the fold, and the main navigation. Use this area to cover important information like the what, when, where, how, and who of your class. A strong call to action such as “Sign Up” or “Enroll” should also be easy to find and placed above the fold. Less important information should be further down the page.

Once students click the call to action, direct them to an easy-to-read purchase or registration page. Use the fields that are necessary for the registrant to complete the transaction and also provide you with the data you need (like their email address) to run your class and understand who your attendees are for future marketing efforts.

Use eye-catching visuals: Images and media are a great way to capture interest and drive demand. Include photos of instructors, activities, and video from prior classes to help convey the value of your class.

Optimise for search: Optimise the event webpage for search engines so your class ranks high in organic search results. Think about the keywords or terms your target audience would use to search, and incorporate those keywords into your webpage title, URL, header, and content. If your webpage is managed through an event registration and ticketing partner, like Eventbrite, ask them to explain their webpage offering and their search optimisation features. Research how well other events on their platform rank on search engines.

Step 3: Promote Your Course Schedule and New Offerings

Reach out directly to your past students and promote your classes through marketing emails that are personal and relevant. Start before registration opens with an initial announcement and then craft successive emails with fresh content, event news, and updates.

Send targeted, relevant emails
Personalised emails with relevant content result in much higher click-through and open rates. A good registration partner will help you target messages based on previous class attendance. You can send different course schedules or updates based on the type of class attended, number of classes completed, or even how many people someone attended a class with.

Here are a few ways to connect with your audience:

Ongoing newsletters: Stay connected with students and potential students with monthly or quarterly newsletters.
Transactional emails: Even your registration confirmation emails can be a place to share information and updates. A good registration provider will allow you to customize these emails.
One-off email campaigns: Announce new classes, limited-time classes, special guests, offers, etc.
Triggered emails: Automate congratulatory emails to be delivered when a student completes a course, or send out “reconnecting” emails to students who have not signed up in a while.

Spark social media interest
Start the social chain reaction with integrated sharing tools on your registration page, emails, and the rest of your outbound marketing. “Sharing” prompts should be clearly visible, usually in the form of social media icons or buttons. A strong registration partner will have integrated social media tracking tools to help you understand the impact social media has on registrations.

Here are some ways you can use social media to market your classes:
Entice

Highlight exciting special guests or topics via photos and blog posts.
Share interesting teaser facts, tips, or skills that one could gain from a class.

Inspire

Spotlight students or alumni that ended up getting a great job or meeting their goals through a class.
Share statistics on the benefits of your class, from jobs placed to tests passed to pounds lost.

Inentivise

Highlight free classes or tutorials with 1-2 recorded videos so potential students can quickly understand the value that your classes offer.
Offer free introductory passes for students to try your class at no risk.
Encourage spend with group pricing discounts, multi-class price breaks, monthly vs. annual rates, or private lessons.

Create FOMO

Integrate your event page with social media to let attendees know which of their friends are attending and create “fear of missing out.”
Come up with a branded hashtag to promote awareness of your brand.

If two or more Facebook friends have registered for a class, Eventbrite automatically sends a personalised email invitation letting this person know, and encourages them to buy tickets to join their friends. This feature, exclusive to Eventbrite, has seen significantly higher click through rates and conversions than standard industry email rates.

Take it to the field
Online marketing can do some heavy lifting, but there’s still nothing like getting out there in the real world to promote your classes.

Introduce: Provide a more engaging way to share the value of your classes with info sessions and open houses.

Launch party: If you’re launching a new class or a new location, making it social with a launch party can encourage new and existing students to bring their friends and increase your reach.

Partners: Encourage guest speakers, venues, and class listings on event platforms like Eventbrite to help promote your class.

Step 4: Turn Student Data into Insights

With data analytics, you can see who enrolled in your class—and how, when, and where they heard about it—to make adjustments on the fly.

Use tracking links: Use unique tracking links for every marketing channel, including email, social media, display ads, blog posts, etc. This will enable you to track which channels are driving the most traffic, enrollment, and/or revenue. Here’s an example of how Google sets up tracking codes. Eventbrite lets organisers easily create unique tracking links for every promotional channel.

Track channel performance: Now that you have tracking links set up for all your marketing channels, take a detailed look at specific performance within each channel. For email, watch open rates, click-through-rates, registration page visits, and the number of enrollments resulting from a specific email.

Measure all the costs: When calculating ROI for a specific channel, consider all the resources going into the execution. Retargeting and display ads, for example, require design work, copywriting effort, and ad placement costs. All of this should be included as part of the cost per channel when calculating the ROI.

Monitor your sales regularly: Eventbrite has studied the correlation between event organizer behavior and enrollment. organisers that log into their event reports daily are 75% more likely to reach their registration goals. Always monitor your campaigns and enrollment closely so you can adjust and optimise quickly.

Be flexible and adjust: A fluid marketing plan will be critical as you monitor your campaigns. You’ll want to increase resources on channels that are performing well, and cancel channels that aren’t. Or, you may find that a channel received a lot of impressions, but had a below average click-through rate. That’s when it’s time to test new targeting, calls to action, copy, or images. Create a post-event document of marketing channels that worked and what you might have done differently to serve as a solid blueprint for your next series of classes.

Congratulations! You are now four steps closer to filling up your next class!