How to promote your class ✨ no magic required ✨

It costed a thousand euros. So much money. Especially then in 2008. But I did it anyway.

When I started organising my own courses I spent € 1000 on billboards all over town. The response was overwhelming: people loved seeing them.

But signing up? No. Zero signups resulted from this capital investment. It took many more posters, flyers, newspaper articles and a LOT of word-of-mouth to fill up my classes.

You may think: what a waste of money. But here is where it gets interesting. The brand awareness that resulted from those billboards lasted for years after. People remembered it all: the name and the url of my theatre school (“Didn’t you have those big black billboards with the red and orange blocks 3 years ago? Yeah, I looked you up after seeing that”)

We are 12 years in the making and my way of promoting courses has changed a bit in the meantime. I use more social media and less paper. Referrals come much easier these days. Students decide more lastminute than before.

But you know what hasn’t changed? There is still not 1 magic way to get 12 students. There are 12 ways that each get 1 student. You just don’t always know which 12 ways.

If you are someone who promotes courses, pay attention. Use the scattergun approach: try many.

To help you out on your endeavours, I listed for you the ways Gael and I promoted our new courses this season:

In the last few weeks we did the following. We…

➔ Put info about the course on our (also newly built) website

Put some effort in SEO
Shared the website on our personal FB
Shared the website in multiple FB groups
Asked the other teacher to share the link too

➔ Emailed previous students

Followed up with them in their whatsapp groups
Asked them in an email to tell their friends

➔ Mentioned it in our insta bio, whatsapp status and every possible email

➔ Send private messages to invite acquaintances and friends

Asked those who cannot join to share our courses somewhere

➔ Wrote 3 blog posts about improv

Shared the blogs on FB, Insta stories, Twitter and LinkedIn

➔ Did a Facebook Live about the start of our improv company

➔ Mentioned our classes in a networking event

Followed up on the 1 person interested

➔ Made an Insta reel about our trial class week

Shared the reel on FB and LinkedIn

➔ Made a cover photo for FB about trial class week

Shared the cover photo in a whatsapp with my improv group

➔ Asked students during the first trial class to bring a friend next time.

That is what we did. Not enough to our personal taste.

However… In case you are already overwhelmed, no worries. This was our scattergun approach.

There are many more ways Gael and I could have promoted (with possibly better outcome), but we also did what we could considering circumstances. Printing and hanging posters is challenging when you are travelling and moving house. You do what you can.

If you find promoting your course difficult, I hope this list shows 1 simple (but not easy) thing: perseverance. We didn’t do 1 social media post and hoped for the best. We found many different ways to talk about it without exhausting our network.

If your way of promoting is through posters, don’t assume that spending a grand on billboards will do the trick. (But the good news is: it will have an effect)

Thinking there is 1 magical solution that you just didn’t discover yet, will distract you from what you have to do: the work.

Not only billboards, also posters and flyers and newspaper articles.

Not only a Facebook post, but also blogs and LinkedIn and private messages and freaking Insta Reels.

So listen, you awesome course promoter… Just do it, show up, make 24 attempts to find 12 ways that each find 1 student.

It is not magic ✨ Just work.