Best Practices

Many of the most popular summer camps for kids are those run by children’s theaters, arts organizations, and community colleges. Whether it’s a theater camp, art classes for kids, or other summer art programs, day camps in the arts tend to be highly in demand for kids and parents alike.  

Why are we talking about summer camps now, when many kids have just gone back to school? Because now is the time to review your summer arts camp registration process, while it’s fresh in your mind. Did it go smoothly or was your staff overwhelmed? Did you have lots of returning students, or were people frustrated that they couldn’t get a spot? 

Now’s the time to set yourself up for success—for your program and your customers— before summer camp registration season rolls around again.

How you handle summer camp registration can have a big impact on your staff, your customers, and whether or not you fill your camps with satisfied, returning customers year after year. Now’s the time to set yourself up for success next year. Summer camp registration season will be here again before you know it! 

The Challenges of Seasonal Programs Like Summer Arts Camps

Some arts organizations run programs all year round. These could be weekly classes, afterschool enrichment programs, or other types of educational offerings. You may take registrations for these programs on a rolling basis. Or you might add an additional session of a popular class—say, a Saturday watercolor class as well as a weeknight class. 

Summer camps require a different registration process than other classes. Parents may be signing up multiple children months in advance and competing for limited spots. There also tends to be more paperwork involved.

Summer camps, on the other hand, require a different registration process. Parents are generally signing up their child or several children many months in advance. And time is of the essence, since registrants can be competing for limited spots. 

After all, an arts camp may have only so many pottery wheels or 3D printers. Some of the best summer camps for teens are performing arts camps. (In fact, many famous actors got their start that way.) But a theater camp may cap registrations at a certain number to ensure that every participant gets a spot on the stage, if they’re putting on a production. 

And because they are for children and teens, all-day summer camps tend to have more involved paperwork than an hour-long class—like medical forms, emergency contacts, supply lists, etc. All of these factors mean that it’s critical to have a registration system that meets all your needs, both on the administrative side and the customer side. 

What’s in It for Me? Registration Benefits for Both Programs and Customers

From our years of serving customers who offer theater camps, art classes for kids, and other summer art programs, we know that most organizations run their programs as close to cost as possible. They don’t want to pay a monthly fee for expensive software they may only use a few months a year. And they want features that actually help them and the customers they’re serving.

Whether you use CourseStorm, another summer camp registration software, or a different tool, here is a breakdown of three key ways you can leverage registration for your summer arts camp to benefit both your organization and your customers. 

Offering Early Registration as a Membership Incentive  

Many community theaters and arts organizations offer memberships to the public. In exchange for an annual membership fee, members get certain benefits, such as discounts and early access to purchase tickets or register for classes. 

This can be a major selling point for parents who want to send their children to popular summer camps and programs in your community. If you have an in-demand summer arts program that fills up every year, let people know that by becoming a member they’ll be able to jump the line and register early. If you offer members a discounted tuition rate, that’s important to mention in your advertising and outreach, too. 

Perks for customers: Early access to summer camp registration; discounted tuition

Perks for programs: New memberships and full summer camp programs 

Promoting Online Registration as a Differentiator 

If you consider online registration a convenience, not a perk that can attract new customers, you may want to rethink that from the customer perspective. 

Laramie County Community College (LCCC) in Wyoming runs several week-long summer youth programs on campus, on everything from arts and crafts to sports and fitness. The summer camps are so popular that most are completely full within the first 6 hours of the day registration opens. “Some classes fill within the first 5 minutes,” said program manager Christie Goertel. 

Because LCCC uses CourseStorm to take online registrations, returning parents have a major advantage. They have already created an account with all of their child’s info included from last time, and they may have even saved their credit card in the system. 

“Theoretically, if there’s a returning parent and they know what camps they want and they’ve done it before, they may be done in less than 4 minutes,” said Goertel. Don’t underestimate the motivation of a parent crossing “summer camp registration” off their to-do list in March!  

Perks for customers: Ease and speed of summer camp registration

Perks for programs: Eases administrative burden; may make phone banks, long lines, and extra staff to handle registration unnecessary 

Making Waitlists Work the Way They Should  

Again, you may be thinking of camp waiting lists as a necessary administrative detail or even a deterrent to customers. After all, why would a parent add their name to a waiting list when these lists are often black holes? We can all think of a time we gave our name to someone over the phone while waiting for a coveted appointment slot or other opening, only to never hear from them again. 

This is where an automated waiting list can make all the difference. With CourseStorm, for example, customers trying to register for a class or camp session that’s already full will be prompted to add their name to the waitlist. 

Then, if a spot opens up, CourseStorm users can choose to send people on the waitlist an automatic email that expires after a certain amount of time. The person on the waiting list can either click to register immediately, or decline the invite, which passes to the next person on the list. 

Either way, it’s a great way to show customers that you haven’t forgotten about them. And it gives them hope that maybe they will get a desired spot in a popular camp or class. 

Perks for customers: Better experience that can encourage more registrations

Perks for programs: Eases administrative burden by automating the entire waitlist process

Help People Find Your Summer Arts Camp Online

For more specific tips on optimizing your summer camp listings on your website along with info on policies and payments, see our related post, Is Your Summer Camp Registration System Ready for Next Season?

We get it: you’re busy. Maybe your organization is understaffed. And keeping costs low is always important. Given CourseStorm’s many years of experience in the education business, we understand the stressors that many community and arts education programs face. 

We also know that if you don’t have a functional, streamlined registration system, it can actually cost you money and time. An inconvenient registration process can also negatively affect the student experience, and cost you repeat customers and referrals. 

Every day, we hear from customers what’s working for them and what’s not when it comes to course registrations. Here are some real-life examples.

Every day, we hear from our customers what’s working for them and what’s not when it comes to taking registrations for their courses. Here are 5 ways that your existing registration system may not be serving you, and what you can do about it. 

5 Registration System Mistakes You May Be Making

These real-life examples from our customers show a few of the ways an inefficient registration process can cause problems for your educational program’s staff as well as for people who are trying to register for your classes. 

1. You are taking registrations manually. 

If you’ve always had people sign up in person or over the phone, you may not see any reason to change what seems to be working just fine. However, the manual method can actually cost you students—or a whole class. 

“We would cancel classes sometimes because we thought they were undersold and they really weren’t.” – Kit Burke-Smith, Garrison Art Center

Before CourseStorm, Garrison Art Center in New York would manually update Google Sheets to keep track of registrations. “We used to sometimes oversell a class or miss a registration that came in over the phone or in person. And so we would cancel classes sometimes because we thought they were undersold and they really weren’t,” said Kit Burke-Smith, education director. Now, signups that come in via their CourseStorm registration website are automatically tracked in the software and class rosters are updated in real-time. 

2. The administrative burden of your registration process is too high. 

If you run a large seasonal program like a summer camp, you may have a lot of people trying to register at once. That’s the case for Laramie County Community College in Wyoming, which runs several very popular summer youth programs on campus. Each spring, up to 500 students register for classes that sometimes sell out in minutes.

One customer streamlined a lengthy process that required training volunteers to run a phone bank to take registrations. Now, anyone can register online by themselves.

Program manager Christie Goertel used to spend weeks preparing for registration day, including training staff volunteers. “I had 5 people in the office doing in-person registrations and a phone bank with 10 people answering phones.” She learned the hard way that only 49 callers can be placed on hold or it will crash the phone system for the entire campus. 

Since switching to online registration with CourseStorm, “I don’t have to do any of that anymore,” she said. “It’s taken a huge weight off my office.” The online registration platform allows people to register whenever they want, even at the same time, without staff having to facilitate it. 

3. Your registration system doesn’t integrate with your other systems. 

Several of our customers in the arts use donor management platform Little Green Light. So they may have someone’s contact information if they, say, attended an event or made a charitable donation. But anyone who registered for a class had to be tracked in a different system. 

CourseStorm combines all of that information. Our integration with Little Green Light means that data flows smoothly between the two platforms. That eliminates the need for tedious data entry and automates confirmation emails sent to each contact. 

4. You use an online registration platform, but it’s made for events. 

Not every arts education program is still using a manual registration process. Some programs do use an online registration tool. However, if you’re using event registration software like Evite, Cvent, or RegFox, for example, you’re missing out on the benefits of software specifically designed for course registration. 

Registrants’ information is not saved, and you usually can’t email students directly (unless you pay additional fees). There’s a downside for the students as well if you use software for events vs. course registration. They can’t access course-specific information, contact instructors directly, or get on a waitlist. Course registration software like CourseStorm has all of these features and more. 

5. You take online payments, but the platform is made for retail. 

Similarly, some programs already allow students to pay for classes online. But many times this process is set up as a retail transaction. This means that someone registering for a class has to enter a shipping address (irrelevant) and can’t easily change their payment method or choose a payment plan (inconvenient).

Again, course registration software improves the process not only for the student but also for your organization. For instance, CourseStorm’s universal transfers feature makes it easy to transfer a student’s payment to a different class, and refunds, waiting lists and payment plans are built into the software as well. 

What If Our Students Don’t Know How to Use an Online Registration System? 

Finally, let’s debunk a fear you might have about switching to an online registration system. For example, organizations that teach classes for older learners sometimes assume that online registration is not for them. Some even have firsthand examples of customers who have said they can’t or don’t want to navigate an online registration system. 

To address the first concern, older people today are more tech-savvy than ever. Pew Research Center found that seniors’ use of technology has increased significantly over the past decade. Of U.S. adults ages 50 to 64, 96% of use the internet, as do 75% of those 65 and older. The pandemic also proved that seniors will adopt technology when it benefits them. Video calls, online learning, and telehealth became part of everyday life for people of all ages. 

Older people are more tech-savvy than ever. But if some students are resistant to registering online, you can do it for them and still get the benefits of the technology.

But what if you have people who are not computer-savvy enough to register for your classes online, like some of our customers do? Burke-Smith has a workaround for these students: “I do it for them.” 

By entering the registration info into CourseStorm—whether the student is providing it in person or over the phone—an organization still gets all the benefits of the software on their end. Instructors have access to their class lists, registration numbers can be monitored in real time, they can send marketing emails, and more. 

To find out more about how CourseStorm helped Garrison Art Center grow their classes and enrollments by more than 100%, download our case study.

Keeping the customers you have is easier than attracting new ones. People who have previously enrolled in your classes already know and trust you. Offering high-quality courses is a good start, but this alone is not enough to create student loyalty. You also need smart student retention strategies to keep learners — and their friends and families — coming back for more. 

It all comes down to each person’s experience with your organization. The right student retention strategies can keep them engaged from registration through follow-up. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to enroll in your program. Then, offer support and a sense of community to keep them coming back.

We’re sharing some useful student retention strategies we’ve discovered over years of helping learning experience providers like you. 

Through our years helping learning experience providers register and retain students, we’ve discovered some useful student retention strategies. Now we’re sharing them with you. 

But first, we need to make an important point: every program needs to think about student loyalty, even if you offer courses learners are unlikely to repeat.

Student Retention Strategies Matter, Even If You Offer One-Off Courses

When you provide learning experiences, it’s not always obvious why student loyalty is important. You might be teaching professional development courses that students take only once in their career. Maybe you offer a retirement planning class, and people only plan for retirement once. This can make it feel like student retention strategies aren’t necessary for you. 

Retention is about more than repeat business. It’s also about creating a community of people who will happily recommend you to others.

However, even programs that offer one-off classes can benefit from thinking about student loyalty. Retention is about more than repeat business, it’s also about building a community of people who will happily recommend you to friends, family, and coworkers. 

If you have done the work of creating a high-quality experience, students are more likely to recommend your program. Increase the odds even more by putting smart student retention strategies in place.

6 Student Retention Strategies to Apply Today

1. Set Clear Expectations

Some surprises are good. Others, not so much. Offering a better learning experience than students expected is a good surprise. In general, though, students should know what to expect when they enroll in your classes. 

Tell them upfront about any prerequisites, the expected time commitment, and what tools or materials they’ll need. If you don’t clearly communicate these details, some students might drop out part way through a class. Others might power through, but choose not to register for another class or recommend your program. 

Well-designed course catalogs and registration forms can help you avoid unpleasant surprises. Make sure you include all the details that students need to succeed.

2. Make Registration Easy

People tend to avoid unpleasant tasks. The more time-consuming and difficult something is, the more likely you are to put it off until tomorrow. Even if you offer an exceptional class experience, students may not re-enroll if they know the registration process will be difficult. 

Make class registration as easy as possible by simplifying registration forms, offering online registration, and integrating secure payment options. When you make registration simple, students are more likely to enroll again and again. 

Features like mobile registration, online payments, and friends and family registration are more than conveniences, they’re student retention strategies. 

3. Create Feelings of Belonging to Keep Student Retention High

Your third grade teacher was right: People won’t remember what you say, only how you made them feel. Everyone wants to feel like they belong. You can improve student retention by building a learning community. This is especially important for online classes where students may not get the chance to socialize. 

You can use social media or email to: 

• Post instructor profiles
• Share snapshots of classes in session
• Show off the results of a session (artworks from an art class, food from a cooking class, shelters built during a survival class)
• Ask students to share photos of themselves using their new skills in their community
• Host Q&As or free information sessions
• Publicly congratulate students on their successes

Even online students tend to enroll in courses that are close to home. By claiming your place in the community, you invite students to engage more deeply with your programs. 

4. Show Students What to Do Next

Adult ed and enrichment classes are often designed to stand alone. A student could take just one course and learn the basics about cooking, accounting, or wilderness survival. But if you want to keep students coming back you need to show them how your classes fit together. 

Highlight connections between courses by: 

• Grouping classes together in your course catalog 
• Emailing current students a list of related classes based on their interests
• Asking students in feedback surveys if they’d like information about related classes
• Asking instructors to mention upcoming classes to their current students

To improve student retention, you need to let students know what other classes you offer.

5. Keep the Conversation Going

Asking someone for their feedback helps build trust, especially if you demonstrate a real willingness to change. At or near the end of each class, invite students to fill out an evaluation form. Not only does this show students that you care about their opinion, it also makes you aware of opportunities to improve your courses. 

When the class is over, your student retention strategies kick into high gear. Ask students to opt-in to email marketing about upcoming courses. That way you can email them when your new course catalog comes out or when registration opens for classes that might interest them.

More programs are also starting to interact with students via text message. They’re a powerful student retention strategy because they give you a direct line to your learners. 

And remember that social media is more than a way to remind people about upcoming classes. You can use it to stay connected with learners and build community. 

6. Remove Barriers to Student Retention

Think about what might actively prevent learners from registering. An amazing learning experience might as well not exist if students can’t access it. So think about what might prevent them from finishing a course or re-enrolling. 

Pro Tip: Money can be a barrier for many students. Help minimize this worry by offering payment plans for big-ticket courses. You might also show your appreciation to returning students by offering special discounts. Also, consider group discounts or family discounts to encourage referrals. 

The Most Powerful Student Retention Strategy

Ultimately, the most powerful way to improve student retention is to offer high-quality classes worth coming back for. Build an engaged community of learners, keep them informed about your other course offerings, and make it easy for students to register — and re-register, so they keep coming back class after class.

Among CourseStorm customers, 33% of registrations come from returning students. Learn more insights like this in our free report. 

Don’t let a focus on new students keep you from nurturing relationships with former and current students. Among CourseStorm customer programs, 33% of registrations come from returning students. Balance your marketing efforts between existing and prospective students. Read more surprising insights like this in our free State of Informal Learning Report.

People who register for your courses may be excited about your classes and eager to learn. Yet they also have lives full of other demands and responsibilities. If your course scheduling doesn’t fit learner needs, registrations may stay lower than you hoped. An inconvenient class time can keep even the most interested student from enrolling. 

Unfortunately, most of the advice on course scheduling is written for colleges and universities. It assumes that students have to take certain classes and are enrolled either full- or part-time. But learners in enrichment, arts and culture, and adult education programs have different needs.

Course scheduling for college students is different from scheduling courses adult learners take for fun or personal development. Most people won’t rearrange their life to take a class that’s inconvenient. 

Most of these learners take classes for fun or personal development. In most cases, they won’t rearrange their life just to take a class that’s inconvenient or hard to access. The upshot is that programs need to offer classes on days and times that work for learners. Doing that takes some research, here’s how to get started.

How to Tell if Your Course Schedule Needs an Overhaul

Keep in mind that some problems can’t be solved with course scheduling. If you’re not getting visitors to your website or course catalog, focus on promoting courses. If potential students drop out part way through your registration process, you might need a simpler student registration system. But if all of that looks good and registration is still low, class times might be the issue.

Keep an eye out for warning signs that your course scheduling isn’t working. You might have an issue if: 

• People seem excited about your classes but don’t enroll. 
• Learners complain about the class meeting times.
• Students often show up late, leave early, or skip classes due to schedule conflicts. 

These are the clearest signs of a problem with your course scheduling. You can also look at data to spot trends that might be less readily apparent.

Look for Trends in Course Scheduling Data

Direct feedback from learners is a clear indicator that something needs to change, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the people who aren’t signing up at all. Registration data can help you recognize course scheduling issues that might keep people from registering.

Review your registration data and ask:

• Do classes offered in certain time-slots attract fewer students? 
• Do classes at certain times get clicks or inquiries that don’t convert?
• Are registrations low for multiple course offerings at a specific time or on a specific day?

Have you had to cancel a class due to low enrollment? If so, your course scheduling may be to blame. Consider offering the class on a different day or time.

CourseStorm users can export registration data directly to Excel from CourseStorm. When you review your data, look for classes that got canceled or have low enrollment. Are they clustered around particular times of day? Also, look at classes that have a waitlist. Are there any commonalities in the timing of those high-performing classes?

Ask Students for Their Course Scheduling Preferences

Some programs hesitate to ask current, former and potential students about their course scheduling preferences. They believe that gathering feedback is difficult or that students won’t answer anyway. However, a direct ask really is the best way to get the information you’re looking for, and it can be easy with the right tools. 

3 ways to survey students about course scheduling preferences: 

1. Email your survey to learners and prospects.
2. Send out an SMS text message to your contact list.
3. Widen your sample pool by posting a poll on social media.

Make sure your survey question is focused enough that learners want to answer it. A question like “When would you attend classes?” is too vague. Try something like, “What time of day would you prefer to attend a theater arts class?” Then offer a few options they can choose from.

An open-ended question might feel most inclusive, but it’s also less likely to yield useful answers. Format your question as a multiple-choice to keep people from overthinking their response. For extra insight, invite people to leave comments that explain their answers.

Course Scheduling Survey Template

We’ve developed a customizable Google form that you can use to survey your students about their course scheduling preferences. Simply click on the link below to copy the form, modify it to meet your needs, and send it to students to gather feedback:

Course Scheduling Survey Template

Consider Possible Scheduling Conflicts 

Are there certain times of day or days of the week when traffic is high or other events are happening? Consider how you might schedule around these.

Even if your classes are online, most of your learners will come from your town and the surrounding area. So check the town calendar for possible conflicts. Obviously, you can’t avoid every conflict, but if concerts regularly play in your town on Thursdays, you may find enrollment dips for Thursday classes. Adjust your course scheduling accordingly. 

If your learners are parents or K-12 students, you’ll need to schedule classes around school calendars. We recommend offering classes immediately after school and increasing your options in the summer.

Older learners could be retired and able to attend classes during the daytime, but some may prefer not to drive at night. We recommend early morning and midafternoon classes to reach this audience.

Learners who work full-time might prefer mid-to-late evening classes that give them time to grab dinner after work. We recommend starting classes for these learners around 6 in the evening. You can also schedule classes on the weekend.

Offer Alternative Class Formats

You may not be able to schedule the perfect class times for every student, but you can offer them more choices. On-demand and online classes can help you reach students with unusual schedules. 

For maximum flexibility, consider asynchronous online classes. The on-demand nature of these classes removes all course scheduling concerns.  Students can access the course material when and where they want to. 

Although there are drawbacks to these kinds of courses, alternative formats can make your classes more accessible to more students.

Simple Registration for Every Course Schedule

Offering the right course at the right time is a good start. Next, you need to register students. That’s where CourseStorm comes in.

Having the right registration software in place is important to help your program run more efficiently and register more students. Choosing the right option for your education program can be a challenge so we researched how to compare registration software options to help you find the perfect fit for your program.

You’re never too old to learn something new, and it’s never too late to embrace your creativity. That’s the idea behind creative aging: art programs for older adults that enhance their quality of life through music, visual arts, and other activities. 

If you’re an arts organization, library, community center, or anyone offering educational programs to the community and you are not serving older adult learners, you’re missing a huge opportunity. 

By 2030, older adults (aged 55+) will be the dominant age demographic in the United States. By 2034, older adults will outnumber children under age 18 for the first time in U.S. history, according to Census Bureau projections. 

“If you want to meet the needs of your community, if you want to engage new audiences and attract new funding, it makes a lot of sense to be thinking about how to provide quality arts learning experiences for older people,” said Heather Ikemire, executive director of the nonprofit arts service organization Lifetime Arts. 

But first, there are a few things you should know about reaching an audience of older learners. 

What Is Creative Aging?

In case you haven’t heard it before, the term “creative aging” describes the use of arts and cultural activities to improve the quality of life for older people, Ikemire explained. The field encompasses many different approaches and is practiced all over the world. Lifetime Arts recently hosted the 2023 International Creative Aging Summit, which had 400 participants from 26 countries. 

“While the approaches to the work vary, in its broadest sense it’s recognizing the power of creative expression—engaging older people in activities centered on creative and social engagement, and the power that has in terms of supporting quality of life, the process of aging well, and also transforming cultural mindsets around what it means to age,” said Ikemire. 

Creative aging programming can happen in multiple disciplines (music, film, visual art), in multiple spaces (libraries, museums, senior centers), and remotely or in person.

Creative aging programming can happen in multiple disciplines, including music, film, theater, and visual arts, and in multiple spaces, such as libraries, museums, veterans homes, and more. Classes for older adults can happen remotely as well as in person, and can be free, paid, or subsidized programs. 

Key Characteristics of Older Adult Learners 

Older people are living longer and seeking meaningful ways to connect and continue to learn skills. But a watercolor class for adults aged 55+ should not be identical to a class for school-aged students. There are several factors that differentiate older learners from their younger counterparts:

Adult learners are autonomous and self-directed. “They vote with their feet,” as Ikemire put it. Educational programming has to speak to them and their interests or they’ll go find something else. The best way to offer programs they want? Ask them! “It’s incredibly important to listen to the older adults in your community,” Ikemire advises arts organizations. 

Older people are goal-oriented. They’re not just looking for a hobby or something to fill the time. They want to learn and develop skills. The creative aging model used by Lifetime Arts focuses on professionally led instructional arts programming designed to build artistic skills over time. Participants have an opportunity to practice something and then keep applying it so they can see their skills improve.

They are seeking connection. There’s a reason creative arts programming typically takes place over a period of many weeks rather than one-time drop-in sessions. “There is evidence that shows that building social connection over time can actually lead to significant physical and mental health benefits for older people,” said Ikemire. Art classes for the elderly help to reduce social isolation and loneliness, among other advantages.

In a recent survey, 42% of U.S. adults aged 55+ said they were seeking more social connection in their lives.

A recent report on aging surveyed more than 28,000 U.S. adults aged 55+ and found that 42% said they were seeking more social connection in their lives. That percentage increased with age.

They may have barriers to participation. These may include physical limitations, such as hearing or vision impairments or an inability to stand for long periods. Transportation could be an issue, or time of day if they don’t drive at night. Or, there might be another popular class in the community that meets at the same time as yours. 

Seniors are not necessarily tech-averse. If you’re offering an online class, or even online registration for an in-person class, you might assume that rules out older learners. That’s not necessarily the case. While some seniors may be unfamiliar with technology, many are more tech-savvy than ever, thanks to the pandemic. That said, there are some best practices for working with seniors that we cover in our post, 6 Tips for Teaching Tech to Older Learners. 

Opportunities for New Revenue Streams

Offering arts programs for seniors not only benefits older learners in a community, but also can boost the bottom lines of the education programs. “It can be a really wonderful earned revenue stream for some organizations,” said Ikemire.

Many arts centers, museums, and theaters are empty during the day. This is especially true for an arts organization that has primarily been serving younger people with weekend classes and afterschool programs. Welcoming older learners into your space during daytime hours is a good way to bring in new audiences. 

“When you see creative arts programming in action, it’s joyful. It’s incredibly powerful.” – Ikemire

Ultimately, these programs thrive when there’s institutional buy-in. A big part of making that happen is seeing these programs in action. Invite your staff, your board members, or other stakeholders to see creative arts programming in action. 

“When you see it, it’s joyful. You get it right away. It’s incredibly powerful,” said Ikemire. “And there are incredible opportunities to grow audiences, to increase your budget, to find the funders for your work, and also to spark intergenerational connections between young people and older people.”

Examples of Successful Creative Aging Programs

When done right, arts programming for seniors can boost revenue and student loyalty. Here are a couple examples of successful programs for older learners.

Rumriver Art Center, Anoka, MN. Photo credit: Larry Weinberg

Rumriver Art Center

Previously only providing youth classes, Rumriver Art Center in Minnesota decided to expand their program offerings to include arts education opportunities for adults 55+. These programs attracted so much interest that they had to add more classes and staff. 

Over the course of two years, the center’s creative aging programming budget increased from zero to over 25% of their annual budget. Many of the students later became teachers, volunteers, and even employees after attending classes.

Forever Learning Institute

Another example of a thriving education program dedicated solely to older adults is the Forever Learning Institute (FLI) in South Bend, Indiana. For 45 years, FLI has engaged older learners through a robust catalog of enrichment classes covering all sorts of topics including dance, technology, literature, and foreign languages. The classes are taught by an all-volunteer faculty. 

FLI is home to the Silvertones, a musical glee club for ages 50+, that performs at various community locations throughout the year, as well as the Solid Silver Dancers, who learn and perform dances from the 40s, 50s, 60s, disco, Broadway, and more. The course description for that class describes it as “a dance workout that is easy on the knees and made especially for us seniors. But still fun and sassy!” 

It’s worth noting that courses that incorporate movement are especially important for older learners. Numerous medical studies have shown that the more physically active you are as you age, the healthier you’ll be for longer.

Creative Aging Resources for Arts Organizations

There are numerous resources for organizations interested in learning about and implementing creative aging programming, many of them free. The best place to start is Lifetime Arts’ website, The Creative Aging Resource. The site includes articles, case studies, presentations, and research on a wide range of topics related to arts education for older populations. 

Lifetime Arts also offers Creative Aging Foundations On Demand, a free, self-paced online course designed for institutions and individuals seeking to run arts programming for older adults. The course includes instructional videos, practical program design principles, and information on developing partnerships with other community organizations serving older adults.

“Creativity is a human right for all of us throughout our lifespans.” – Ikemire

“This is a time for us as mission-driven organizations to think about how we can provide programming that can really enable all people, including older adults, to age well, to age in community, and to still contribute,” said Ikemire. “Creativity is a human right for all of us throughout our lifespans.”

CourseStorm counts a number of community education and arts organizations among our customers. Our mission is to streamline access to education to empower personal growth. Learn more about us and get in touch today to see how we can help your organization.

The secret to search engine optimization is that there is no secret. But a few easy SEO tricks can make your course listings more visible on Google. Not only will they help students find your course pages, they’ll also make those pages more user friendly and attractive for learners. 

You might be wondering why we’re focusing on Google specifically. The answer is pretty simple — Google searches account for more than 85% of the global search market share. Optimizing for Google search is a high-impact way to increase the visibility of your courses across the internet. 

We’re not going to tell you to hire a pricey SEO firm or rebuild your entire website from scratch. Instead, we offer real changes you can make today to improve your SEO performance. Because when it comes to search engine optimization, small changes can make a big difference.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Let’s start by defining our terms. Search engine optimization is the content, formatting, programming, and hosting decisions that help you show up first in search engine results. 

For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to talk mostly about on-page SEO. That is, the changes you can make to content on individual pages of your website to improve your ranking. We’re not going to get into programming and web development. Although, if you really want to up your SEO game, your web developer probably has some suggestions.

Easy SEO Tricks to Quickly Make Course Listings More Visible

These easy SEO tricks can apply to any page on your website, but we’re talking about how they can help with course listings because increased course page visibility often leads to more registrations for your program. 

1. Digitize Your Entire Course Guide

Printed course guides are still a powerful tool. Sending them directly to potential students can help interest them in your programs, but a print catalog can’t improve your SEO. Some programs try to get away with uploading their course catalog as a PDF on their website, but that won’t help either.

Uploading your course catalog as a PDF does not help SEO since search engines can’t read the contents of PDF files.

First, search engines can’t read the contents of PDF files. When your course catalog is a PDF, you miss multiple opportunities to rank in search for course types and individual classes. Second, it creates an accessibility barrier. Some people are anxious about downloading files that could potentially infect their computers. Others don’t have the bandwidth for big downloads. 

Worse, if someone is visually impaired, their assistive tools may not be able to read all PDFs. 

When people can’t read your content, they’ll spend less time on your site, which means Google will assume you were unable to meet the user’s needs. The search engine will be less likely to show your content in future searches.

So, putting your course catalog online is good for potential students and for SEO. Without this step, none of our other easy SEO tricks really matter.

2. Choose Keywords That Fit Each Course

Keywords are a core element of search engine optimization. Search engines look for keywords to tell them what a page is about. If the keywords on your page match the ones a potential student typed into their search engine, you’re more likely to rank. Keep in mind that the most powerful keywords aren’t individual words at all. They’re keyphrases. For the blog post you’re reading now the phrase “easy SEO tricks” was one of our keywords.

The most powerful keywords aren’t individual words, they’re keyphrases. Aim for at least 3 per page.

For each page of your course guide, you should have a minimum of around three keywords. One, the primary keyword, should tell visitors the topic of your course. You can mix in a few secondary keywords to add context. 

For example, if your keyword is “Beginners Acting Class for Kids,” you might include phrases like:  

• Drama class
• Acting training
• After-school activities
• Improve public speaking

You can use Google Trends or other keyword research tools to find the right words. 

3. Optimize Titles and Descriptions

The most powerful place to include keywords is in your title. Let’s say you have a course that helps behavioral health professionals get certified. Your title should probably include phrases like Behavioral Health Professional Certification Training or Certification Training for Behavioral Health Professionals.

Your secondary keywords can show up in your description. Don’t get carried away here. In the early days of SEO, the more you used a keyword, the better you ranked. Now, it’s all about context. 

Your course description should be interesting and informative. Any keywords it uses should be grammatically correct and make sense in context. They should help the visitor understand what the class is about and whether it’s the right choice for them.

4. Customize Your URL for Each Course Listing

This is an easy SEO trick that many people miss. Every page in your course guide has a unique web address. It probably looks something like this:  https://coursestorm.yourprogram.org/course/name-of-course/

Make sure that the slug, or URL, for each course page contains your keywords.

The part we’re interested in for SEO purposes is the text between the last two backslashes. This is known as the slug, and it’s a unique identifier for your page. You want to make sure that the slug includes the keywords for your course. So, if you have a course on How to Draw Animals your slug should be something like /how-to-draw-animals/. 

Here’s what to avoid when choosing a slug: 

• Don’t use an internal course number. /290340u57/ might make sense to you, but it doesn’t tell Google anything about your course
• Keep it short. /how-to-draw-cats-dogs-chickens-pigs-with-artist-sarah-smith/ is too much and misses the keyphrase
• Use real words and recognizable phrases, i.e. don’t shorten how to draw animals to /hw-to-drw-anmls/

Most website content management software includes an option to customize your slug. Take the extra moment to do this and you’ll instantly improve SEO.

5. Organize Your Course Catalog in a Meaningful Way

Google doesn’t just look at individual pages. It also considers how those pages fit together. This is another case where improving SEO also improves the user experience. When you organize your course content in logical ways, both Google and your potential learners can easily find what they’re looking for. 

Organize your course guide into logical categories and subcategories. Categories might include broad topics like: 

• Career Development
• Personal Enrichment
• Business and Skills Training
• High School Completion
• Technology
• Summer Camps
• Health and Fitness

Subcategories are more focused but still encompass multiple classes. So under Personal Enrichment you may have subcategories like: 

• Arts and Crafts
• Cooking
• Outdoor Experiences
• Personal Finance

Try to choose categories and subcategories that your average student (or their parent) might search for.

6. Include Location Information

Mentioning the city and state where your class is located can make your listing more likely to rank for “near me” searches. So if someone types in “personal finance classes near me” your course listing is more likely to pop up in their search. 

Skip this step, and you could be left off the list. It’s probably not enough to include the location of your organization on the contact us page. Make sure it appears on every course listing. 

Think Beyond Easy SEO Tricks to Keep Improving

The easy SEO tricks we’ve shared here will get you started. They’re a quick way to improve user experience and get seen on Google. But they’re just the beginning. Keep in mind that SEO is always evolving. What works now may not be a best practice in three years. Watch the headlines to make sure you never miss an update. 

CourseStorm can help you create a user-friendly, search engine optimized course catalog.

Our simple course registration software helps you stay organized, lets you customize your URL, and features location information for every class. For more tips on reaching more students, read our post on course catalog examples that boost enrollment.

Building a quality course catalog can help you convince more students to register. The most effective course listings are more than a simple list. They combine all of the information students need to know to make an informed decision about your courses.

We see a lot of course guides in our work with community and arts education programs. Among the hundreds we’ve seen, a few stand out as strong course catalog examples that other programs could emulate. You can use these examples as a model as you build your own course listings and to avoid common pitfalls. We’ll even break down each one so you can see what makes them effective.

What Is a Course Catalog for?

You may think that a course catalog is a list of classes offered by your program or organization. What people sometimes forget is that a quality course catalog is also a marketing tool. Students use it to decide which classes to take and whether those classes are worth their time and money.

To be effective, your course catalog must capture the eye and the imagination of your potential students. It needs to convince them to register right now. 

Potential students who browse a course catalog are looking for answers to two important questions:

• What will this class teach me?
• Is the value of this class worth my investment of time and money?

Many programs struggle because they stop after answering question one. They tell students about subject matter and learning outcomes, but fail to explain why those outcomes matter. As a result, students know what the class is about, but may not see the true value in the experience.

An effective course catalog convinces students of the value of each class. It uses every course title, description, and image to show students what they can get by taking the course.

9 Parts of an Effective Course Catalog, With Examples

An effective course catalog includes 9 parts. Each one helps the student gather information about the courses offered.

1. Categories
2. Subcategories
3. Class names
4. Class descriptions
5. Images
6. Instructor information
7. Place and time
8. Pricing
9. Registration link

Below, the course catalog example from San Juan College Community Enrichment shows all 9 parts in action.

1. Categories: What Is This Course About?

Categories help to group similar kinds of classes and make it easy for people to find the classes they’re looking for. Seek a balance between overly generic and too specific. The goal is to logically group clusters of related classes.

Some categories that are broad, yet specific enough to be useful may include:

• Kids classes
• Workforce development
• Fitness
• Finance
• Music and dance
• Arts and crafts
• Computer skills
• Cooking

For example, the category “Cooking” is precise. Someone can easily imagine the kinds of classes that might fit into that category. It’s also broad enough to include several different classes. Something like “French Cuisine” may be too specific, unless you run a cooking school.

2. Subcategories Make Navigation Easier

Subcategories can break down big topics into more specific focus areas. This helps students find the classes they are looking for by guiding them through your course catalog.

For example, you may have 30 classes in workforce development that focus on 5 or 6 subtopics. Categories can help students find the courses that are most relevant to them.

Some example subcategories for workforce development might be:

• Computers & technology
• Healthcare & medical
• Entrepreneurship
• Financial literacy
• Skilled trades

3. Class Names Tell Students What to Expect

Effective class names tell students what the class is about. When writing class names, aim for clear description over cleverness. Here are a few examples of real class names that work:

• Digital Photography: Capturing the Right Shot
• Write From the Heart for Fun and Profit
• Five Unexpected Books Every Classical Educator Should Read: Free Webinar
• Websites That Work: Converting Web Visitors Into Customers

These class names work because they’re clear and include keywords that search engines can find. Some also include extra details about format or cost.

Of course, if you can be clear and clever, that’s even better. One CourseStorm customer put this idea into action for her “Learn to Crochet” class. Last year, the class was canceled due to lack of registrations. Instead of overhauling the class, she changed the name. This year, she quickly filled the class “Too Legit to Knit: Crochet Instead.”

Pro Tip: If you run the same class every season, keep the name the same in each version of the catalog. (Unless you’re hoping to revitalize a lagging class!) This helps students recognize classes they’ve already taken and spot new ones on their preferred topics.

4. Descriptions With Real Course Catalog Examples

Course descriptions tell students what they’ll learn and why they should take a course. Focus on the real effect the course could have on their life. Writing a quality course description takes some effort, but the results are worth it.

Here’s an example of a real course description from The Training Place:

“If there’s one thing guaranteed in life, it is change. The way in which we navigate unanticipated change and stressful experiences will have a direct impact on our mind and body in subtle and not so subtle ways.

You will be introduced to the Change RHYTHM model, explore the tone of your inner narrative, self-assess your relationship and mindset towards a recent change event, and define a set of unique resilience rituals that will enable you to adapt to and evolve through the change and maintain forward momentum in the new normal that follows.”

This course description works because it:

• Speaks to a real need the student has — dealing with change.
• Explains exactly what students will learn.
• Includes a clear outcome: “adapt to and evolve through the change and maintain forward momentum in the new normal that follows.”

Pro Tip: If you realize you need to share more information than can comfortably fit in a course description, consider linking to a course fact sheet or FAQ attachment.

Keywords: the Hidden Element of a Course Catalog

Using key search terms in your course titles and descriptions makes them more discoverable to search engines. That helps your students find what they’re looking for. 

You can do some basic keyword research using a tool like Semrush or Moz. Then, include those keywords in your course descriptions. Aim for a good mix of the two main types of keywords:

• short-tail keywords are short and broad, such as “classes for adults” or “First Aid class”
• long-tail keywords are longer and more specific, like “sustainable papermaking course for adults” or “Lego robot workshop for teens”

Include both so search engines can see what your course is really about and who it’s for.

5. Images Increase Engagement

Images make your course listings seem more inviting. The best option is to use real photos from your courses. If that’s not possible, high-quality stock images or custom graphics can fill the gap.

Look for images that are easy to understand at a glance. Smiling faces and bright colors tend to be most engaging. Remember to use images that include all the types of people who might take your classes.

6. Instructor Information Boosts Student Confidence

Information about the instructor can provide a compelling reason to take a class. Include a paragraph about the instructor and their background, or link to their bio elsewhere on your site.

7. Place and Time Help Orient Students

Include information about when and where the class will run, so students can tell if it fits their schedule. Remember to mention whether a class is online or in-person.

8. Pricing Information Is Essential

Include clear pricing information for every class. Make sure you’re accurately portraying the whole cost of the program. Some students may love to take an art class for $300, but when they find out they have to spend another $300 to buy their own supplies, the course no longer fits their budget. It will save both your time and theirs to be forthright about pricing. 

For big-ticket courses, consider offering payment plans to make them more accessible. Being open about pricing helps build trust and gives students the information they need to make an informed decision.

9. Registration Links Let Students Act Now

Every class listing should include a button or link where students can register right away. This makes it easy for someone to act while interest is high.

Using online registration software with payment processing streamlines enrollment for students and for you. After registering online, all they have left to do is show up for class! 

Avoid This Major Course Catalog Mistake!

Some programs can get all 9 parts right and still not see the number of registrations they were hoping for. Why? Because they’re requiring an account before letting someone view their course catalog. 

We’ve all had the experience of trying to read an online article only to be informed that we need to create an account first. Not only does this interrupt the natural flow for the user, but it also makes them mistrustful. They wonder, “Do you even want me to read your content, or do you just want my contact information so you can bombard my inbox with sales emails?” 

Your class offerings aren’t confidential information—in fact, the more people who know about them, the better! Making your course catalog accessible to all gives students the chance to discover a class that’s a perfect fit for them. 

Quick fix: Share your course catalog openly and freely. Make sure the link routes visitors directly to the catalog without a login.

Course Catalog Examples: How It All Fits Together

A well-organized course catalog is inviting. Whatever organizational structure you choose to guide your layout should be consistent throughout. For example, you may choose to list your classes alphabetically, or you may choose to list them based on when they run, or you may choose to list them by type category. 

However you organize, make sure the course catalog is searchable. Bonus points if you can allow students to adjust how courses are sorted so they can view them by date, price, or alphabetically by title. 

CourseStorm offers everything you need to build your own course catalog like the examples shared here. To learn more, start your free trial or contact us today.

These days it seems like pretty much everyone is offering payment plans. Whether you need a new water heater for your home or just want a trendy new sweater, payment plans help make purchases possible. If your organization offers big-ticket courses that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, it might be time to consider offering payment plans to students. 

Payment plans make it easier for students to afford professional credentials, certifications, camps, trips, and long-term enrichment programs. They can register now, rather than waiting to save up the full purchase price. And modern technology means that setting up payment plans can be easy for organizations too! 

Why Offer Payment Plans to Customers?

You may not think of your learners as “customers” but during the registration process, that’s exactly what they are. They’re shopping for a good or service, in this case an educational experience or credential. Your job is to make it easy for them to make the purchase that fits their needs. 

Your students don’t want to miss out on classes just because they don’t have the full purchase price in their pocket right now. Payment plans allow your students to take the classes they need when they need them. 

Offering payment plans for higher priced classes allows students to register when they want to, rather than when they have the full fee in hand. And it shows you care about your students.

The result is that students choose the right time to take your classes based on their needs, not their bank balance. Classes offer learners an opportunity to enrich their life and even advance their careers. Those are opportunities that should be available to as many people as possible. 

Yet, many people have experienced new financial stresses under the uncertainty of the last few years. Costs are increasing everywhere and budgets are tighter. Your students and your organization both feel that pinch. You may even need to raise prices to meet new circumstances. Offering payment plans can help smooth this transition.

Setting up installment plans shows you care for students. You understand that everyone has different financial circumstances, and you want to be inclusive. It acknowledges the financial pressures some learners face, and shows that your organization will treat learners with respect. That makes your organization look good, even to students who don’t need a payment plan right now. 

The Benefits of Offering Payment Plans

Offering payment plans can seem like a new administrative burden. But the right technology makes it easy. Besides, this flexibility brings some real benefits to your organization. 

1. Offer higher-priced classes with less risk. Often, big-ticket classes are more costly to produce. You may need to retain instructors with specialized skills, pay to maintain licenses and accreditation, get special insurance, or provide facilities and equipment over the long term. Setting all this up is a financial risk for your organization, but payment plans keep money flowing month after month.

2. Gauge level of interest. It’s sometimes hard to tell why registrations are lower than expected for a specific class. Are students just not interested, or is the price scaring them away? Payment plans help remove some of the price burden so you can more easily gauge interest.

3. Register more students. Spacing out payments makes classes more affordable since students don’t have to come up with a lump sum. That means you may get more registrations and be able to reduce class cancellations. 

How to Avoid Potential Drawbacks of Installment Plans

The obvious danger with payment plans is that a student will fail to pay the whole amount. One way to avoid this problem is by setting up the plan so that the full amount is due before the class starts. Learners can hold their seat with a deposit, but must pay in full before the start date. For longer-term classes, you can spread the payments out a little more, but still require full payment before the end of the class. 

CourseStorm does not charge any additional fees for payment plans, to students or programs.

Depending on your payment processor, you can sometimes incur additional costs for taking payments in installments. Make sure you ask about any payment fees or administrative charges before offering payment plans to students. CourseStorm does not charge any additional fees for payment plans. There is no cost difference to students between courses paid in full in advance or on payment plans.

Setting up and administering payment plans can be labor intensive, unless you have the right tools in place. Many organizations never take the plunge because they think set-up will be difficult and they dread the administrative complication. Fortunately, unless you’re still using manual spreadsheets and mailed checks to handle registrations, those problems should be a thing of the past. 

How to Offer Payment Plans and Never Miss a Payment

Ideally, your registration system has built-in payment processing. The best course registration and payment tools also have payment plans built in, so students automatically get charged when a payment is due.

At CourseStorm, payment plans are built-in and easy to use. We manage all the technical details for you so you get consistent automatic payments. For any class that costs more than $100, you’ll see a handy button that lets you configure payment plans for that class. You can have different plans for different classes or choose not to offer the option at all.

When students register, they can opt to pay the full amount upfront, or sign up for automatic charges. The system will auto-schedule payments based on the time left between registration and the date the registration must be fully paid off. 

You can even set up custom payment schedules if you have a student in special circumstances. This kind of flexibility means you can work with students to meet their unique needs and help overcome hardships that might otherwise prevent them from registering. 

You Know Your Students Best

Payment plans are increasingly common for educational programs, and many customers have come to expect them as an option for higher-priced opportunities. 

Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you offer payment plans. Whatever you decide, we’ve made it easy by integrating them directly into CourseStorm’s class registration and payment software. For more on how CourseStorm works, or to experience our surprisingly simple registration software for yourself, start your free trial today. 

As someone who provides educational experiences, you may have heard of the concept of growth vs. fixed mindset. This idea that what you believe about yourself impacts what you can achieve in life is not new. Carol Dweck introduced the concept of growth mindset to the world almost 20 years ago.

Yet knowing is not the same as applying. Even though you model a growth mindset for your students, it’s sometimes difficult to apply it to yourself and your organization. At CourseStorm, we know that growth is a primary goal for many educational organizations. Let’s take a look at how you can apply a growth mindset to help your organization thrive.

What Is a Growth Mindset?

A growth mindset is the belief that you can develop talents and abilities through persistent effort over time. Basically, it says that anyone is capable of improving if they’re willing to work at it.

This is a belief that many educators share. After all, the courses you offer encourage people to work to improve their skills. You don’t assume that a student comes to class already able to do everything you’re going to teach them. What would be the point?

A growth mindset is the belief that anyone is capable of improving if they’re willing to work at it.

Growth mindset stands in contrast to fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is the idea that you are born with a set of abilities or talents and nothing you do can change that. 

Carol Dweck explored these two concepts in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success which is now considered a pop psychology classic. Yet, many people miss one key idea about mindset, and it’s an idea that’s particularly relevant to organizations. 

Dweck says that you may have different mindsets in different situations. For example, you may believe that you are capable of learning anything, but that your level of athleticism is fixed. What does this mean for organizations? It means that even if you have an organization full of educators who believe their students are capable of growth, you may still have a mindset problem when it comes to the organization itself. 

The Value of a Growth Mindset for Educational Organizations

“We can’t expect big classes in our small town.” 

“We can only offer one class at a time because we can’t handle too many registrations at once.” 

“Raising prices would mean we’d lose all of our students.” 

All of these are examples of fixed mindset ideas. They assume that the organization’s ability to grow is limited by outside factors. Although context is important, growth-minded organizations don’t assume that a challenge is a barrier. Rather, they look for ways to turn these obstacles into opportunities. 

“The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues.” – Carol Dweck

Organizations with a growth mindset set goals for growth. Fear of failure could hold organizations back from even trying, but growth-minded organizations assume that failure will be part of the process. Just as a student needs practice to develop a skill, organizations may need to try multiple strategies to reach their goals. 

What’s Your Mindset? How to Do a Mindset Audit

It’s easy for organizations to fall into a fixed mindset. The burden of responsibility for students and staff members can make leadership more cautious. So can fear of social backlash or a loss of reputation. One fixed mindset person can influence the whole team, especially if that person is in a leadership position.

Avoid the dangers of a fixed mindset by doing an annual Mindset Audit. Gather your leadership together and ask these questions. You can make a copy of our mindset audit form to collect responses.

An organization with a growth mindset sees failure as part of the process and uses challenges as opportunities to improve. Negative reviews or student complaints are valuable insights that offer guidance toward improvement. These organizations have clear, trackable goals for growth and support their employees to improve. Finally, they use scalable processes and procedures that leave the organization room to develop. 

If you have an open and trusting relationship with instructors and administrative staff, you might ask them variations of these questions as well. 

• In your experience, how does our organization respond to failure? 
• Without looking anything up, can you list the organization’s formal goals for growth? 
• How well do you feel the organization supports your career and personal growth? 
• What processes and procedures might limit our growth? 

Staff responses can give you insight you might otherwise miss. They help you spot whether your organization is acting on its values. 

How to Apply Growth Principles in Your Organization

If you notice your educational organization isn’t as growth-minded as you would like, that’s okay! You can make changes to shift that shared mindset. 

1. Create an Organizational Plan for Growth

Consider how you plan to grow and set clear goals for the organization. Keep in mind that organizational growth needs to be sustainable. If you want to add more students, you may need better systems or more staff to meet the workload. To grow revenue, you need more registrations, higher prices, or lower overhead. Think about your goals and what it will take to achieve them. Then, share your plan with the whole organization.

2. Keep Failure in Perspective

Nobody hopes for dissatisfied students, unbalanced budgets, or canceled classes. Yet, these things can happen to any organization, particularly when you try something new like a different type of course or a new software system. 

Growth-minded organizations run a post-mortem meeting to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. But they don’t let this learning process feel punitive. The goal is not to avoid failure at all costs, but to learn from it. 

3. Support Individual Growth

No matter how skilled your staff members are, they still have room to grow. Your organization can support that growth through periodic performance reviews, training opportunities, and recognizing effort. If possible, you may even provide tuition assistance or fund professional development and attendance at conferences. 

4. Plan for Negative Feedback

It’s easy to dismiss negative reviews as the work of internet trolls or unreasonable people. But growth-minded organizations take feedback seriously. They read every review and try to understand how they could do better in the future. That doesn’t mean you take reviews personally, but it does mean thinking critically about the issues raised in a review. 

You can also create a process for how staff members should capture and respond to feedback, whether it comes from online review sites or class evaluations. 

5. Choose Scalable Solutions

Organizations limit their own growth when they cling to high-effort processes. Although it is possible to manage student registrations with a spreadsheet, that process soon becomes unwieldy. It requires time and effort that might be better spent on directly supporting students. 

Scalable processes, procedures, and software solutions give your organization room to grow. Take CourseStorm’s online registration and payment processing software for example. 

With no monthly fees, you can scale your organization to meet demand without worrying about the cost of your registration software. Our built-in marketing tools make it easy to reach any group of students or potential students. Plus, automatic waiting lists and low-enrollment warnings help you fill classes and grow your program. For more details on how CourseStorm helps growth-minded education organizations thrive, contact us or download our State of Informal Learning report today.

Imagine that you announce a new class and students quickly start signing up. Before you know it, you have more interested students than one instructor can handle. Suddenly waitlist management has become a top priority. 

That might sound like a dream come true for your education program, or it may be a regular occurrence. Either way, smart waitlist management can help you make the most of this opportunity. It’s a chance to build a relationship with more students and understand what learners are looking for. We’ll show you how to manage a waiting list without investing in extra waitlist software. 

What Waitlist Management Can Do for Your Program

You might wonder if your classes really need waiting lists. It might be easier to just fill classes and not worry about the people who miss out. But with the right tools, managing a waiting list can be simple and having one opens up a number of new opportunities. 

With the right tools, managing a waiting list can be simple and opens up a number of new opportunities like these.

1. Keep Learners Engaged

If a potential student learns that a class is full, they may get discouraged. When that discouraging experience is their first interaction with your class offerings, they may go looking for the class in other places. However, a waitlist can keep them engaged a little longer.

Adding students to a waiting list gives them hope that they may still get to register. They’re likely to be extra engaged as they wait for news. This engagement creates an opportunity for you to reach out with other options—classes that meet at a different time or cover related topics. You might even provide a promo code they can apply to another class while they’re waiting.

2. Improve the Student Experience

A student who ends up on a waiting list is likely to be disappointed, but they also gain something valuable—early access to registration for upcoming classes. Students on your waiting list should get the chance to register before the general public. While the timing may not work out for them, you’ve at least shown the student you care about their experience. 

3. Fill Classes Faster

Waiting lists help you fill classes faster by preloading the class with waiting list students. Other potential students may be spurred to action by the knowledge that the class is filling up fast. This can create a positive feedback loop that leads to even more interest in the class. 

4. Help You Plan Your Course Calendar

A waiting list is a good indication that people are interested in the topic you’re teaching. You may choose to add a second session or create other classes around the topic. It might even be worthwhile to move resources away from a low-enrollment class so you can offer more sessions of high interest classes. 

5. Influence Your Pricing Strategy

If a class regularly has a waitlist, you may also have room to increase your prices. Students are often willing to pay more for a class they see as popular and highly valuable. 

How to Manage a Waitlist

Managing a waitlist can be simple if you have the right processes in place. An online registration system that includes a waitlist option (like CourseStorm) is the easiest way to manage your waitlists. You can enter the data into a spreadsheet or even a paper form, but the more you can automate the process, the easier it will be. 

Here are a few more tips to improve your waitlist management: 

• Tag everyone on your waiting list with the class and class category they’re interested in, so you can contact them with relevant opportunities.

• Try CourseStorm’s new waiting list feature: when a spot becomes available, you can send people on the waiting list a link that expires after a set time. Then, they can either register right on your site or decline the invite. 

• Have a clear waitlist policy so potential students understand what they’re signing up for. 

If you don’t already have a waitlist policy, that last tip may require some explanation. Here’s what should go in a waitlist policy and how to share one.

Write a Waitlist Policy

Let students know how you’ll manage your waitlist by including a clear waitlist policy when they join. Students should understand exactly what they’ll get out of joining the waitlist and how you’ll communicate with them about upcoming opportunities. 

Every waitlist policy should cover these 3 things. We’ve suggested some sample language to use.

Even a simple first-come-first served policy needs some explanation. Every waitlist policy should cover: 

1. How you’ll communicate with people on the list.
2. What they get out of joining the list.
3. How potential students can remove themselves from the list.  

Here is some sample language you might include in your waiting list policy: 

• “If a space opens up in the class you are interested in, you will be notified by email. You will have 24 hours to either complete your registration or decline the opportunity. If you have not completed your registration within 24-hours, we will assume you have declined and will offer the space to the next student on the list.”

• “If space does not open up in the class you are interested in, you will get early registration access to the next class session. Please watch your email for notifications.” 

• “We may email you with recommendations for upcoming classes related to this one. Please watch your email or visit our course catalog for more details.” 

• “If you would like to remove yourself from this list, please email: registrations@myurl.org. It may take up to 48 hours to remove you from our system.” 

If your waiting list policy is anything other than first-come-first serve, note that in the policy. For example, you may give preference to people who have relatives already in the class, are members of your organization, or have taken classes with you in the past. 

Waitlist Management Made Simple

Having a waitlist for your classes provides an excellent customer experience, can make your program more successful, and helps you fill classes. You can automate waitlist management by including the option for every class you offer. Learn how to build a waitlist in CourseStorm or contact us for more details.