Six Ways to Fill Your Art Classes and Workshops With More Students

Art Class woman artist tutor giving feedback to students

Running Art Classes and Art Workshops are an effectvie way to earn more income.

I’ve written before about the importance of having multiple revenue streams.

Many artists choose to run art classes and art workshops as a way to share their existing skills and knowledge and as part of their revenue stream mix. Earning income in this wat daoes require being able to attract students to your classes and workshop. This blog post has some suggestions for you if you’d like to enrol more students in your classes and workshops, 

Four Things To Do

1. Tell Them Everything They Need to Know

First up make sure with every promotional notice, newsletter or post you do, that you include all the details in a really easy way to read.

Assume that people may only see one piece of your promotion so don’t skip details in one piece because you already put it somewhere else. Where is it, when is it, how long does it go for (is it a one-off or a series etc).

A piece of advice I once heard is “When you are sick of talking about it, you are about halfway through.”

2. Make it Easy for Them to Pay You

Be sure to have a very clear and easy way to sign up, pay. 

You’d be amazed how often it’s hard to find how to pay. A ‘Book Here’, or ‘Pay Here’ button linked to your payment service e.g. PayPal, Stripe or other (you can even use a Paypal.me link) is a simple way to show how to pay.

Don’t forget to have cancellation and refund terms and conditions clear. This is especially important if you are having to cover costs for things you can’t carry over to another date like venue hire, a model fees.

Be clear – When will you give money back. Will you refund on a change of mind on the day because something else came up for them? (No way). Or will you give them money back up to a certain amount of prior notice, or offer a credit on the next course etc.

What about if you have to cancel? Is it a makeup class and credit or a full refund if they prefer – giving them a choice may help you to retain those students for another session and not have to refund everything.

Be sure to have your refund policy clearly written out and easy to find.

3. Confirm

Have a confirmation process – a page and/or email (ideally automated) that goes to the new student once they book that confirms their booking.
Again include the details – what have they purchased, from whom, when and where is it happening and any other instructions e.g. materials.

4. Incentivise

To gain an extra audience, no matter the channel you use, consider offering a ‘bring a friend’ incentive eg a mates rates reward, $10 off when you book two together, or some other incentive like access to go into a prize etc.

Create incentives for repeat business e.g. book 4 workshops and get one free,

Encourage people to like and share your promotional posts (see below) to go into the draw for a prize such as a free spot at your net workshop, or some materials, or something else that suits you and your audience and doesn’t cost you too much time, effort or money.

students taking an art class

Six Ways to Market Your Art Classes and Workshops

There are a lot of different ways to market your classes and workshops. Here are six options and how to use them. My advice is to use multiple ways to market your classes and workshops and keep track of which ones work best for you and your offerings.

1) Let’s start with Facebook…

Search groups on Facebook for ‘[your city or location] Arts’ Also search for [your country, state or region] artists’

Join the groups, post and promote there. 

Be mindful of group rules, some do not allow promotion.
If they do not, you can respond to questions within groups to demonstrate your knowledge and build relationships (this is a longer-term strategy, rather than a quick fill.)

A common misstep artists make is promoting only to other artists or in artist groups. If your audience is broader than, or different to ‘artists’ ie people wanting to explore their creativity, learn to draw etc look for groups that may be relevant.

Look at where similar types of workshops are promoted – e.g. ‘paint n sip’, makers workshops, art classes, private art schools, and other creative events.

Post to your personal Facebook timeline, make it a public post and ask people to share.

You may want to promote a ‘bring a friend’ offer for more social events or ‘sibling prices’ when siblings sign up if you do kids’ art classes. Your personal page is often the best place to convert and by making it a social event (bring a friend) that could help your numbers.

Create an Event, invite and boost the post for a few dollars a day to your chosen audience – only in the local area of the workshop.

Individually ask your insiders (you know, the really supportive friends) to share your event on their timeline.

Go live to share your event.

2) Email Newsletter

Use your mailing list to promote your event. All the details as above.

Ask people to forward and share.

3) Direct email For people not on your list, but who you know well and are confident they’d be happy to hear from you.

Send them a personal catch-up email – not a group email

This can’t be one-sided. It should feel comfortable and natural (if it doesn’t then rethink the email). And you shouldn’t be emailing these people only when you have something to promote or sell.

Direct email is a really great strategy when done well because you are sharing with people who ‘know, like and trust’ you.

What to say – simply let them know about the workshop, that you’re excited about, and would they like more details?

After they reply to your email, either send them details if they said yes or if they said no, thank them and ask if they think of anyone who might be interested and would they mind sharing. Ask the question and sign off.

If you get a reply saying yes, pass on the details and say thank you. Close with a (non-business promotion) comment. 

4) Instagram

Go live, do a reel, and add a link in your bio to the event booking page

5) Old Fashioned Flyers

Create and print simple flyers – again with all the detail. distribute them locally on notice boards, to businesses that your target audience likely frequent e.g. art supplies stores, and popular coffee shops (your local ideally). 

But also – do you know business owners in the area who might put your flyer up? 
Approach and ask. This one typically has a lower conversion unless your audience is their audience.  But it is quick and easy to do.

Think where else you can distribute flyers. If you have a part-time job, can you post your flyer at work? Or ask a family member to post at their work (if the workplace and location are suitable), are you a member of a club or a gym… you get the idea.

6) Collaborate

Partner up with someone else who has a similar audience you are trying to reach.

This can be a fellow artist, product creator, hospitality etc. Who do you know that could benefit from sharing in your audience? Brainstorm and ask about.

All of these work for online classes as well as face-to-face classes. What other ways do you promote to fill your classes or workshops? Do you have thoughts or questions? Post them in the comments below.

#MoneyMatters #artbusiness #artclasses

The artist Buisness Lounge Author

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