How to Create a Successful Live Online Music and Art Group Class

How to Design a Live Online Group Class that Gets Enrollments

Know your audience

The number one way to create a group class that will get enrollments is to ask your students or followers if they would be interested in a group class, and suggest or solicit topic ideas to gauge their interest. Think about questions or comments you commonly get from students and followers, and whether those questions could be explored in a group class setting. If you have a large following or a busy teaching schedule, a live online group class can be a great way of sharing your expertise while earning serious money.

Classes are best oriented toward a particular age group. If it’s a class for kids, the age ranges are usually narrower (i.e. ages 3-6, ages 5-7, ages 9-12, etc). Adult classes can be for anyone over 18. The topic and style of the class will determine the age range.

Planning and Logistics

Plan the class at least 3 months in advance. We've found that the minimum amount of time needed to promote a group class is two months: the enrollment page is published on the Lessonface site, you notify your students and audience and begin promoting your class and recruiting students, and we announce the class in our newsletter. Even more time is better! Having a three-month promotional period prior to the class date is ideal.

How Lessonface Helps Promote Your Group Class

Lessonface promotes the classes on our website, in our newsletters, and in our social media. We give special promotional attention to classes that appear to have the highest likelihood of success. Some predictors of success include whether a class has early sign ups, is on a topic we have seen previous interest in, and whether the teacher is enthusiastic and creative about promoting the class and recruiting new students.

We are also likely to give special promotional attention when the teacher provides us with more content to use in promoting the class. We encourage teachers to share with us great original graphics, handouts, articles, and short video clips covering a topic related to the class.

Depending on the type of class, we may create a graphic for you to use in your promotional efforts.

Ways for You to Promote Your Class

Recruit students to your class just like you recruit students to your private studio!

Word of mouth is often the most effective way to recruit new students. Contact colleagues, current and former students, friends, family - anyone you think might know someone interested in your class, or anyone who might even simply pass along the info to their contacts. Choose how to contact each person based on how you most often interact with them, whether via direct email, texting, direct messaging in social media, even a good old fashioned phone call!

You can also notify your contacts on Lessonface and post about it on our forum.

Social media posts can also be effective, especially when you post often and engage directly with your followers via direct messaging and comments. To go further, you can find Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, subreddits, and related forums online. If there are affinity groups that are interested in the topic, find a way to contact them and let them know about the class.

Many of these types of groups don't love purely promotional posts (though some do, for instance, there's a Facebook group devoted to flute classes purely for the purpose of announcing upcoming flute classes). So for this reason too, creating an additional set of learning content -- a short video, a handout, an infographic, can help give you something to post that people will find useful, that will also allow you to promote your class.

If you have ideas for how Lessonface can further amplify your efforts, don't hesitate to be in touch!

Why Lessonface for Teaching Your Group Class

Lessonface administers group classes for many individual teachers, established schools, festivals, and brands.

Lessonface expertly handles secure registration, payments, video conference session management, reminders, recordings, messaging, tech support and training for your teachers and students.

Teachers can focus on their students while Lessonface provides infrastructure and handles logistics, including

   •   Sign up page with your class description and scheduling details
   •   Simple and secure student registration, including COPPA compliance for kids
   •   Secure tuition payment via credit card or PayPal
   •   Payment to teachers via direct deposit or PayPal
   •   Zoom session management and fees, with teachers automatically set as hosts
   •   Email reminders for teachers and students
   •   Class recordings, with options for continuous recording or multiple short recordings
   •   Messaging interface for teacher-student connections and file attachments
   •   Tech support and training for teachers and students
   •   Verified student reviews