How to increase your sales on Maven

Converting your interest list and new visitors into paying students takes more than a great Course or Workshop page. The instructors who consistently fill their cohorts treat selling as an ongoing practice by showing up regularly, following up personally, and making it easy for the right students to say yes.

Whether you're selling your first cohort or your tenth, here's how to drive more enrollments.

Step 1: Keep your cohorts open for enrollment

The simplest thing you can do to increase sales is make sure there's always something to buy. Students typically visit a Course or Workshop page around 5 times before enrolling, and many need time to get budget approved or align on timing.

Always have at least one upcoming cohort open for enrollment, even if the start date is months away.
Maven's marketplace and recommendation emails only surface courses and workshops that are actively open — keeping cohorts open maximizes your discoverability.
Open your next cohort for enrollment before your current one ends, so momentum and word-of-mouth from current students flows directly into future signups.

Step 2: Convert your interest list first

Your warmest leads are already on your list. Before investing heavily in new audience growth, work what you have.

After every Lightning Lesson, send attendees a follow-up email within 24–48 hours. Share a key takeaway and include a direct link to enroll with a limited-time discount while interest is high.
Use Maven's Broadcast feature to email your full interest list when a new cohort opens, when you add new content or guest speakers, or when enrollment is closing soon.
Send personalized notes to interest list members and anyone who's previously dropped off during checkout — these are high-intent leads who might just need a nudge.

Step 3: Do direct 1:1 outreach

The highest-converting sales tactic at your disposal is a live conversation. Don't skip this, especially for your first few cohorts.

Offer a free 15-minute call to anyone on your interest list or Lightning Lesson attendee who seems like a strong fit. Use a tool like Calendly to make scheduling frictionless.
On the call, listen first. Understand the specific challenge they're trying to solve and show them how your course addresses it directly.
Offer a meaningful beta discount to early students — frame it as a win-win: they get an exclusive rate, you get valuable feedback to sharpen your material.
Follow up after the call via text or a short personal email. A specific, warm follow-up converts far better than a generic reminder.

Step 4: Use social proof to build confidence

Students want evidence that your course delivers results before they hand over their credit card. Make that evidence easy to find.

After each cohort, collect testimonials and highlight specific before/after outcomes.
Share student wins publicly on LinkedIn: testimonials, course completions, and projects students shipped as a result of your course.
Engage with and reshare any posts where students tag you or share their certificates.
Add testimonials to your course landing page and include them in your broadcast emails.

Step 5: Optimize your landing page

Your landing page is doing sales work even when you're not. Keep iterating on it.

If your conversion rate is below 1%, treat that as a signal to revisit your positioning, outcomes, and social proof.
Use insights from 1:1 calls to identify the questions and objections that come up most often, and address them directly on the page.
Be specific about who the course is for and what they'll be able to do differently by the end. Vague outcomes don't convert.
Aim for a 1–2% conversion rate from landing page views to enrollments as your baseline target.

Step 6: Let Maven's marketplace work for you

Beyond your own promotion, Maven surfaces courses to students who are actively looking to solve important professional challenges.

Maven's recommendation emails and homepage surface courses with open cohorts and strong enrollment momentum.
After each cohort, encourage students to leave a review. Getting a strong end-of-cohort survey response rate is one of the most valuable things you can do to demonstrate your teaching abilities.