Skip to main content

All about your course waitlist

Collect email addresses from interested students and automatically nurture interest in between cohorts.

Chelsea Wilson avatar
Written by Chelsea Wilson
Updated over a year ago

Summary

  • Students can join your course waitlist via your landing page, course interest survey, or lead magnets.

  • Use your landing page and lead magnets to continually collect emails of interested students.

  • The call to action (get notified, join today, apply today) on your landing page is adjusted in your cohort settings.

  • Active instructors post multiple cohort dates at time, with some cohorts open for enrollment and others building a waitlist.

  • Access your course waitlist to see the number of signups and emails in the Students tab of your course.

What is "waitlist mode"?

Even in between cohorts, your course landing page does some heavy lifting for you. You should continue to drive traffic to your course landing page in order to collect email addresses of interested students.

A single-field email input will show so interested students can hear from you about future cohorts.

Setting your page to waitlist mode

Your course is automatically on a waitlist if:

  1. Your course is closed for enrollments.

    OR

  2. Your payment deadline has passed and you don't have another cohort open for enrollments yet.

Even if your cohort is open for enrollments, students will still see the option to join your course waitlist on your landing page. They'll be able to join via email capture or being downloading your lead magnet if you have one published on your page.

Using waitlist mode for multiple cohorts

Maven’s most active instructors always have one or two cohorts ready to publish. This toggle feature makes it easy for you to prepare and tease your next cohort without opening admissions right away. You can now show your next cohort’s dates while keeping your page in waitlist mode. It’ll look something like this:

Using a lead magnet to collect waitlist signups

Lead magnets are a free, value-add resource that you provide in exchange for email addresses. For your students, lead magnets will communicate your credibility and content knowledge, and generate increased interest in your course. For you, they'll allow you to add value in public and help build your waitlist.

Examples of lead magnets include:

  • Curriculum outlines or syllabus overviews

  • PDFs or brochures

  • Helpful templates

  • How-to guides

  • E-books

  • Actionable worksheets

  • Checklists

  • Videos

  • Pre-recorded webinar or lesson

  • Email courses

  • Free consultations

Set one up in the Lead Magnets tab of your course. Learn how here.

Using a course interest survey to build your waitlist

A survey is the best way to:

  • Find out if there’s demand for your course idea.

  • Get your first leads in your waitlist

Launch your course interest survey before you even build your landing page or launch your first cohort. You can do a new survey if you launch a new course, but you won't need to do one with each new cohort of your existing course. The survey is a great tool to build initial excitement and generate demand while you're still building your course. Once your course is built and after you've run your first cohort, switch to using your landing page in waitlist mode or lead magnets to collect more emails of prospective students.

Accessing your course waitlist

You'll see your waitlist, including the emails of students signing up and the duration of their time on the waitlist, in the Students tab of your course. Use the toggle near the top of the page to switch between your waitlist and the students in each of your cohorts.

Waitlist FAQs

  1. Can I collect more than an email address from students?

    1. Right now Maven collects only the email address. We want the experience of joining your waitlist to be frictionless. Once students create an account or move to another student status, they’ll be prompted to share their name.

  2. Can I add people to the waitlist?

    1. This is something the Maven team can do for you. Please email [email protected] a list of emails and we'll upload it for you.

  3. How many emails will my waitlist students receive?

    1. In the Emails tab of your course, you'll see an automated email sent to anyone who joins your waitlist. You can add additional emails to the waitlist, turn any emails off, and edit the copy. Check out the email here. We recommend considering when your course starts and spacing out waitlist emails to send at least once a week to keep your course top of mind for interested students.

  4. Will students on the waitlist be informed when I set cohort dates?

    1. Yes, if you connect the cohort launch campaign to your upcoming cohort when you open it for enrollments.

  5. Will I get notified that students are joining my waitlist?

    1. Yes, Maven will send you an email for every ~5 students that join. Be sure to opt in to these emails in the Settings tab of your course.

If you have any additional questions about setting your page to waitlist mode, reach out to [email protected].

Did this answer your question?