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Guide to successful Lightning Lesson conversion
Guide to successful Lightning Lesson conversion

Best practices after hosting your Lightning Lesson to convert students to your course

Madeleine avatar
Written by Madeleine
Updated this week

1. Deliver high quality, tactical content

Prospective students are attending your Lightning Lesson to evaluate whether they should spend hundreds on your course, it is a purchase decision point for them. In Maven's customer research, we have found that professionally delivered lessons lead to better conversion.

👉 How to run an amazing, high quality Lightning Lesson (Do's and don'ts)

✅ Dive into the meat right away - talk about your background and what makes you experienced for 1 min total. If you go longer, people tend to drop off.

✅ Speak faster than you think you should - this may be counter-intuitive, but the faster you speak, the more ground you cover, the more students will think they learned. We are now conditioned to listen to podcasts and videos on 1.5x speed that real-life can feel slow. So go fast and cover lots of tactics.

✅ Be interactive - Take advantage of the live aspect and ask students to answer simple questions in the chat. Remind students to put their questions in the chat throughout the lesson and answer questions with practical detail and nuance.

✅ Well-crafted slides optimized for "screenshots" - Students love taking screenshots of slides that share lots of good information. When you make your slides, consider making 1 dense slide with great tactical info and encourage students to take a picture.

✅ Share NON-OBVIOUS insights - Insights that are learned only from trying and failing multiple times, from decades of experience, from coaching others. Students want to learn one useful new thing (a "lightbulb moment"). If you share generic advice they've already heard, they'll drop and won't consider enrolling in your course.

✅ Highly tactical - Share real stories, screenshots and examples that show your real-world knowledge.

✅ Be a confident presenter - be competent with Zoom (no technical issues), high quality slides, be articulate, and go faster than you think you should go.

Check out these high quality Lightning Lessons for inspiration:

Don't (these lead to low conversion):

❌ Start late

❌ Make technical Zoom errors like not knowing how to screenshare

❌ Make it a boring sales webinar (2 min to sell your course max)

❌ Give generic advice that doesn't go deep into the "how"

❌ Sound unpracticed - lots of ums and pauses

❌ Skip Q&A

❌ Make it all about you (1 min on your bio max)

2. High attendance = high conversion

The average live attendance is 22%, and attendance is positively correlated with conversion. Users who attend live are 2x more likely to enroll in your course. Here are two ways to boost attendance:

1) Drive last minute signups: People who sign up in the final week before a lesson have 70% higher attendance than those who sign up earlier. This is because the lesson is fresh in their mind and they are excited to attend. Here's a template to drive last minute signups.

2) Remind your signups to attend live: Maven automatically sends a reminder to all signups 1 hour before your lesson. You can also send a personal note 30 minutes to share more about why guests should join live.

👉 Template for a personal email to attend live:

  • Go into your lesson here

  • Click + New Email

Subject: Join LIVE in 30 minutes for [workshop title]

Hey {{ StudentName }} 👋

In 30 minutes, I'll be teaching [Title] on Maven. I encourage you to join live, as I'll be doing an interactive demo showing how exactly I use [...] to [...].

Feel free to invite your team or share the link on your company slack. You could make it a “lunch and learn”, and start an interesting discussion that gets everyone thinking about [...].

Here’s the link to join us: [https://maven.com/s/joinworkshop/paste_url_from_calendar]

See you soon!

[Your name]
​
PS. Bring your questions, we'll do Q&A!

3. After your lesson, send a follow-up email

After your lesson, your signups are energized and eager to apply their learnings. This is the best opportunity to reach out and share your course. You can email your signups directly from Maven.

👉 Template for follow up email:

  • Go into your lesson here

  • Click + New Email

Here’s an example email from Ari Zelmanow

Subject: Link to slides for [Session topic]

Hey {{ StudentName }} 👋

Thanks so much for attending [Lesson Name] today! You’ll get a separate email from Maven within 48 hours with the recording. In the meantime, here are some resources to dive deeper into the topic:

  • Link to my slides

  • Connect with me on X/Linkedin

  • Subscribe to my newsletter

  • Signup for my upcoming cohort of [COURSE NAME] starting on [DATE]. Use this link to get $XXX off — the promo ends [DATE].

I’d love to hear what you thought of the lesson. DM me on LinkedIn with your thoughts and questions!

[Your name]

4. Share your recording on social

Your recording will be posted automatically to your Maven lesson page. Once it's available, share your lesson on social. This is a great way to provide free, value-add content to your network and bring in more prospective students. You can also add your Lightning Lesson to your LinkedIn profile in the media section. This will expand its impact and help drive interest in your course.

👉 Template for social

  • Remove the social preview image that pops up when you create the post by clicking “x” on the top right corner of the photo. Upload a screenshot from the recording or a slide. This makes the post feel less like marketing & more like content.

  • Swipe the template below and see this example: Allie K Miller

I hosted a free session on @Maven for [# of RSVPs] people on how to [TOPIC]. If you missed it, I’ve got you covered👇

Key takeaways:

  • [2-3 lines on your content]

If you want the recording, watch for free here: [LINK]

[include screenshot from the recording or a slide]

5. Provide a course promo code

Instructors who provide a promo code with their Lightning Lesson have 20% higher conversion than those who do not. We recommend creating a code and sharing it during the lesson with a QR code using the template below.

If you create a code, Maven will automatically include it in all emails to your lesson sign ups. If you leave your code active, it will be sent to all sign ups to your on-demand lesson recording. The automated email will not include an expiration date for the promo. To offer an expiring promo, you should communicate the expiration date in a slide (see below) or in a custom email.

👉 Template slide for promo code:

  • Go into your lesson here

  • Click the Course Promo tab

Here's a slide template to promote your course:

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