Filling cohorts: marketing for trainings, institutes and academies

You run a training. Herbalism, teacher preparation, bodywork, permaculture design, solar installation, spiritual direction. It runs two or three times a year, and about six weeks before each start date you find out whether it is happening.

Everything here is written for cohorts rather than school years — how the enrollment window really behaves, what an information session is worth, why deposits change your forecast, and how to stop the panic discount that trains people to wait.

Numbers 5 min

What Should a School Actually Spend on Marketing?

Benchmarks, formulas and ranges for school and program marketing budgets — sized for a 60-student school, not a university.

Numbers 4 min

Cost Per Enrolled Student: The Only Marketing Number That Matters

How to calculate what it costs your school to enroll one child, what a good number looks like, and how to use it to end budget arguments.

Mechanics 4 min

The Only Enrollment Funnel a Small School Needs

Inquiry, tour, application, enrollment — the four numbers to track, realistic conversion rates for each, and where small schools lose families.

Money 5 min

$10,000 a Month in Free Google Ads, and Almost No School Is Using It

If your school is a 501(c)(3), Google gives you $10,000 a month of free search ads. How to qualify, set it up, and avoid suspension.

Mechanics 3 min

The Five Emails Every School Should Be Sending

A simple email system for schools: what to send after an inquiry, after a tour, to families who went quiet, and to the parents you already have.

Mechanics 4 min

Word of Mouth Isn't a Strategy. It Can Be a System.

Most alternative schools fill by word of mouth and have no idea how it works. Here's how to make it deliberate without turning parents into salespeople.

Money 4 min

Can Grants Pay for Marketing? Sometimes — If You Ask for the Right Thing

Funders rarely fund "marketing." They regularly fund outreach, access, and capacity building. Here's how to write the ask so it gets through.

Permission 5 min

How to Sell Without Selling Your Soul

Selling isn't convincing anyone. It's removing the obstacles between someone who already wants it and the decision. A better enrollment conversation.

Money 5 min

Marketing a Program the Participants Don't Pay For

Free programs are harder to fill than paid ones, not easier. Here's how recruitment works when the funder pays, and how to keep the funder happy while you do it.

Mechanics 4 min

How to Fill a Course That Isn't Filling

Cohorts don't fill evenly. Most sign-ups arrive in the last three weeks, which is why the panic discount feels necessary and why it quietly destroys your next intake.

Money 4 min

$10,000 a Month in Free Google Ads for Nonprofits

Any registered 501(c)(3) can get $10,000 a month of free Google search advertising. Most don't use it, and most who do get suspended. Here's the whole thing.

Mechanics 3 min

When Your Nonprofit and Your Program Compete With Each Other

A parent organization and a program with separate websites, separate names and one small audience. It's the most common self-inflicted marketing problem in this field.

Mechanics 4 min

Filling a Herbalism, Naturopathy or Holistic Medicine Program

Health training programs face a marketing problem no one else has: you're recruiting adults into a career the mainstream questions, under advertising rules that limit what you can promise.

Mechanics 4 min

Filling Permaculture and Biodynamic Courses

Land-based education has a marketing rhythm of its own: seasonal, place-bound, and sold to people who need to arrange a fortnight away from their life.

Mechanics 3 min

Filling a Teacher Training or Certification Program

Teacher trainings sell a transformation and a credential at the same time. Most programs market the transformation and lose to programs that answer the practical questions.

Want someone to look at your numbers?

A free 30-minute review. No pitch.

Book the review Or try the budget calculator