Let us suppose you possess all the characteristics of a successful tutor, including a true passion for teaching, and you’ve already come up with a clever scheme on how to make your business boom.
While all this has a nice ring to it, if you don’t find ways to attract new students – it’s all for nothing.
If you’re just getting started with your online tutoring business, likely, you don’t have a big budget to invest in ambitious marketing initiatives. So, in this article, we’re going to check out a couple of budget-friendly marketing methods you can utilize to boost your tutoring business from the very beginning.
Different ways to market your tutoring business
While there are many more ways to market your tutoring business, we’ll focus on the four most effective methods:
Face to Face
Like in the old days, nothing beats good old-fashioned face-to-face (F2F) marketing – no social media posts, no paid advertisement, and especially not spamming your potential student with e-mails.
By communicating face-to-face with your could-be students, you can turn on the charm and start creating meaningful connections with them while building a strong, real-life presence in your local community. It’s all about being present, staying transparent, and earning their trust.
Since the heart of this type of marketing is in events, you could hold an event related to your subject, perhaps even run promotions or set up meet-ups.
It’s also a good idea to visit critical-impact locations (such as schools, universities, libraries, community centers, and coffee shops) and hand out brochures or flyers. However, you’ll have to design them first (or hire a designer), which is an additional cost.
Social Media
Since most of your potential students are hanging out on social media anyway (like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) getting in touch with them there and turning them into your customers should be one of your main objectives.
Even if you don’t have a budget to spare, having a strong social media presence can get you a larger audience than you could ever get with face-to-face marketing and boost your business.
You could post educational tips and tricks, share relevant news, as well as give a sneak peek of the services you’re offering. Also, remember to keep all your accounts up-to-date and post regularly.
If you’re not working on a shoestring budget, paid social media advertising is another smart marketing choice.
Content Marketing
Creating consistent, first-class content is a powerful strategy for promoting a business as it answers your audience’s questions, builds bridges between you and them, earns their trust, spikes up conversion rates, and generates leads.
Whether it’s a blog on your official business site, an independent online journal, or even a couple of social media accounts – posting interesting, informative, and inspirational content is a sure way to put yourself out there and promote your tutoring business.
If you’re at the start of your tutoring journey and struggling to find your audience, you could also collaborate with other content creators and embrace guest blogging.
Simply contact important bloggers or influencers with a large following and offer them an interview or other information that could be linked back to you and expose you to their audience.
You can turn this into an opportunity to learn from their successes, study their marketing strategy, or do collaborative work and bring your audiences together.
SEO
It makes a little sense to have a professional site packed with prime content if no one can find it, right? So, one of the first steps towards attracting your audience is making your site easy for everyone to find.
You can start this by making sure that your site and its content are both search engine optimization (SEO) friendly. This strategy involves optimizing your site for SEO keywords, but also combining a catchy name with a top-level domain (such as .com, .org, and .net.), choosing a reliable web hosting provider, creating a user-friendly experience, and utilizing some SEO tools – if you don’t want to do everything on your own, that is.
Also, regularly freshening up your site with new content is a superb way to boost your SEO and bring in more traffic to your site.
Top tips for marketing your tutoring business
Since the tutoring business is strongly competitive, here are a couple of tips you can utilize to stand out in the crowd and come out on top.
Make your website and content SEO friendly
You don’t have to be a technical wizard to understand how SEO works and summon crowds of your core audience organically through any search engine (well, mostly Google).
While professional SEO services can beautifully bump up your online presence, don’t underestimate the power of a good-looking, mobile-friendly theme, keyword research done right, and updating your Meta tags – and you can do it on your own.
Post flyers in schools or on local community boards
Since schools are the site where your soon-to-be students are coming for scholarly support, it’s also the perfect place for you to present your tutoring business to them, their teachers, as well as their parents. Tell them a bit about yourself, your skills and services, and don’t forget to leave them with flyers so they don’t forget about you.
It’s also smart to post these flyers (as well posters) on local community centers, public libraries, and perhaps even coffee shops where students are hanging out.
It’s important to note that in most countries you’ll be required to get permission from the local authorities before handing out flyers and hanging posters.
Invest some money in your advertising
Considering that advertising a business in print media can get pretty pricey, you could put that money into digital ads and reach a wider audience while you’re at it – we live in the digital age, after all.
Pay-per-click ads (PPC) are one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise yourself since you’ll be paying a fee only when one of your ads is clicked on.
In addition to linking an ad to your site, you’ll want to create a complete PPC text that instills confidence and invites students to check out your services.
Post on social media
Since we’ve mostly covered this step in the chapters above, we’re keeping this tip short.
Try to spend some time every day on social media and don’t strictly stick to the subject of tutoring. While you’ll want to make sure your posts are relevant to the subject, it’s also a good idea to study your targeted audience, find out what they’re enthusiastic about, and give them a bit of that content.
You should also consider joining social media groups (like on Facebook) and offering a helping hand (as well as your services) to those who need them the most.
Use a referral program
While this strategy can work wonders if you already have a cheering crowd of customers, even if you have a couple of students (or friends) who are willing to put in a good word for you – it can still work.
This program can contain something as simple as a one-time discount, a free lesson, or even a referral fee for a percent of the revenue – just put your imagination to work.
It’s no secret that people tend to trust their friends much more than salespeople, which is why sales through good old word-of-mouth are simplest to make.
Running a referral program is also cost-effective and beneficial both for tutoring businesses and their customers – that’s why you should consider creating one for your business.
Be the best tutor you can be
Although this might sound like a no-brainer, being the best tutor you can be is an advertisement in itself.
The better you get, the more students will recognize your expertise, pass the word on, and draw in new customers. That’s why you should never (not even in your dreams) stop investing in yourself and improving your skills.
For instance, when we consider what it means to be a successful tutor, we often think of someone who possesses characteristics such as the patience of a saint, superb communication skills, and an ability to build strong, long-lasting relationships with their students. So, whichever your idea of a successful tutor is – try your best to become that.
Offer an unparalleled experience to clients
If sustained success is what you’re searching for, it’s critical to invest in innovation. In the world of online tutoring, this could be a suitable software – such as a customer relationship management (CRM) software that’s made to make managing client engagement simple and effective.
With an online tutoring software solution such as vcita tutors can stay in touch with their students’ needs, strengthen their relationships, and provide a personalized experience for each student. Since everything is controlled from a single, user-friendly console that works anywhere, anytime, and on any device – even a notorious non-techie will easily get the hang of it and create an ultimate client experience.
Attract more clients to your tutoring business
With the rise of the internet, the importance of having a strong online presence has become an integral part of growing almost all businesses, a tutoring business included. The marketing strategies and tips we’ve covered in this article should give you food for thought, help you come up with your marketing plan, and ultimately attract more clients to your tutoring business.
Since marketing can be time-consuming, don’t be surprised if you spend more time marketing your tutoring business than actually tutoring students, at the beginning at least. However, it’s worth both time and effort spent. The more students you can attract and retain, the better your business will grow.
