In this digital age, most people have started working online right in the comfort of their homes, and tutoring is no exception. Long gone are those days when tutors had to be “physically” present in order to deliver their services. Now, it’s easier than ever for both students and tutors to connect with each other online according to their compatibility. For example, if you are a maths tutor Melbourne or in any other part of Australia, you can market your services online in a cinch and grow your business bigger with time.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that you need to advertise your tutoring business services the right way to get more students. Read on this article to learn!
Here are effective ways to promote your online tutoring services and attract more students.
Create an Eye-catching Logo and a Catchy Name
Although many are running a one-person business, a memorable logo and name will help you go a long way in establishing a presence.
If you already have a logo and name in place, great – you are communicating that this is a legitimate business held to a certain professional standard. Now, check for clarity, aesthetics, and applicability across different media and platforms. Here are some questions that can help you navigate the process:
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Does the logo/name accurately represent your services?
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Does the logo/name align with the brand identity?
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Will it contribute to better brand recognition – is it unique enough and easily identifiable?
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Does the logo follow basic design rules? Namely, simplicity, versatility, timelessness, memorability, and appropriateness.
Keep in mind that the company logo and name are closely associated with your brand and can inspire trust. They make the first impression on customers, distinguish your brand from that of competitors, and foster brand loyalty.
Take Duolingo, one of the most widely used language-learning platforms, as an example. They stress that “How we write our name, how we use our symbols — these are the closest we get to a ‘signature’ for Duolingo. How they appear, whether tiny on a screen or enormous at an airport, becomes a crucial way for our customers and partners to find and trust us.”
The company’s logo as well as mascot, owl Duo, has gone through multiple rounds of redesign to become “more expressive and more vibrant” for better connection with users.
Leverage Classified Ads to Find Students Online for Free
You may already be familiar with one of the most popular free classified ads sites, i.e., Craigslist. It allows you to market your services for free. However, you should keep the description short if you don’t want to pay extra money. An eye-catching headline will also make for a great ad!
Adding a clear picture of yourself or your services can also attract potential customers. If you want to go beyond this, you can always opt for the Facebook marketplace or groups. It’s better to add a post in relevant groups only, such as “online tutors for TOEFEL preparation”.
Promote Your Tutoring Business on Social Media Platforms
As of now, around 56.8% of the entire world’s population actively use social media sites. Keeping these stats in mind, it can be said that it’s quite easier to find students online on social media platforms.
Whether you want to create your page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, make sure to post regularly to expand your audience and reach. It’s also essential to consider that you don’t simply have to post about your tutoring services, which can put off the users.
To attract more people to your page, you should post helpful tips, answer queries, or create a helpful post regarding a certain subject.
Try Blogging
Your best bet would be to create your own tutoring business website for blogging. This will make your business look more professional in the eyes of your potential students. Having a logo, book-a-class button, your description, and rates will further make it convenient for students.
You can blog about any subject you like. It can be related to answering common issues students have regarding a topic, or you can even start blogging from scratch about a subject.
As you post such blogs, your blogs will be shared with more people. This will help you in building a loyal audience. However, you shouldn’t forget to optimize your blog posts by using targeted and relevant keywords to stand out among millions of pages on search engines.
Provide Free Demo Classes
In order to grow your tutoring business, you shouldn’t be too rigid with your prices. At the start, it’s best to provide a free demo class to students. This will allow them to connect and book a class with you freely.
In addition to this, doing live sessions on your Instagram or Facebook page once in a while will help potential students to assess how good of a tutor you are or how compatible your teaching methods are for them.
Find More Students through SEO-Optimization
Search Engine Optimization: This is a topic that many non-technically minded people will shy away from. Part of the problem is that there’s too many self-appointed gurus and prophets in the field who claim to know what works and what doesn’t while in reality, it’s a) the search-engines themselves and b) the millions of people searching everyday that determine the ever-changing parameters.
Nevertheless, there is a common sense approach to this: Finding your keywords. Let’s say I’m a French tutor. What is the name of my blog or homepage? What keywords do my blog post titles contain? It might seem strange at first, but offering “French lessons” is not all that clear-cut from a search-engine perspective.
The search results for “French lessons online” – “online French tutor” – “teaching French on Skype” or “learn French with private tutor” highly differ. Theoretically, all you have to is find a phrase that describes what you do and which not millions of others are already using.
This can prove to be rather difficult, especially in the online tutoring field,because market place providers and other companies with lots of money dominate the first positions on many keywords due to paid advertising and armies of SEO-specialists. Instead of trying to compete with the giants find the roads less traveled and stick to your phrase until you get results.
If your page stays buried under other search results, try a different phrase, keyword combination and research online what you can do from a technical perspective. (make sure whatever resources you find are new, since the rules are changing quickly) If I had to name only one reason why many online teachers fail to carve out their own online teaching business, ignoring SEO would be very high on my list.
Cooperate with Small Tutoring Businesses and Local Schools
Cooperating with your competitors can be mutually beneficial if done right. For instance, you can offer your services part-time at local tutoring centers, which will possibly be at a lower fee but a great opportunity to sharpen your teaching skills and market yourself.
Shawn Manaher, Founder and CEO of Ignite Marketing, stressed that schools are the best place to advertise your tutoring service. If you offer standardized online classroom or test prep that would be of use to local schools, you may try contacting the front office to place a flyer on a bulletin board or get a quick mention in the school’s next email newsletter. Similarly, with approval from admins, posting in online communities or social media groups of certain schools offers direct access to your target customers.