So you’ve set up your tutoring business. First of all, congratulations! Tutoring has been around for as long as there has been formal education, but there’s no better time to enter the supplemental education industry than now. With the abrupt transitions into and out of virtual classrooms parents are scrambling to make sure their kids don’t fall behind in any area of their education, and you’re here to help. You make difficult concepts easily digestible (and fun!), you build up your students’ academic confidence, and seeing your students improve over time with your guidance makes your heart warm.
But how do you grow efficiently and effectively and tutor even more students in this new environment? You’re in the right place. Here are four easy but substantial ways to grow your tutoring business today!
1. Establishing Your Online Presence
Before you try to reach out to potential new clients, make sure you have your portfolio all set up. That way, your clients can see the value you can bring them for themselves.
Here are some questions you should be answering on your website:
- Who are you and why are you tutoring? By answering these questions, you are cultivating brand sentiment. (Here are some tools to help you figure out how well you’re doing.)
- How much experience do you have? Quantify the impact you have made in the past: How much have you improved students’ grades? How many students have you taught? What credentials do you have?
- Who has used your business in the past with great satisfaction? Can they provide you with a testimonial that you can include on your website? People are more willing to trust information that comes from multiple different sources.
Now that you’ve carefully crafted your online image as a tutor with a great track record, make sure people can find you by optimizing your website for search engines (aka, the notorious SEO that everyone claims to be so important… and that they may be absolutely right in doing so). While new tactics for SEO emerge constantly, the basics remain the same: know your target audience, know the keywords they’re searching for and including that in your site, and update your site regularly. All this boils down to the same focus: creating relevant content for your audience. Everything else is just icing on the cake, and you can learn more about that here.
2. Building Your Community
Being a part of a community can increase your happiness and your resilience. Businesswise, community is crucial for increasing brand awareness, fostering brand loyalty, and setting your clients up for success. There are many ways to go about building community, and here are some possible avenues you could consider.
Start Local
What better way to build community than to start with the people who are already in your neighborhood? Try getting on apps like Nextdoor and advertising your tutoring services there. Or try searching up Facebook groups for local parents (i.e. “Parents of (Your City)”).
Even though tutoring has moved almost entirely online over the past year, now, with the reopening of schools, more and more parents are looking for tutors who can meet with their children in-person. That makes it even more important to be known within your neighborhood.
Not sure how to post on Nextdoor or in local Facebook groups? Try this template:
Hello neighbors! My name is ________, and I’m here to offer my services as a tutor. I have __ years of experience tutoring students from __ to __ grade, and I specialize in ____________. First sessions are free for new students! Please feel free to send me a message here or at (phone number). Have a great day!
A Brand New Audience
With the proliferation of social media, businesses have to learn how to build up their brand—and a tutoring business is no exception. Show some behind-the-scenes work you might do to prepare for your lessons on Instagram. Show fun examples of your teaching style on TikTok. Share uplifting stories about the power of perseverance and how it leads to progress and, eventually, success on Facebook. People want to see how you run your business, and you have the power to show them all your favorite parts.
Keep Folks in the Loop
You’ve built a strong, supportive community. What’s next? Keep your community updated with a weekly or monthly newsletter! It can be a fun, regular way to share some academic tips for parents—and to make your community feel like it’s growing along with you. Not sure what to include in your newsletter? Try highlighting a student of the week, sharing an inspirational anecdote, or including some relevant student and parent resources. No matter what you write about, be sure to keep your focus and to keep your audience engaged.
3. Keeping Your Regulars
Now that you have a group of regular clients, it’s time to take it to the next level with promotions and subscriptions.
Try offering a discount for a 10-lesson package.
The number of lessons in the package is not of great importance. As long as your clients can see that the package deal is a better value than standalone lessons, they are more likely to purchase the package.
Offer discounts for referrals.
Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Give an incentive for your current clients to refer their friends to your tutoring business. Try giving out a free lesson for every new client referred?
Give a free first lesson.
While this seems like a huge time investment, it’s one with an almost guaranteed return. People are inclined to view the end of a service they value as a loss, and, as a result, are likely to continue paying for the service. You could also view the first lesson as a chance to see if you like working with your potential new client.
Adopt a subscription payment model.
Once you know that your clients are going to come back again and again, simplify the payment process by getting them on a subscription payment model. That way, you can set them up once and know that the rest of the payments are going to be automatic and worry-free. Using Finli’s auto-pay feature, it’s as simple as filling out a form!
4. Not Worrying About the Administrative Tasks
With maintaining your online presence, growing your community, and supporting your students, you have more than enough on your plate. Nobody thinks about the boring administrative tasks when they think about pursuing their passions, and you shouldn’t have to. When you have to manage scheduling (and cancellations and rescheduling), payments (here’s why Venmo isn’t a good idea), and tracking each of these transactions on a spreadsheet, actual teaching is no longer a priority.
Finli solves all of these problems by offering a suite of features to help you run your tutoring business. From recurring invoices, setting up your families on autopay, customized registration forms, emailing tools and more! . With all of your administrative tasks in one place, you can focus on what’s truly important—teaching and shaping the next generation of movers and shakers.
Tutoring businesses take work to grow and maintain. Finli wants to help you focus on your passion. Schedule your free demo here.
