Education is a vital part of anyone’s life, as it opens a whole array of opportunities. It is a necessity and no easy task to complete it. On top of that, keeping up with the varying standards of education of different countries in the world can be quite taxing. But thankfully, we have private tutors and tutoring centers to guide students through their academic journey.
The State of Tutoring
Tutoring services play a big part in student development, as they help students keep up with the demands of their education, get to know themselves better, and learn how to capitalize on their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to academics.
From a business standpoint, tutoring services are just as formidable as any other business in any other industry. There will always be a demand for private tutors and tutoring centers, most especially in this time wherein students around the world have been forced to fend for themselves in the work-from-home setting. Analysts have even claimed that the private tutoring market in the US will be growing by $7.73 billion by 2023. It is a noble opportunity to invest in, as it is an industry that is all about helping people reach their goals.
However, given the constant demand for tutoring services, there are a lot of existing private tutors and tutoring centers around the world fighting to get the attention of students and parents. It’s a crowded industry, and while this is a good thing for aspiring learners, as there are hundreds of people actively looking to help them out with their educational endeavors, it can also be quite taxing to have to weigh options just to get help. To really get students’ attention and trust, you have to find the best way to market yourselves as leaders in education.
To help you get started, here are some important things to note when it comes to marketing your tutoring services:
The Usual Marketing Strategies
When it comes to tutoring, one of the surefire ways of getting clients is through word of mouth. Parents and students will first go to their network of trusted relatives, friends, and associates when looking for good tutors. But as effective as this is, this style of marketing is extremely unpredictable, and may not even result in substantial growth. A big part of success in the tutoring business is inclusion, and word of mouth marketing might be counterintuitive, as it may end up making your community seem exclusive to a tightly knitted network of people who “knows a guy.”
Another way is through face to face marketing, which can be a very effective marketing strategy for tutoring service providers looking to grow within their local communities. Meeting face to face with clients and partnering with schools and businesses can help quickly build a sense of establishment, even for companies that are completely new to the industry. But this may not be the way to go if you’re looking to expand further from where your tutoring business is located, most especially in this day and age of wildly expansive online learning and tutoring.
These two strategies might not be the most sustainable, but they both hold something very valuable that must be applied to your marketing strategy for your tutoring business: Trust and connection. This may seem obvious, but these are the main reasons as to why these are the go-to strategies for private tutors and tutoring centers. Completing one’s education is no joke, so parents and students will have to really find the safest and most trustworthy tutors they can find.
The strategies to use
Given that this is all about trust and connecting to your audience, what better way to do it than through content? Content marketing is all about that; it’s about establishing your business as leaders in your industry, and building a community that trusts in your expertise. It is the perfect style of marketing for tutoring centers, as it is more cost efficient than traditional marketing methods, and it can be closely monitored and updated with concrete stats and points of improvement.
To further connect with today’s students, you must first know where they’re coming from. Research is key here, as different generations will respond to different forms of marketing. For instance, if you’re targeting Generation Z, over 74% of them spend their free time on social media, and over 61% of them use social media to view video content, so going through these avenues of marketing is integral to your success. There is a lot of closely followed video content on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and some of these channels have grown from passion projects all the way to entire companies. One notable example is non-profit organization Khan Academy, which started out with its founder publishing tutoring content on YouTube to help his own students. Fast forward to today, Khan Academy is now a leading online tutoring center that provides world-class educational assistance worldwide.
One of Khan Academy‘s Free Tutoring Videos
Tutoring Content to Create
In terms of content, there are two main ways of making your business interesting to students. One is by relating to students: make sure to not only tell people that you know what you’re doing, but establish that you are here to help, and that you are fully aware of the struggles of your audience. Clients will want to know that your tutoring center knows how to navigate through both online and on-site learning. Post memes about the struggles of online learning, or maybe make a poll on what kind of learner people are. Look to effectively communicate to your audience, and give them avenues to respond and share their thoughts and experiences to ultimately build trust.
The other way is through publishing educational content. There are a lot of educational content creators on social media that cover just about every subject and sub-topic in every school’s curriculum. One example is Doctor Mike, a doctor who posts educational videos on health online. His content covers almost all forms of media, from reaction videos all the way to interviews with other medical experts.
Tweet by Dr. Mike
Having educational content may seem like a no-brainer for marketing tutoring services online, but it should not be underestimated. Providing snippets, sneak peeks, and examples of your own product is a great way to let your clients know about what you do and how well you do it, and more importantly, providing free assistance could help expand your community to those who don’t have the means to pay for your services, further emphasizing the sense of inclusivity that you should be aiming for.
Tutoring services are great for capitalizing on helping people, with the importance of education becoming more and more important as the world develops. Any good tutor should not only be good at teaching, but should also be able to connect to their students, and understand their needs, passions, and interests. In line with this, along with the high demand for tutoring services, investing in your marketing strategies is a must in order for your tutoring business to grow and reach more students in need of assistance.
-Written by Jack Cordero
