Tutoring Business. Please Help!

[afcafc]

Hello,

I am qualified teacher and I have been looking into starting my own tutoring business for a while. I am targeting primary and secondary children. I feel that I have a unique way of teaching, and as I have also completed my Masters in education I have a variety of interventions that I could implement to improve children's learning.

The main area in which I am struggling is marketing. I am not sure the best way to market my business to get the ball rolling.

I have set up a website gradeboosters.co.uk as well as a Facebook page. The reason I don’t have any prices on my website is because I like to discuss the packages available in a free 30 minute consultation session. But I guess this doesn’t matter as I have not been able to get any traffic to my website.

I boosted a Facebook post for £20 in my local area which 1600 people viewed, 11 clicked on the post and 1 asked for more information about the service. This was just a trial.

My other marketing ideas include:

Leaflets – dropping these off in local play areas and shops as well as door to door

Vehicle graphics on my car.

My initial plan is to get 5 pupils that I can tutor (as I work full time this will be the maximum for me) and then start hiring people to tutor the rest.

Any help would be great,

Thanks.

 

[Blue Sky Accounts]

Hi.

Have you thought about writing blogs?

Having something interesting to say will give you creditably and you could then send them to your website.

How do you rank on Google? There are others on here that could go in to more detail about Seo and Google rankings.

 

[afcafc]

I have thought about adding value to my Facebook page giving worksheets, pointers etc. I will look into a blog. Thank you.

I thought I would put more focus in on FB as I thought that's where the advertising marketing is at the moment.

 

[Jeff FV]

I am targeting primary and secondary children.

The main area in which I am struggling is marketing. I am not sure the best way to market my business to get the ball rolling.

I have set up a website gradeboosters.co.uk as well as a Facebook page. The reason I don’t have any prices on my website is because I like to discuss the packages available in a free 30 minute consultation session. But I guess this doesn’t matter as I have not been able to get any traffic to my website.


My initial plan is to get 5 pupils that I can tutor (as I work full time this will be the maximum for me) and then start hiring people to tutor the rest.

Any help would be great,

Thanks.

But that's not really targeting - that's pretty much all school children.

What subject(s) are you planning on tutoring?

Your website doesn't really tell me very much. I'm guessing you are a teacher in the primary sector? (if you were in the secondary sector you would be much more subject specific.)

I think your offer is a bit too vague. If you can offer maths tuition to GCSE level you will never be short of work - tutoring/preparation for subject specific GCSE is what secondary parents will be looking for, but you need to be able to show some credibility to offer tutoring in a specific subject.

Build up a positive rapport with the Heads of Departmemt in line cal schools of the subjects you want to offer - when a pupil is struggling they/their parents will ask. If they know of anyone who can offer private tuition. Get a couple of students, do a good job, and word of mouth will do the rest.

 

[afcafc]

You are spot on! I am a primary teacher and wouldn't mind doing lower secondary but not GCSE. As the primary area is my specialism I would like to focus on this more. Thanks for the advice. I guess it's just word of mouth after getting the first person on board

 

[Alan]

Join mumsnet and nextdoor online communities and contribute there a bit

 

[afcafc]

Hi I'm looking at tutoring Maths and English. Thanks I will take a look at mumsnet.

 

[The Byre]

You get them to come in for half an hour a week and you charge by the term.

 

[afcafc]

Can you explain this a little further please. Get them to come in where? Thanks

 

[The Byre]

We have been running a music school for a year now and it all started (one dark and stormy night)* with a young girl who wanted to find a room for giving music lessons. We had a spare room in the building with great acoustics, so after several days of discussions and getting to know one another, we both decided to open a music school with a view to expanding if it takes off.

She runs the thing and is 100% responsible for all day-to-day stuff and the customers are mostly yummy-mummies bringing in Tarquin, Herminia and Jonquil to learn sax, flute or piano. We also get adults. Pupils pay by the month and the demand has been great, to the point that the poor girl is teaching some nights until nine. She also does some Skype stuff, so the fact that we have good broadband (50 down, 10 up) helps enormously. The cost is £117 a month for one hour a week and just £60 for half-an-hour.

Yes, I know that is not much, but then we are very far from centres of great wealth and costs and wages are low in this area. For some reason, over half the customers are from some sort of medical profession, both adult learners and parents of kiddie-winkies.

We hope to find two more teachers starting next year, but finding qualified teachers that are funky, free and easy to get on with, is not that easy.

It all started (one dark and stormy night)* with using some spare room and moving stuff around. Now we are seriously thinking about turning that whole building over to music teaching and starting other funky and interesting courses in subjects that are neglected by mainstream education. Drama and film string to mind! To do that, I have to pull my socks up and build a whole studio designed specifically for teaching drama and film.

*"It all started one dark and stormy night and a man too tied to go on. The Invaders! This is a Quinn Martin production!"

 

[Scalloway]

Can you explain this a little further please. Get them to come in where? Thanks

Do you have premises or do you intend to teach them in their own homes?

 

[Gecko001]

Hello,
I feel that I have a unique way of teaching, and as I have also completed my Masters in education I have a variety of interventions that I could implement to improve children's learning.

Thanks.

Is the above on your website? Parents want to employ someone who they think has experience and a proven track record in the teaching profession. The above will not fill prospective parents with confidence that you are the tutor they are looking for.