Creating a steady supply of potential clients is what every tutor aspires to – you don’t have to worry about running out of work, and you don’t have to dedicate your time to finding it. However, building up this kind of client base takes time, and wasting your efforts on a strategy that doesn’t get you results can be very disheartening.
I experienced this myself when I decided to expand my business, but I did eventually pinpoint a number of methods that worked really well for me. Taking everything I learned into consideration, I’ve put together this list of 10 ways to get more tutoring clients. This article can help you start putting effective strategies into action quickly.
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10 Ways to Get More Tutoring Clients
Here are my top 10 tips for tutors that are looking to get more clients for their business. Whether you’re just starting out with your tutoring business or you’re an experienced tutor, you should be able to find some methods that will work for you.
1. Advertise at Local Schools
Unsurprisingly, schools are a great place to find new tutoring clients, but you can’t just walk onto a campus and start chatting to students. The best way to advertise at a school is to call the front desk and ask about their policies.
Some schools may be happy to post a flier on their bulletin board or even add you to a recommended resources page on their website. However, elementary and junior high schools may be more strict about who they recommend and require you to have certification in tutoring or working with children.
If you’re interested in tutoring college students though, you actually will be able to walk onto campus and start chatting with students. You can also put up fliers and join college social media groups. Once you get one college client, a great way to start bringing in more is to offer a small referral discount for clients who recommend you to a friend.
2. Add Your Tutoring Business to Google Business Profiles
To improve your visibility within your local area, creating a free Google Business Profile for your tutoring business can be a great idea.
Google will present your business profile to users that search the relevant keywords in your area. This means potential clients don’t need to click on your website to see information about you. Even if you tutor online, it's never a bad idea to make yourself visible in many different places.
You can include an overview of your business, a list of your services and rates, a link to your website, and contact information on your Google Business Profile. With the analytics features you’ll have access to, you can even see how many people interact with your profile and what they search for to find you.
Since this tool is completely free, I highly recommend making a profile and seeing what kind of a result it can achieve for you.
3. Set Up a Website
Having a Google Business Profile can help you get seen, but you’ll still have to convince people to choose you over other tutors. To do this, I recommend setting up your own website. This can be a simple and affordable process if you use a website builder with templates and built-in features, so it’s suitable no matter how small your business is.
With a website, you have all the space you need to clearly define and sell your services and tutoring style. You can list the resources you’re familiar with, the textbooks you recommend, the exams that you offer prep courses for, and list your rates. You’ll also be able to display a portfolio of work you’ve done in the past and examples of worksheets or resources you make for your clients.
4. Start a Blog or a YouTube Channel
Although it does require time and effort, an effective way to showcase your expertise as a tutor is to offer some of your knowledge for free. By creating content in the form of a blog, a YouTube channel, or even using short-form platforms such as TikTok, you’ll be able to appeal to younger audiences and give prospective clients an idea of what you’re like as a tutor.
You can cover topics such as studying strategies, how to take effective notes, what to do the night before an exam, or how to tackle a specific math problem or understand a scientific principle. As well as raising awareness of your business, you’ll also be improving your image by demonstrating that you go beyond what’s expected of you. Everyone wants to hire professionals that care about their work, so this can have a positive effect on your business.
Depending on the age range you serve, it can also be beneficial to publish video content, as it can help clients get a sense of your character and feel comfortable letting you tutor their child.
5. Promote Yourself on Social Media
If you offer in-person lessons for school students as one of your services, getting involved in local groups on social media can be an effective way to promote your business. Word of mouth and recommendations are common ways for local tutors to get more clients, so being present and available in the same areas of social media as local parents will help make sure you don’t miss out on these opportunities.
For online tutoring, social media promotion is arguably essential for getting new clients. Keeping an up-to-date LinkedIn profile and starting a social media marketing campaign are my two recommendations for getting started.
If you use Twitter, you can leverage hashtags to help get your content seen by the right people, and for LinkedIn or Facebook, you can create a business page and post valuable content in related groups. Don’t forget that you can also use social media to link to other promotional content you produce, like YouTube videos, blog posts, and even your website.
When it comes to appealing to a young audience, it’s a good idea to jump onto some of the latest hits in terms of social media apps. Try to be active on TikTok, Instagram, and/or Snapchat. If you can present yourself as an approachable, yet knowledgeable tutor, you may find that kids and teens will want to work with you specifically.
6. Consider Paid Advertisements
While it is completely possible to promote yourself on social media without a budget, paid advertisements can help you see results more quickly if you have the means and desire to invest in them.
For targeting local clients, paid adverts on Facebook could be particularly effective, as Facebook is one of the main social media platforms for the current parenting generation.
Depending on your budget you can either make graphic content for an advert yourself with free software like Canva, or you can find companies that will help you design a professional advertisement.
7. Request Reviews From Your Existing Clients
To help prospective clients get access to all the information they need to feel confident about hiring you, you can display reviews and referrals from previous jobs on your website or your Facebook business page.
While your published content and portfolio of work should effectively demonstrate the quality of your tutoring, it’s also important for clients to know how your customer service measures up.
This includes things like your communication skills, how easy it is to contact you, how punctual you are, and how often you miss or reschedule appointments. Previous clients can also attest to your teaching manner, patience, and friendliness towards students.
Even without taking the contents of the reviews into account, prospective clients will feel more at ease seeing evidence that other people like them have used your service and rated it highly.
When asking for reviews, you may also find opportunities to ask permission from clients to display or publish results or examples of their work or their child’s work to add to your public portfolio.
8. Improve Your Payment System
As a tutor, it's always helpful to try to be flexible when it comes to payment methods. Rather than asking for cash for in-person jobs, or direct PayPal payments for online work, setting up a payment system with a checkout page can help clients pay more easily and comfortably.
For my business, I like to use Pay.com. One major benefit was that it was so quick and easy to set up my account and start receiving payments.
With Pay.com’s, you’ll be able to let online customers pay for your services right on your website, by adding a checkout page that lets you pick and choose which payment methods you want to accept. You can choose from payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal, as well as Visa and Mastercard.
The great thing about Pay.com is that it has additional payment services that are great for catering to local tutoring customers as well. After an in-person class with a client, you can simply send an email or a text message thanking them for a great session and give them access to a Pay Link.
Clicking the link will take them straight to a secure checkout page where they can pay via any of the payment methods you choose to accept. If you prefer, you can use the Virtual Terminal feature and input card details you collect from your client directly into your Pay Dashboard to make a payment.
Click here to get started with Pay.com now!
9. Consider Signing Up for a Tutoring Website
If you're open to different methods other than getting direct clients, you can also look into tutoring websites. There are many out there to choose from, from multi-subject sites like Chegg, to specific platforms like Skooli for math tutoring, or iTalki for language learning.
A benefit to these websites is that you’ll have your pick from a huge pool of potential clients already signed up to the service and looking for tutors, so it can really speed up the process of getting more clients.
On the other hand, the site will take a cut of the action and require you to follow protocols to prevent you from taking clients away from the platform. This is why having your own website with a dedicated payment system is often better in the long run.
10. Use Virtual Classroom Software
Most of the tutoring websites mentioned above use virtual classroom software to deliver their lessons. This kind of software makes it easy for students and tutors to see each other on video, display presentations, use interactive whiteboards, and communicate via text all in one space.
It’s very popular amongst customers as well, with many believing that it helps increase efficiency and productivity during sessions and provide more value for their money.
If you don’t want to join an online tutoring company, it might be a good idea to invest in virtual classroom software instead, so you can offer a competitive service. This can help legitimize your services and draw in customers that might otherwise favor tutoring companies.
There are many virtual classrooms available for you to check out, but some examples include Adobe Connect, Kaltura, and LearnCube.
What's the Best Way to Accept Payments as a Tutor?
For me, simplicity for both my clients and myself is the most important factor when it comes to choosing a payment system as a tutor.
Offering simple online payments on my website was a must, and I also wanted an easy way to let in-person clients pay by card as well. That’s why my ultimate recommendation for any tutor is to sign up for Pay.com.
No matter how small your tutoring business is or what level your technical skills are, you’ll be able to set up your own checkout page on your website and start accepting payments with ease.
The Bottom Line: How Should You Market Yourself as a Tutor?
When it comes to tutoring, it’s very common to offer both online and in-person sessions, which means you need to market yourself on two different fronts.
This can be challenging, but with professional tools like a website and an easy-to-use payment system like Pay.com, you’ll be able to cater to both kinds of clients.
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