Are you considering becoming a home tutor? Well, it is a good time to think of doing so. The home tutoring business is exploding! According to a report, the global private tutoring market was valued at approximately USD 96,218 million in 2017 and is expected to generate around USD 177,621 million by 2026. Sounds encouraging, right?
Choosing to become a home tutor is the easier part, what is the more difficult part then? Well, like in any business – convincing your potential customers of your credibility is the toughest part! In the case of parents who are fastidious about choosing tutors, it becomes even more challenging.
A bit of intuitive advice that anyone can give you is to inculcate and advertise qualities valued by parents. But there is more to the game today than this.
Talentnook brings to you 5 most effective ways that can help you convince parents to hire you:
1. Reach out to the mothers and their circles first
Reports state that one in four mothers is raising her kids alone today in the U.S. Many are today the sole breadwinners of their families. In a child’s home tutoring, the role of the mother remains most important while fathers do have a say too.
You can do the following to reach out to the mothers:
- Establish connections with the mothers by reaching out to them outside schools, in their kitty party circles, etc.
- Many societies have messaging groups solely for residing mothers. Get yourself introduced as one of the local tutors in their neighborhood.
- Mothers are usually more likely to pay heed to word of mouth than the fathers. Get them talking about you by marketing exclusively to them. For example, think of having an information stall at an upcoming exhibition in your locality!
- Leverage your connections with event organizers and find a way to get yourself known at women’s gatherings.
- At events, you can choose to interact in person with the mothers or by distributing informative flyers. Regardless of the way you choose to reach out, your focus on the mothers will give you quickest conversion results.
Pro tip: keep the language and visuals of your advertisements in alignment with the mothers. For example, writing, ‘worried about not being able to help your child’s math because you’re a busy working mom?’ will result in more inquiry calls vis-à-vis ‘worried about your child’s math grades?’
2. Use reviews, testimonials, and word-of-mouth
Reviews can help any business grow by a multiple. If you are a home tutor, getting yourself actively reviewed makes all the more sense. These reviewing platforms could be education blogs, education channels on YouTube or even local directories.
For example, if you plan to teach math as a home tutor to GMAT aspirants, you can get yourself talked about on the GMATClub and other forums. Online forums are the best ways to get yourself star ratings that you can then actively put on flyers and newspaper ads.
Ask your existing students and their parents for written and video testimonials. The latter works better if you have an online presence. Use them in your newspaper advertisements and online posts. Most parents are likely to get influenced the most by word-of-mouth. Make sure enough people know about your past results with the students to talk about it to fellow parents.
Also read: Make Money as a Private Tutor: Here’s How!
3. Have an extensive online presence – explore the video territory
A website with a simple contact form, your resume and credentials, and your subject offerings can lead to better conversions.
You can explore having the online presence in the following (and in many other) ways:
- Create a simple website using free resources (for example Wix.com available online).
- Upload your credentials, a picture, subject offerings, pricing, etc.
- Create a blog and post regularly – subject matter, notes, objective questions anything that’s interactive.
- Give a peek into your teaching style by uploading sample video lectures.
- Create formula cheat sheets, rulebooks, crisp note sheets, etc. for your subject and watermark them. Also, add your contact details on the bottom section and upload them to education forums.
Also read: How to Create the Perfect Online Tutor Profile
4. Invite the parents to demo lectures, workshops, coffee shop get-togethers
Nothing convinces parents more than seeing the quality of teaching with their own eyes. You can get parents to participate in many ways.
We have a few ideas that can help you in big and small ways of generating parents’ interest in you as a home tutor:
- Organize free parents-children workshops at your home or at local coffee shops.
- Get parents to participate by inviting them to talk about the problems they face with home tutors.
- Organize free classes once a week and invite both parents and students (for example, Sunday Math Workshop by Alice could be a go-to-event for the parents every week).
- Also organize exclusive parents-only workshops at your home or at a local centre (for example, helping your child with Science: The Parents’ Workshop – could be an interesting event title).
- Participate in seminars held by universities on child development. Even if you don’t get to speak on the podium, you can still informally interact with the parents.
- Tie up with child psychology experts and organize joint workshops. This will boldface the fact that you put research into your teaching.
5. Register on reputed, credible platforms
There are many job listing portals and online forums that are aggregators for local businesses. They are also a good way for home tutors to advertise themselves.
For example, Craigslist is one such way. And, Talentnook is one of the most innovative ways today to reach out to the right audience. Talentnook connects tutors and students in the neighbourhood and gives the best of choices for after school learning.
Make sure you’re present on such platforms because the parents today, look up online as their first step of the home tutor search. Not being present on a platform can lead to you missing out on important leads. Online forums, listings, discussion groups are a great place to make yourself known to the parents.
Offline marketing has its perks, but the right mix of offline and online presence is what makes the most successful home tutors today. If you have the skills, you must also be able to sell yourself to your customers.
So, go explore all the ways that we’ve shared in this article with you. If not by a 10X multiple, your conversions will go up by noticeable numbers, at least!
Do you wish to become a home tutor? Register with Talentnook as a talentmaster and join 100+ tutors to start teaching in your neighbourhood.