9 Sales Promotion Ideas for Your Tutoring Business

Tutoring is a lucrative way to make extra money, and eventually, some people even turn it into a business. If you’re one of them, you’ll need to find ways to promote your business and attract new clients. There are several different options out there today, including outsourcing your sales outreach, and you can do a lot more for promotions and marketing than ever before, even on a tight budget. 

There are no two businesses that will have the same strategies, but there are several ideas out there that everyone can consider when building theirs. In the list below, we’ll cover nine of the top ideas to help you promote your tutoring business and draw in some new clients. 

1. Offer free sessions or consultations 

What better way to attract new business than to give them a sampling of what you can do for free? There are so many educational resources online today that you really have to come up with a way to get the upper hand and generate the attention that you need. Sometimes, that means giving a little more away than you originally intended. However, it will result in a whole new audience of clients that will trust you because they know you’re capable from firsthand experience. 

2. Set up a referral program 

Word-of-mouth marketing is great for tutors and those in education. Parents and students alike will talk, whether the tutor is good or bad. If you want to build your audience, consider offering incentives for referrals. If you do this, make sure that the person being referred also gets some kind of incentive, such as a free session or a discount on services because they heard about you from an existing client. You don’t have to do freebies, either. You can offer percentage discounts or a certain dollar amount off services, or any other incentive you can come up with. 

3. Market on social media 

Social media is a must-have part of your marketing and branding strategy today. It also requires more than just creating a couple of profiles on social platforms and inviting followers to connect. You need to have an active social media promotions strategy that includes drawing in business from the audiences on each platform in a way that gets their attention. You could run a hashtag special, ask people to mention your Facebook post for a discount, and so forth. Make sure that you’re using all the social media platforms you can to reach all the potential audiences that are out there. 

4. Start a blog 

We feel the need to start by saying that this blog is not just for promoting your tutoring business. Yes, you can use it for that. However, the majority of the content that you post and share should be related to education, tutoring, and other industry topics. This allows you to position yourself as an authority in the industry and foster trust with your audience. That kind of self-promotion is better than any discount or deal, honestly. 

5. Advertise on education websites 

Educational websites and school directories are great places to advertise a tutoring business. You could advertise on physical campuses, too, if you want to go the extra mile and get more business locally. Take the time to offer some kind of reward or incentive for people finding you on these sites if you want to increase the number of leads that you get. You can even tell people that if they mention finding you on XYZ site, they can get a free session, for example. 

6. Use email marketing 

Even though people get hundreds of spam emails every single day, email marketing is still one of the most effective tools out there for businesses today. If you use it well, your tutoring business can develop a solid base of recipients that are reading your newsletter or getting your promotional emails. You can also offer specials and incentives in these emails, of course, or even give people an incentive to sign up for email in the first place. It’s a tried-and-true solution that will get results when you use it right, so make sure that you take the time to set it up properly. 

7. Attend trade shows and educational events

Educational expos, college fairs, trade shows, and other types of events are all great places where you can drum up new business. Even if you primarily do virtual tutoring, nothing is stopping you from tutoring locals. Attend events both in-person and online to promote your tutoring business. As a bonus, offer people incentives for finding you at these events and mentioning that they did so. 

Bonus: This is also a great way to grow your professional network.

8. Optimize your SEO 

Although not a promotion specifically, you are never going to get anywhere with the rest of the promotions if you don’t have a well-optimized website and online presence. SEO is king these days and if your business isn’t ranking organically, it doesn’t matter what kind of specials or promotions you offer. People want to work with the best of the best and when your SEO is optimized, you are showing them that you’re in that group. 

9. Partner with Smith.ai for outreach assistance and more 

Once your promotions start bringing in all those new leads, you’ll want to ensure that you have systems in place to handle them, including the assistance of a 24/7 answering service like the team at Smith.ai. Our dedicated virtual receptionists can assist with everything from lead intake and scheduling to SMS text messaging.

And, if you don’t have the resources, ask us how we can help with outbound sales and outreach campaigns to generate the leads in the first place. To top it off, we’ll help you craft the perfect strategy to manage all of it. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation to discuss what the 24/7 virtual receptionists at Smith.ai can do for your tutoring business promotions and more. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.