A Guide to Where and How to Advertise Your Tutoring Service

There are many steps to consider when starting out as a personal tutor. Advertising your private tutoring business is one area that can be quite tricky, and you might feel as though you aren’t really reaching a wide enough audience.

The key to a great advert is making a clear and confident profile of yourself, and giving all the relevant information to your prospective students or their parents so that they can easily find a tutor.

Listing your experiences and successes is an important way of catching students’ eyes. If you have previous experience working in teaching or in an appropriate professional field for your subject, then your service will stand out amongst other offers.

You might also have experience in preparing students for exams such as SATs, GCSEs, A-Levels, or even TOEFL. Maybe you have knowledge of entrance exams such as the BMAT, LNAT, MCAT, and GMAT, for example. Perhaps you can help with college and university applications, which is worth mentioning too.

There a lot of ways to promote your service and reach out to a large audience. We will show you how you can use your community, including public and online spaces, to advertise your home tutoring jobs.

How to Advertise Your Tutoring Services

There are more ways than ever to advertise your services. Be sure to use social media, create your own website, and advertise your services on sites such as Superprof, giving you access to a huge number of potential customers.

We drill down into the methods of advertising your tutoring services below.

Use Social Media

It’s an obvious one, but probably the most important of them all! Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are the main social media platforms used today and will help you reach an enormous audience.

It should come as no surprise that in today's digital age, the internet is one of, if not the most efficient means for tutors to promote and grow their businesses. Using social media platforms is one of the most common strategies to get your tutoring in front of a student.

Nowadays, everyone trying to build a real business must post and be active on social media. The use of social media makes it much simpler to find customers, regardless of whether you run a large tutoring company or you are a one-person home tutor.

Making yourself a professional page on Facebook, or an account on Twitter, for example, will give your business more depth of information and legitimacy and will make it easy for people to see and contact you.

Facebook groups and pages are a great way to get started. Look for local community groups for your area and start joining! Many local regions might also have a ‘buy and sell’ page, which is a great way to start advertising your one-on-one tutoring service and reach a large number of potential clients instantly and bring them academic success.

LinkedIn is another great social networking site, with a professional focus. You can make a profile with a picture and list all of your credentials, experiences and former employment. You can add connections and follow people as with most social media, so you can keep an eye on the home tutors and tutoring services around you!

You can teach English online here.

Using the SPARK system

Regardless of how skilled a tutor is, their ability to convince potential students of their abilities is crucial to their career success.

As a team, we spent numerous hours figuring out what makes a great instructor, and then we focused on how to promote these motivating people.  Here are five essential elements that tutors must grasp in order to effectively promote themselves.

Let's take a look at what this framework tells us about being successful as a tutor.

S - STORY. In order to be successful as a tutor, you must understand your story. This is not only how you started as a tutor, but also what you stand for and why you are passionate about what you do.

P - PROOF. A vital part of communicating excellence is evidence. This is how parents know they’re getting value and are confident in trusting you. Tutors who are willing to share success stories are far more attractive to prospective clients.

A - AUDIENCE. A key skill for any educator is an understanding of their students — empathy and compassion are vital traits. Ask your students what they’re hoping to achieve, and consider their concerns and wishes.

R - RESPONSIVENESS. A great tutor will show a willingness to receive feedback, and act on it. When speaking to a parent for the first time it is often useful to relay anecdotes, times when you’ve shown this trait in the past.

K - KNOWLEDGE. Great educators love sharing their knowledge, and this is obvious to parents within a few minutes of talking to you (or reading your profile). Tutors who regularly post blogs, create video content and distribute free resources tend to stand out from those who don’t.

Now that you have an understanding of how the system can be applied when creating a profile and operating as a tutor, you can begin to scale your business and increase the number of sessions that you provide in a given week.

Websites such as Vistaprint are a great way to design your own marketing materials easily and professionally.

Always check your spelling and grammar! Tutee's want professional one-to-one private tutors. Little errors can make a big difference in a student's eyes. Would you trust a writing tutor who couldn't write their own ad correctly?

Also, make sure marketing materials are tailored to the right audience. Specify who you teach (SATs, GCSE, A-level, Graduate students etc.) and specific areas you offer help for (essay writing, homework help, test preparation).

Become a Tutor using Networking

Just being a friendly, conversational and approachable person can help you promote your tutoring service. By talking to people face to face, be it friends, family or members of your local community, you can get yourself recognised and begin spreading the word about your business.

The more people you talk to, the wider your network will grow.

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways of spreading information – especially if you are being recommended by students you have tutored.

Even though your business might feel slow, to begin with, if you provide an outstanding tutoring service to your students they are likely to recommend you to people they know. Include testimonials from former clients detailing how you motivated them to learn and succeed in your adverts.  

Gumtree and Classified Websites

Classified websites are a great place to become a tutor and advertise your tutoring company. Whether you are a maths tutor, chemistry tutor or Spanish tutor, creating small adverts with relevant information, and maybe a professional photo as well is a good way to be found by prospective students.

Gumtree is a particularly powerful site. It is free to create an account and an advert, and you can add your prices, information and contact details. Gumtree has a massive online community, and will therefore provide a massive audience for your advert.

Using keywords in your advert title will help people find you in their search, and a well-written description will instantly attract business.

You could also place an advert in your local newspaper or magazine to advertise your service in your local area.

Be aware that as a self-employed tutor you are responsible for declaring your tutor income and registering your company.

Finding students to tutor

You may also research the numerous societies and clubs that are active at your university or possibly one nearby. If you wish to teach at a higher level, this may be the option that is perfect for you!

Many college students join clubs and organizations to mingle, learn more about the subject of their choice, or do both. Developing relationships with the relevant society or group could lead to introducing a few new clients with whom to discuss the subject.

Students have a great chance to meet new people through clubs and societies, especially if they are studying away from home. You'll probably meet a new group of prospective students doing this to gain an advantage in their tests.

If you have a nearby university or college or even secondary school for that matter, I would certainly encourage you to check out the related societies.

If you are looking for a better alternative to tutor spark or tutor sparks then Superprof is your friend!

Build Your Own Website to Advertise Your Tutoring Business

Building your own website is a huge step in making your business more professional and established.

Websites such as WordPress are a great way to inexpensively and easily set up a website. You can choose your design, layout and all the information you wish to show prospective clients. You can buy a website domain, which is the name of your website, from sites such as One.com.

There are lots of online guides and YouTube videos available to help you set up your own website, buy an online domain, and make your website more visible in search engines.

Using keywords, writing blog articles, and choosing appropriate images are all good ways of making your website more attractive and boosting your website in search engines.

If you are charismatic and have some creative teaching ideas for trouble areas, why not start making some YouTube videos?

Find Tutor Jobs through Tutoring agencies

Last but certainly not least, tutoring agencies are an essential way of getting started in the tutoring job industry.

Online directories abound, and tutors can list their services there. The only real distinction between it and posting free classified advertisements is that it is more centred on teaching and tutoring.

If you do decide to try it, you should be aware that there are a lot of antiquated or outdated websites that promise to connect you with students. Prior to moving further, it is always beneficial to locate other users who have discussed their experiences with the website.

You may find a local, regional or national peer tutoring service that you can join, either online or at a centre near you.

Online tutoring centres are becoming extremely popular and widely used. There is a huge array of choices out there, depending on what kind of personal tutoring you offer and how you wish to tutor.

To get the most out of an online platform, you should make your profile as detailed and attractive as possible and market yourself to the student. What qualities and experience do you have? Do you have any qualifications in your subject area? What makes you a passionate tutor? The right experience and attributes will make you stand out and attract prospective students.

Now you have a complete understanding of how to advertise and find students, learn more about obtaining DBS checks, the legalities of giving 1 to 1 tuition and the types of insurance you could invest in.

Some in-home tutoring companies charge a commission on your services, so it is important to explore the options and find what works best for you. Service fees and commission rates can be hidden in the small print sometimes, so make sure you do your research!

There are lots of free agencies, like Superprof, which just work as a place to advertise. They charge you nothing and let you run your business and payments solely between yourself and your client.

With tutoring agencies, the pupils will usually find you. So you can relax a bit! As long as your profile is strong, you will attract students that need your help and expertise, and your business can start growing.

Superprof’s enormous online community ensures that your profile has a wide audience – and it’s free to use. All you need to do is build your profile and make it live, and then students will be able to see you. Find tutoring jobs after teaching today on Superprof.

You can also check out the article: New DBS checks replace CRBS - A summary of the changes.