Online tutoring is becoming more popular than ever due to the transition to remote work following the pandemic. Parents and students are finding online learning to be an accommodating and rewarding experience. For teachers and tutoring professionals, online tutoring is a lucrative and practical approach to maintaining a steady income. Of course, becoming an online tutor is not the easiest thing in the world. To get noticed, you need to know how to navigate online tutoring platforms and learn how to market your tutoring services properly. Here’s everything you need to know about getting involved with online tutoring.
Establish your Requirements
Whether you are applying to a tutoring business already in existence or creating your own, you’ll need to research and determine the prerequisites and the specifications of navigating an online tutoring business. Click here to learn more about ways to become an online tutoring.
Understanding your target market is even more essential if you attempt to create a business on your own. You’ll need to know how to compete against other tutors teaching the same subjects as you and create a unique selling point that encourages students to choose you over other tutors. Showcase the areas that make you stand out as a professional tutor.
Identify your Audience and become an online tutor
Ensure that you conduct appropriate market research beforehand to get a better feel of your customer’s requirements for their continued learning. Since your students may be in college or younger, you have to remember that you will be appealing to students and their parents for the tutoring services and teaching capacities you can offer them. To appeal to both students and parents, you want to create a flexible approach that allows you to become an online tutor who presents as both a creative and professional individual, capable of quality teaching.
Select your Subject
If you have a teaching degree and are competent in more than one subject area, it may still be a good idea to narrow your focus down to one or two subjects. Most parents are looking to hire a tutor or homeschooling teacher to assist with only a few subjects that their children need specific assistance with. It’s more expensive to hire a teacher who can facilitate an entire curriculum; however, these options are out there, so if you’re someone with this capability, you may want to anchor your advertisements to this niche. If you find that a particular district is looking for tutors competent in specific subjects, you may want to advertise your services for these subjects specifically. You need to look for opportunities that meet you where you are without compensating your desired rate and skillset.
Become a Member
Many tutoring platforms, such as Skillshare and Udemy, allow you to host your classes and teaching videos from their main website. You create a profile for your classroom, and students registered with your classes will view content from your classroom page. Since these platforms do their own advertising to engage both teachers and students, you will likely gain additional clients just from being a member of these tutoring websites. It is recommended to become registered with more than one platform so that you are reaching out to all of your potential markets for teaching and tutoring opportunities. Most membership fees for these platforms are reasonable, so you won’t be spending a fortune maintaining an active presence.
If you’re not a fan of joining pre-established tutoring websites, you can also consider a software provider to do the work more independently. Software tutoring platforms such as Tutorpace allow you to download applications that connect you with your students through an invite link to your private classroom. While these approaches do allow for your tutoring to be more personalized and independent, you may miss out on the traction that is naturally created by being a member of the more popular tutoring websites. Depending on how vastly you want to grow your clientele, these options are available to meet your specific needs and preferences. If you are brand new to online tutoring, it might be a good idea to start small and select one of the software providers first before becoming an active teacher on one of the more well-known tutoring websites.
It might be easier for you to maintain your base of 5 to 10 clients than adding more and more students who happen to see your classroom on the tutoring website platforms. As you become more comfortable with the process of tutoring online and adding in new clients, you may decide to switch to a tutoring website as your central platform for conducting online tutoring services.
Utilize Ad Placement Websites
If you don’t want your face seemingly everywhere online, you might consider posting an ad on Craigslist or Facebook to promote your services. You will likely gain a small group of loyal clients this way, which is another convenient way to start small and grow your business as you gain more confidence and comfortability working with more and more students at a time.
Think Like a Businessperson
Ultimately, becoming a tutor is like any other online business. The more you advertise, and the more platforms you are a part of, the more likely interested customers will notice you. Keep in mind that you will be promoting to both parents and students, so keeping your approach fun but professional is essential for you to be successful in your attempts to market your online tutoring. As you build your website and clients begin to roll in, you may consider adding reviews and feedback to your website to engage more potential students for the future. Perhaps consider email marketing and blogging as additional ways to maintain your clientele and gain new students over time.
Online tutoring is a fun and lucrative way to make money in 2024. As long as you learn the ropes of digital marketing, you should have no problem getting a solid list of clients interested in your tutoring services. Be patient with the process, and you’ll go far!
