Covid-19, grow your business, Tutors, Tutoring Businesses

How to Maximize Revenue for your Tutoring Business

How to maximize revenue for your tutoring business during covid-19

The school year 2019-20 is likely to be unforgettable for the entire academic community – students, parents, and tutors alike. 

As schools and colleges closed their doors during the lockdown, parents across the country started homeschooling their kids while teleworking, working in essential professions, or job-searching.

As a result, many of them started seeking out supplementary educational aid to ensure that Covid-19 did not negatively affect their kids’ education (Over 42% believed that it would!). 

This entire situation led to a spike in the need for tutors everywhere and now many tutorpreneurs are helping close the gap between students and learning in the new normal.

If you are an individual tutor or tutoring business wondering how you can maximize your revenue in the new normal, you are in the right place. 

We are sharing this resource today to help private tutors, home tutors, and tutoring companies learn how to grow their business and be prepared so that their income is not affected by the economic downturn that the world is facing. 

Consider this a tutoring business plan for the present year and beyond.  

To give you a brief overview: Online tutoring, business marketing, better session delivery, payment protection, and process automation, is the key to maximizing business success and keeping the revenue flowing in, undisrupted. 

Here’s what you’ll find inside:

  1. 8 ways in which private tutors and tutoring companies can maximize revenue
    1. Expand your business to online tutoring
    2. Get more customers
    3. Increase sales without underselling your services
    4. Simplify your booking process
    5. Start taking group classes
    6. Deliver better tutoring sessions
    7. Don’t lose any payments and reduce no-shows
    8. Automate business processes
  2. All set to maximize revenue for your tutoring business?

Jump to the relevant section by clicking on its link or understand how to grow your tutoring business in a step-by-step process. 


8 ways in which private tutors and tutoring companies can maximize revenue

1. Expand your business to online tutoring 

While countries have been lifting lockdown restrictions to boost economies, most of the schools and universities still remain closed. 

But, pandemic or otherwise, if you have started an online tutoring business, you need to be aware of the ways you can boost your business and promise a regular stream of revenue.

Some students might find having the one-on-one attention of an online tutor just the thing they need to finally understand something that they might have been too shy to ask about in a crowded Zoom call with many other students.

As a result, supplementary online education is playing a major role in catering to the educational needs of students – which provides a great opportunity for tutoring businesses to leverage a surge in demand, in the current times, and grow their business. 

A school girl attending an online class by a tutor using a laptop and making notes simultaneously.

How can online tutoring help you increase your revenue? 

  • You can start your online tutoring business with a Summer Program for a head start. If in-person summer camps are not possible, a virtual one can also work well. Online camps require a lesser amount of investment and commitment, so they can allow you to cater to a larger number of students. 
  • Online tutoring can also allow you to work across time zones. The pandemic has caused a lot of ESL/ELL students to move to their home countries. Their tutors can utilize the virtual channels to generate income while their students are away. This way you can fill your spare hours during the day. 
  • With online tutoring, you can also work independently and stop paying the tutoring agencies $25 to $35 every time you work. All you need to do is learn how to market your tutoring business so that you can keep the full amount. It will also save a lot of time and transportation expenses. 

Think of starting online tutoring as not only a way to leverage the surge in demand, but as a way to expand your in-person tutoring business. 

You are adding an additional stream of revenue to your business by being able to cater to more students at a time, in any part of the world. 

However, if you want online teaching to be only temporary, there is no problem. You can always go back to the traditional in-person tutoring as well. But even in this case, online tutoring can be an excellent way to expand the reach of your business and earn more. 


2. Get more customers

Following a similar logic that we discussed in the previous section, the increasing need for online tutors right now makes this a perfect time to get more students enrolled with you. 

Parents are actively looking for mentors and tutors to help their children during these changing times. This is the best time when advertising tutoring services can pay off.

While this presents a great opportunity for you, it is equally good for your competitors as well. 

To get more students and maximize revenue for your tutoring business you need to make it easier for parents and students to find you and for your offering to stand out.

Here’s how you can be exactly where your customers are looking for you: 

A mother finding an online tutor to schedule an online class for her child at home.

Make it easy for potential customers to find you

The place where parents and students would look for an online tutor or a tutoring business is quite obvious – the internet

This makes it imperative that you enhance your online presence on all the possible channels where parents and students might try to find you and should be able to find you.   

1) Google My Business listing

Google is one of the first places where people would search for a tutor for their child’s needs. It’s important to ensure that your business appears in the first few search results for tutor keywords in your area.

A completed Google My Business listing can help you with local search engine optimization (SEO). This means that when people search for “tutors near me”, your brand will appear in the top search results. This is why you should make sure that you have a Google Card for your business. 

2) Social media

Most of your potential students and their parents are active on social media and will thus try reaching out to you through this medium. Hence, advertising tutoring services on social media can be a good idea!

Your social media marketing strategy should be carefully planned out. Rework your strategy in accordance with the current needs.

If you don’t have any, start promoting your business on social media now! 

Facebook, Instagram business profiles

If you haven’t done this already, create business profiles on Facebook and Instagram. Remain active on these handles to engage with your existing and potential students. 

There are many ways in which you can use your social media handles: 

  • Post micro-blogs and tips for students to use while studying at home for prolonged periods.  
  • Share small ‘how to’ videos and educational content for example, how students can make their way through intense competition fair and square.
  • Post photos. Get pictures of you working with your students (with parents’ permission, of course!) and post them on your profile. 
  • Promote ongoing deals and discounts on your page.
  • You can consider investing in paid advertising but first focus on generating non-paid, organic traffic. 
  • Share your offerings on Facebook groups where you can promote your brand and gain more students. 

There are some things you can do to make your page appear in search results more often. Plan and do live videos relevant to your work on your page more often. If you do them regularly, your page will be counted as more effective. Apart from this, keep posting consistently. 

Youtube

Youtube is another active medium where your potential students or their parents might search for you. Children might turn to Youtube for online assistance

Start your own Youtube channel where you can provide educational assistance to people like providing classes or consultancy through live streaming. You can also monetize your online video lessons to generate revenue. 

3) SEO enhanced website

This is the perfect time to make your tutoring website which you have been putting on and off. You can use a website builder like WordPress or Wix to make your website. 

Make sure that parents and students looking for a tutor can find you through your professional website and all the content is optimized for search engines for a high ranking in search results. 

To check the SEO status of your website, you can use tools like Ahrefs and Ubersuggest. They will help you find the relevant keywords, SEO issues on your website that might be affecting your search ranking, and much more.  

Analyze your website traffic and conversions to make sure that you’re working in the right direction. Use tools such as Google Analytics for insights on traffic and conversions.

You can also add a ‘Book free consultation’ button to your website using an online scheduling tool in order to convert website visitors into potential leads for your business. 

4) Get listed on online directories

Online directories are also a good place to be listed. Make sure you get your business listed on as many relevant directories as you can.

Some of the most common options are listed out for you here:


Get more students from your existing students/Referrals 

No one is more credible to share their experience with you than your existing students. Use their experiences to build your image online. Word of mouth is one of the most reliable and trustworthy ways to attract new customers. 

You can start by streamlining your feedback mechanism. Take feedback from your students after each session. This will not only help in promoting your business but also in analyzing your teaching and improving. 

Request testimonials from your students and their parents about how you helped them and what makes you stand out from other personal tutors.

Next, you can actively promote this feedback and include it in all of your marketing resources like posts, ads, brochures, etc. 

You can also design a referral program and incentivize existing students and parent customers to refer more students to your business. 


3. Increase sales without underselling your services 

Tutors often struggle to convert more sales and negotiate the optimum price. They generally end up underselling themselves and losing out on a lot of revenue. 

They even try to give out free demo lessons or sessions to prove their worth and attain a greater number of clients. 

Students and parents are usually not familiar with the tutoring industry. This is the main reason why they might view the fee structure as expensive. They may think that you might not be able to justify the amount of money that you charge for your lessons.

To tackle this, you need to tweak your sales pitch to get more customers and convince parents that your services are worth the cost they pay. 


Cast a better first impression

Before you pitch your services, you need to convey your value proposition convincingly and position yourself as someone who understands their challenges and knows how to tackle them.

Here are a few ways in which you can achieve this:  

  • Free assessment: Provide a free assessment of the child first. This will help you analyze the current level of the child and identify the gaps if any. It will be very helpful to guide and teach the child as an individual. It will also help the child get on board with your service. 
  • Free consultation: After the assessment, provide online consultation to the student and their parents. Share and discuss the results of the assessment during this session. You can discuss the strengths and scope of improvements for the student and suggest a personalized lesson plan that works to strengthen these specific areas. 
  • Value-based selling: Focus on the values you provide instead of selling yourself. Understand their needs and clearly communicate how you would help them meet their needs.  

Communicate your pricing effectively

Position your brand in a way that parents and students understand that you might have set higher prices to reflect your expertise in a certain area. This might even imply a high demand for your tutoring services. 

Whatever your prices are, make sure you communicate them to parents effectively. You should be able to justify them to your clients with effective communication. 

Although you could consider offering discounts to convert more customers, there is already a surge in the demand, so why not make the most out of it!

A graph showing an increase in the sales of a tutoring business.

4. Simplify your booking process 

With so many students to be tutored, you need to manage your time during the day efficiently. While you might have time slots fixed for your lessons, managing the booking and filling of these slots can be a burden for you. 

An online scheduling tool can make it easier for you to take bookings for these slots. It will also make the booking process easier and more convenient for the students and their parents as well. 

During the pandemic, there has been a sudden shift to an online model for many tutoring centers, franchises and even individual tutors, making tutor scheduling much more relevant. 

There are many perks of using online scheduling tools for your tutoring business:

  • 24×7 bookings: Allow your customers to book lessons and consultations with you on their own at any time during the day. Do not miss any requests anymore! 
  • 1-click scheduling: Scheduling online makes the process simpler for your clients. They do not need to keep waiting on a call for their slot to be booked. They can now book with a single click. They can choose a slot of their choice at their own convenience. 
  • Get bookings through all channels: Add booking links to your outbound emails, website, social media pages to convert visitors into paying customers. Connecting when your prospects are the most engaged will help you to convert more sales and will give you a lead over your competitors. Many online appointment scheduling tools like Appointy offer integrations with popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to connect with new students. 
  • Integrations: With online tutoring, you now need a scheduling tool that has integration with virtual meeting software like Zoom, Google Hangouts, or GoToMeeting to enable virtual tutoring sessions. 
  • Saved time: You’ll be able to save so many hours that go into receiving calls and managing appointments in a pen-paper appointment book! You can use all these hours to invest in teaching more students or to prepare better for the teaching sessions. 

5. Start taking group classes

Were you only taking 1:1 sessions until now?

If your answer is yes, you can utilize this time to experiment with group tutoring. 

If you didn’t have enough space for group sessions earlier, virtual tutoring can solve that problem for you. 

Leverage group classes to teach a group of students of the same grade at the same time, and make more money. This will allow you to save time which you can use to accommodate more students. 

Many students have similar goals and interests, especially the ones preparing for higher education. You can group such students together for online tutoring sessions. This will also lead to a more conducive learning environment. 

Many tutors have been getting requests for more group classes since the pandemic outbreak, especially study groups for SATs. You can bring this into action. Also, group classes work best for summer programs for topics like vocab, quick math, and similar subject areas. 

Enhance your income and reduce your workload by experimenting with group tutoring sessions. 

A girl attending an online group session using her laptop. The laptop screen shows the tutor and other students in the same class session.


6. Deliver better tutoring sessions

Don’t allow the inability to teach face-to-face hinder an amazing teaching session from your side.

Online learning can be a great education supplement but only so when it best fits a child’s needs. Even in the online space, a tutor must know how to connect with their student, tailoring their program while continuously providing guidance and valuable learning skills.

  • Use smart algorithms in online tutor scheduling tools to match students directly with a tutor based on their needs, and given a tailored learning plan suited just for them. 
  • Maintain digital student databases to keep a track of their appointment history, notes, lesson plans, challenges, etc. to better understand every child’s individual challenges and strengths
  • Ensure uninterrupted communication even during online sessions with Zoom integration. Online scheduling tools integrate with popular video conferencing platforms seamlessly to create a new Zoom meeting for every appointment that is booked with you. 
  • Use custom forms that students/parents can fill at the time of booking an appointment with you. This will help you prepare better for your sessions and provide special attention to students in the areas they need help with

7. Don’t lose any payments and reduce no-shows

You might be a little skeptical about conducting online tutoring sessions due to no-show possibilities and uncertainty around the payment. 

But prepayments and appointment reminders can tackle this issue for you. 

Appointment reminders don’t let your students miss any class because they forgot! Using an appointment scheduling tool like Appointy helps you automate these email and text reminder notifications to parents. You can also send these notifications at preset times before the sessions to ensure that their wards attend their lessons and hence, reduce no-shows.

To make sure that you do not lose any payments due to online sessions, allow your customers to make hassle-free payments online when they book an appointment. Your clients can do it in a single click pay-as-you-go option. The prepayments also give you no-show and cancelation protection, even if a student misses a class!   


8. Automate business processes 

Reduce admin work and automate processes as much as possible to save time and focus on teaching. 

As you shift your tutoring business online, many students who are not on repeated schedule bookings are expected to constantly reach out to you for the same/next day scheduling. 

You can expect your phone to ring off the hook, and your inbox flooded with emails for scheduling requests and inquiries. This can take up a major portion of your day. 

Using tutor scheduling tools to automate session booking will save you time spent on calls and prevent all the back and forth in texting and emailing. These tools are often a combination of online scheduling, student database management, and staff management that reduce admin work and let you focus on teaching. 

Putting your business on autopilot will help you save time, effort, and money that you can invest in attracting new students and leveraging the surge in demands during these changing times. Here are a few processes that you can automate using a tutor scheduling software like Appointy:  

  • 24×7 online scheduling
  • Digital student database management
  • Staff productivity management
  • Automated reporting and analytics 

What are the tools you need to put your tutoring business on autopilot?

  • Online tutor scheduling software like Appointy
  • Video conferencing tools like Zoom
  • Whiteboarding tools

All set to maximize revenue for your tutoring business? 

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the way tutoring businesses have been operating for years – leaving the entire community in chaos amidst changing behaviors. 

We get it and we want you to know that in these fast-changing times, we got you. 

Running and growing your tutoring business is not easy, but it’s also an opportunity like never before. 

We at Appointy have been receiving hundreds of requests from private tutors, home-based tutors, and tutoring companies to set up scheduling for their business over the past few months. We have helped many of them manage and grow their business, and we can do the same for you. 

Here’s what Sam Younis, has to say about using Appointy for his Mathnasium center: 

A customer review for Appointy's tutor scheduling software by the owner of Mathnasium. The customer appreciates Appointy's tutor scheduling software, it's customer service and pricing.

Being an easy-to-use, cloud-based tutor scheduling software, Appointy can help you simplify online appointment scheduling, adapt to the new normal, get a steady inflow of clients, and manage your business efficiently. 

We are also providing 24×7 priority assistance to tutoring businesses in order to get them started in less than 15 minutes. 

So, get started with online scheduling for your tutoring business now → 


About Appointy

We at Appointy, help business owners grow and run their businesses with our online scheduling software. This blog was a part of our ‘Manage your Business’ category, where we provide expert tips, and resources, or simply talk about the challenges that small and medium businesses face every day. 

If you have any thoughts on this blog or would like to chat about your business struggles and achievements, let us know in the comments below. 

We love a good talk!