Grow Your Reach: How to Find More Students for Your Private Practice or Online Teaching Business

Finding students for your private practice can be a daunting task. You have the skills and qualifications, but how do you reach potential clients? The good news is, there are many ways to find more students for your private practice or online teaching business. Keep reading to learn how to grow your reach and boost your income. 

Showcase your Expertise
Having a professional, but simple website will help you stand out from the competition and attract more students. Make sure that your website is optimized for desktop and mobile devices, as many people will be searching on their phones first. Include information about yourself, what services you offer, contact information, and any other relevant details that potential clients need to know. Consider adding a blog section and post regularly!  Posting helpful articles related to your field of expertise will show that you’re an authority in your industry and help build trust with potential clients.

Leverage Social Media
Social media is a great way to find more students for your private practice or online teaching business. Create accounts on various platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and start posting engaging content related to your field of expertise. You can also create targeted ads on social media platforms that specifically target potential clients in your area who may be looking for private tutoring services or accent training classes. Additionally, join groups related to speech pathology or ESL teaching - this is a great way to network with other professionals in the industry as well as find new students for your business.

I’d also recommend that you get super specific about who you help.  Marketing experts call this your target audience, your niche, your ideal customer, your ICA, your perfect student, your tribe, etc.

Having a specific target audience helps you stand out from other teachers and will attract more students to you and your teaching style.

I recommend that you get as specific as you can.  Narrow down your audience and focus on speakers of a specific native language, a specific occupation, a specific age group, even people with specific hobbies or interests.

I know it seems counter intuitive to narrow your potential market this much, and I get it.  You want lots of students, lots of business, and lots of income!! 

But when you are trying to serve everyone, you are not really speaking directly to or connecting with anyone.  So, no one will pay attention.  No one will care.   And no one will contact you because they won’t be sure how you can help them or if you can help them at all.

This doesn’t mean you can’t branch out later and work with a different type of student and it doesn’t mean you are limited to ONLY working with one type of student for the rest of your career.

You can change gears at any time.

When I was just starting to build my own accent training private practice, my target audience was non-native speakers of English who came to the United States to pursue an acting career.  Pretty specific right?  But that’s why my business was so successful relatively quickly!

By focusing on actors who were still training and just beginning their professional careers, I had a lot of information to work with.  I knew where to find them, how to describe how I could help them, how to coach to them, and what their specific speaking challenges were so I knew what to focus on to get the best results. 

So, when these actors went back to acting class and could perform their monologues sounding like native speakers of American English, you can bet that every other student in the class wanted to know how they did it.  So, I had CONSTANT referrals coming in and my business took off!  And to this day, most of my students are this target audience, though I’ve branched out a little and you can too.  Later. 

If you are not clear about who you are, what services you offer, who you serve, and how you can help…no one is going to notice you among all the other marketing noise that we are all competing with right now.

And if no one knows that you exist, you can’t help them. 

To learn more, check out this clip from our Feb 2022 Live Group Coaching session.  We offer these sessions every month as part of The Accent Channel Method teaching and marketing programs.

 

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Looking for more help finding students?  Want to offer accent and pronunciation training and start your own online business (full time or as a side hustle)? 

Check out my full training program (a comprehensive Step-by-step marketing plan is included!):  https://www.theaccentchannel.com/accentinstructor