Tutoring Services: How to Meet Increasing Demand as Many Students Transition to Online Learning

Tutoring services were already projected to grow in demand over the next few years – and then the pandemic hit, creating a surge of parents seeking these services for their own children.

Some tutoring services have seen their demand triple since mid-March, while the U.S. market for private tutoring is expected to grow by more than $7 billion between now and 2023.

During a time when in-person education is limited or compromised, tutoring has become a sought-after service to ensure students don’t fall behind in their educational growth. Parents of young children are worried about their students falling too far behind their peers to catch up, while older parents are worried that a poor educational experience in the upcoming school year could have long-term implications on their child’s academic success, including even their options for attending college.

Tutoring services offer a solution to these educational anxieties. But even as demand for tutoring grows, the companies providing tutoring to students are under pressure to capitalize on this demand and grow their business by expanding their customer base. Whether you provide tutoring for young students, SAT and college prep or all of the above, here are three tips to help you meet this demand and grow your business.

1. Expand Your Definition of Your Target Market

As demand for tutoring services soar, your business will likely discover that the typical makeup of its client base is changing. New pressures and challenges faced by students are likely to drive interest in tutoring services from parents who might not be interested under normal circumstances.

Because of this growing interest, your target market is likely diversified. To reach as many families as possible as they explore their options regarding tutoring services, your company should consider increasing its investment into awareness-level advertising that reaches a larger audience.

TV and radio ads are a great way to engage a large local population. Through cable TV, for example, you can still target these ads by purchasing inventory around children’s programming, or programming targeted to parents. Similarly, don’t overlook the targeting capabilities of other digital channels, including social media, digital video, and display advertising. These will help you concentrate your spending on parents who are more likely to seek out the services of your company.

2. Speak to Parents’ Needs and Concerns

The value of your messaging can’t be overlooked. Growing demand for tutoring services is a direct result of new challenges, concerns, and pain points being experienced by students and their parents. To earn the business of these families amid their struggles, your advertisements need to speak directly to their concerns.

In many cases, though, these families are juggling more than one concern as they seek out the help of a tutoring company. Quality of education is an obvious pain point they’re looking to solve, and does need to be addressed by any company offering its tutoring services. At the same time, parents and students will still have questions about the safety measures being taken to mitigate risks in an in-person tutoring setting. They may also have concerns about how tutoring services can complement ongoing schooling or other education the student is receiving.

To strike the right balance and connect with your target audience, tutoring services may want to work with an advertising partner that can account for these multiple messaging needs and create high-impact campaigns that resonate with both students and parents. Advertising partners can also help you create campaigns across multiple marketing channels to engage your target through multiple points of contact, each of which can offer subtle differences in how their messaging attempts to connect with consumers.

3. Be the Solution to Your Customers’ Problems

Tutoring services work in an industry where customers are facing abnormal circumstances and high levels of anxiety. They’re worried about the quality of education their children are going to receive in the coming school year, as well as the safety of their children as a new school year begins.

As a tutoring company, you have an opportunity to win the trust of your customers by addressing these worries head-on through your messaging. Contact us today to find out how an advertising partner can help you make the right impression with your target audience.