Since the world is getting digital, the tutoring industry must adopt more effective advertising tactics. Severe competition is another reason for doing so for tutoring services. By 2028, the global private tutoring market is expected to exceed $171 billion.

Nowadays, being a knowledgeable tutor is not enough to succeed — your experience must be boosted with a proper advertising strategy. This article will share some insights on how to sell tutoring services. Whether you're a private tutor or an agency striving for a higher conversion rate, this guide is for you.

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What is tutoring advertisement?

Tutoring advertisement is a type of advertising that aims to promote tutoring services to its target audiences — pupils of schools or universities. It can offer private tutoring in the form of individual lessons or entire learning courses or packages, as well as sessions, techniques, and materials tailored to the client's needs.

Private tutors’ or agencies’ profits depend on the number of learners, so investing in online advertising is essential for them.

Types of tutoring services you can advertise

There are many different types of services that you can effectively advertise in this niche. Here is a bunch of them:

Academic tutoring

For Academic tutoring, it is important to consider the demographic and behavioral characteristics of the target audience. For example, if you are promoting undergraduate programs, target school students and their parents.

Test preparation tutoring

For test preparation tutoring, you can address not only pupils, but also those grown-up audiences who strive to complete such tests as TOEFL, IELTS, etc.

Online tutoring services

Specifics of online tutoring services is that you can promote them even easily, hitting both grown ups and pupils across digital channels.

Specialized and skill-based tutoring

If you ask yourself – ‘how to promote my tutoring services’, and you also specialize in certain skills, here is a tip for you – you need to advertise across narrow niches, so you will most definitely need to use precise targeting options.

Best Platforms for Tutoring Advertisement

Now, let’s check some of the most popular options when it comes to platforms.

If you are wondering how to post tutoring ads in the articles, Google Ads and programmatic are your options. Those are the fastest ways to drive traffic and get first customers. Google Ads works best when you need to enroll students quickly or fill remaining spots in a group.

Campaign costs can be reduced by targeting low-frequency keywords and less obvious, high-intent queries with low competition. Alternative tools for paid advertising also include programmatic platforms – they often have inventory sources that Google ecosystem may lack.

Social media advertising for tutors

The main platforms for targeted advertising are social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. A key advantage of promoting online courses through social media advertising is the low-budget entry point and accurate reach of the target audience, provided you clearly understand your ideal customer profile.

Online tutoring marketplaces

How to advertise as a private tutor on marketplaces? You can find niche or business tutoring marketplaces like Udemy or Coursera. By publishing courses that interest your audience and mentioning your school or specific courses, you can drive traffic and generate registrations.

Local advertising channels

Even if you promote online-only education, it doesn’t mean your marketing efforts should be limited to the internet. Industry conferences, meetups, exhibitions, and similar events can be an effective way to reach audiences that are difficult to connect with through other channels.

How to advertise tutoring services?

There are numerous ways to promote your offer, and we have already listed some tips here. Now, let's focus on additional things you can do.

Identify your UVP

So, where to advertise yourself as a tutor? Before answering this question, you need to create your personal UVP. UVP (unique value proposition) is a short statement outlining the value you create for customers. Your UVP (unique value proposition) is a short statement showing the value you provide. A strong UVP helps clients choose you over competitors. Include:

  • Expertise: Focus on your main subjects.
  • Awards: Mention teaching achievements.
  • Techniques and values: Share methods relevant to students.

Keep it short but compelling. Agencies should highlight their unique value and research competitors to find opportunities.

Polish your tutoring website

A personal website protects your income and builds credibility, even if you use platforms like Preply. Use no-code website builders for convenience. Include:

  • Experience, subjects taught
  • Qualifications and awards
  • Hard and soft skills
  • Availability and pricing
  • Contact details and booking options
  • Blog with value-driven articles to attract traffic

What content to add to a private tutor website?

Apart from having a user-friendly interface and being optimized for search engines, your website should deliver the following content and functionality:

  • Your portrait
  • Experience and the subjects you teach
  • Qualifications
  • Academic and other awards
  • Soft and hard skills
  • Availability
  • Pricing
  • Contact details
  • Booking

These are the basic requirements. Apart from providing this information, you should also create a blog section and publish articles that will bring value to visitors and drive traffic. Now, let’s see how to advertise as a private tutor and hit just the right audience.

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Learn more about your target audience

Success depends on understanding potential clients. Gather data on:

  • Demographics, hobbies, challenges
  • Lesson budgets
  • Social networks and frequently visited websites
  • Content formats and communication preferences

Create multiple customer personas. Use past clients’ data if available, or analyze competitors. Refine personas as you attract students.

Where to get this data?

Please note that you may have to prepare not one but several customer persona profiles. If you have already been delivering tutoring services for a while, you can gather this data by analyzing your past and current clients.

If not, analyze your competitors' audiences and consider making assumptions. Then, after you attract some students, make sure to review these assumptions and refine the profiles if needed.

Prepare marketing materials

Before promoting your business, you must create relevant marketing materials. Here are several ideas:

Guest blog posts

Besides writing articles for your website, consider creating guest blog posts for relevant third-party platforms. If you deliver valuable content, it will be easier for you to build trust and drive traffic.

Guest blog posts are also effective in terms of organic marketing for tutors. If a link to your website is published on a reputable platform, search engines will consider your website more credible and relevant, so that it will have higher rankings.

Social media posts

Make sure to deliver value. For instance, you can share tips on remembering new information or learning your subject more effectively. Do your best to keep your content unique.

Emails

Consider creating a set of cold emails to attract clients as part of marketing tutoring services. Equip every message with a catchy subject line and highlight your UVP.

Don't forget about personalization — address every individual by name and explain how you can solve their issues. The text of your emails should vary according to different customer persona profiles. End every message with a CTA that will take email recipients to a relevant page of your website.

Demo lectures

Record an online demo to advertise for tuition, convince future students that you're a professional, and prove your tutoring skills. Keep it short enough but valuable — if it takes visitors an hour to watch your video, most of them will likely drop it.

Business cards

Business cards may seem old-fashioned, but when designed in a creative way, they can be very effective if you are wondering where to advertise tutoring services. Refrain from providing all the details on the same side of a card. Otherwise, it will look overloaded.

business card

Blend organic and paid advertising

Consider launching paid advertising campaigns on programmatic platforms to enhance reach. When designing your ad creatives, keep in mind the requirements of the selected platforms.

As for the ad for tutoring copy, focus on the most essential things. Specify your main subject and the years of experience, and outline your UVP. Note that some platforms allow A/B testing, so you can prepare a tutoring advertisement and find out which of them brings better results. Feel free to use instruments for the organic growth of your tutoring service as well.

Build landing pages

Create landing pages to advertise your business and convince visitors to take the desired action and convert. This way, you can advertise tutoring services online effectively.

While the website provides all the information you need and want to share with the audience, a landing page works for your salesperson. For instance, a user clicks an ad promoting your free session and then lands on the page where the only possible action is to book this session.

Attend relevant events

So, where to advertise yourself as a tutor if not at specialized events? To attract clients and grow your professional network, take part in education events (college fairs, open days at universities, etc.). Join online or in-person, interact with other attendees, and distribute business cards and other marketing material when possible.

Offer free sessions

For tutors, building trust is a crucial thing to do. Therefore, consider allowing potential learners to have the first session with you for free.
For students, this will be a chance to ascertain the relevance of your techniques and skills without investing anything. If you meet their requirements, they will likely sign up for paid lessons and recommend you to their friends.

Promote on educational websites

Google and social media are excellent channels, but you should not limit yourself to them. Your potential learners and their parents may visit various educational websites; you should be there for them. Search for websites relevant to your area and suggest them to cooperate.

Benefit from your network

If you have any connections among tutors and teachers, use them to promote your tutoring service. These include connections in local schools, on LinkedIn, etc. Select professionals who are not your direct competitors.

For example, if your primary area is preparing students for the IELTS exam, you can call in a favor from a general English teacher.

Common mistakes in tutoring advertisement

There are a couple of traps to stay away from when you strive to promote your service in the educational niche:

Targeting too narrow or too broad

General, broad targeting leads to wanted budgets since you may address audiences to whom your services are irrelevant. The opposite of it is narrow targeting when you send ads only to certain segments (while indeed you can send to a greater number of segments), which may lead to poor reach and visibility.

Unclear value proposition

Advertising tutoring services is not easy. Tutors may overly fixate on what they offer and miss out why it matters to their customers. Offer better grades and exam scores or a diploma in specialized courses as value.

Ignoring mobile users

Starting a display campaign is only 50% of success in the mobile-driven world. Be sure to create separate mobile landing sites for registering mobile users. Plus, be sure to enable mobile traffic on your ad platform.

Setting basic creatives

Education is a specific niche that often comes with dull creatives that don’t attract attention. With the in-built Creative Builder on your DSP, you can design ad units for free right inside your platform, animated or static – no designing skills needed.

Managing leads poorly

If you want to know how to sell tutoring services effectively, you should work with prospective clients timely. One thing is to accumulate leads that you can work with. The other thing is to be ready to reply to them as soon as possible. If you can’t do it yourself, assign an individual who can timely reply to your leads, because late replies reduce the number of your potential customers.

Lack of social proof

If you are new in your field, you will most certainly experience a lack of trust. If you are not new, but you forget to add trust signals that prove your experience to your landing page, the effect might be the same – an insufficient number of leads. Showcase testimonials from satisfied clients, show the number of happy customers, and the results that they achieved with you – grades, diplomas, and more. 

Promoting tutoring business online can be a rather time-consuming task, as you have to prepare creative materials, select the right channels, set up targeting, etc.

With programmatic advertising platforms, this process gets significantly simpler. Powered by AI and ML, they allow advertisers to run highly targeted and measurable campaigns.

In essence, within DSP (Demand Side Platform), you set up your campaign, and the system automatically "cooperates" with the supply side platform to purchase the ad space on suitable inventory. For the optimal price, your tutoring ads are shown to users who comply with your audience's characteristics, so your conversion rate will grow.
 

How programmatic advertising works

Learn more about the DSP principles of work here.

Another benefit in terms of saving time is that some platforms (like SmartyAds) have an auto-resize feature. Instead of customizing your visuals for every specific channel, you can turn it on, and your creatives will be automatically resized to fit their placements.

creative autoresize

Conclusion

Offline and online tutoring will always be in demand, which means that the market will keep growing. To overcome your competitors, you need to apply marketing efforts across various channels, including your website, social media, etc. You must come up with your value proposition and promote it to the right customers at the right time.
If you don’t know how to post tutoring ads online effectively and affordably, you are in the right place. With programmatic platforms, you can advertise to prospective clients who are most likely to be interested in them without wasting time on finding suitable ad inventory. Everything is done automatically so that you can focus on more important things.

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FAQ

How can I develop a strong value proposition for my tutoring services?    

To develop a compelling UVP, identify your unique strengths, such as specialized subject knowledge, teaching experience, or flexible scheduling. Clearly articulate these strengths in your marketing materials to differentiate yourself from competitors.    

What are the benefits of paid online advertising for tutoring services?    

Paid online advertising allows you to target specific demographics, such as parents of school-aged children or college students. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads or programmatic DSP offer tools to create targeted campaigns that can increase visibility and attract new clients.    

What types of banners should be created to advertise tutoring services?    

Create creatives that showcase your expertise and provides value to potential clients. Shareable ads like native can increase your reach and establish you as an authority in your field. Keep you banners clean, understandable and with clear CTAs.    

How can I advertise tutoring services locally without spending much?    

With a programmatic DSP like SmartyAds, you can target specific neighborhoods, cities, or regions using geo-targeting. This allows you to reach potential local students efficiently while controlling your budget and how it’s distributed across your campaign.    

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