Pay per Click (PPC)

1. Create compelling PPC text

Create Pay Per Click (PPC) ads that build customer confidence or reduce purchasing anxiety. If you track statistics and have some positive ones that you can use, PPC ads are a great place to A/B test. For example, “98% satisfaction rate” or “240 Point Avg Score Increase” can be important drivers that can compel a potential customer to click on your ad.

2. Use ad extensions

Ad extensions can help make your ad stand out and have been shown to increase click rates. Add some compelling links to pages that make you stand out, videos, and guarantees. You can set up ad extensions inside Google Adwords and Bing.

3. Try remarketing

Ever wonder how ads from sites you’ve visited in the past keep popping up during your daily web surfing? This PPC strategy called remarketing is a cost-effective way to deliver ads to people who have already visited your website. You can set up remarketing yourself (See Tutorware’s blog post on Google Remarketing) or you can use a service like AdRoll.

4. Use keyword tools to uncover relevant, high volume keywords

Google Keyword tools is excellent way to uncover popular keywords, but there are several other software resources that you might try to mix things up and find some new ideas. Serp.stat is an excellent tool that produces keywords based upon common searches performed on search engines. Another excellent tool to help you generate ideas is SEO Chat’s free Bulk Search Suggest Tool.

5. Bid on long tail keywords

Long tail keywords are three, four, and five word search terms used by tutoring customers who often have a highly specific needs such as “Chicago Reading Tutoring for Dyslexia.” As opposed to root search terms like “Tutoring” or “Chicago Tutoring” which will have many competitors and a much higher Cost per Click (CPC), long tail keywords provide a more cost effective way to reach clients. You will often find that these searchers know exactly what they want to purchase and if your offering is a match you will find much higher conversion rates. You can use Google Search, Serp Stat, and SEO Chat’s Search Suggest Tool suggestions to locate some higher volume long tail keyword options for your niche.

Content Marketing

 6. Blog consistently

Blogging is one of the most important things that you can do to improve your organic search rankings, establish you and your company as an authority in your niche, and to build an email marketing list. All of Google’s algorithmic updates value high quality blog content, and at last glance the ideal length for a blog post is between 1600 to 2000 words. Think of high interest material for your niche, and make sure to pay special attention to your SEO and metatag descriptions. Blogging platforms like WordPress make this easy to do. Creating high-interest and somewhat catchy blog titles can also increase click through rates. For example: “8 Essential Study Skills Tips for ADHD” might be a eye-catching blog title for in the Special Needs niche. While somewhat controversial, we also recommend Opt-in Pop Up solutions like Optinmonster to help capture email addresses from your blog visitors. (While some of your readers may find this annoying, many companies are reporting up to 400% increases in email opt in conversion rates). In short, blogging will improve your organic (i.e free) search rankings, help establish you as an authority in your field, and help you build a valuable email marketing list.

7. Write helpful e-guides for your target audience

Create a white paper or e-guide repository on your website on helpful topics for your target audience. For example if your test prep or admissions counseling business is based near Harvard University, you might consider writing an Admissions Guide to Harvard with in depth advice, admissions criteria, and admissions deadlines that can help parents and students with the application process. Creating a repository of valuable, well-written, and regularly updated e-guides like this on your website will drive traffic to your website for years to come. A company that has done an excellent job with this is Veritas Prep with their free business school admissions e-guides. Always require a name and email address as a download prerequisite, as building a email marketing list should be a top priority for all tutoring and test prep companies.

8. Create infographics

Inforgraphics can be an excellent way to connect with your audience, and when posted to your blog, Pinterest and other social channels they can become long standing web assets that generate traffic for your business. If you’d like to produce them yourself, you may want to try some sites like Easel.ly, Piktochart, or Infogr.am.
To outsource, you might look for designers on Upwork or DesignCrowd.

9. Create marketing videos

Creating a marketing video for YouTube is a must for driving traffic to your website. YouTube is now the second popular search engine with over 3 billion searches, and is larger than Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL combined! Also consider shorter, less polished videos of your office, your team, an inside look at your process, or anything that would give a prospective customer a glimpse of your company. You can post these on social channels like Facebook, Google+, and Instagram.

10. Interview experts for blog posts

Interviewing experts on customer interests and DIY tips can be an effective way to add clout to your blog. If you offer high school tutoring but not admissions counseling you might consider interviewing a college admissions counselor. In addition to developing a productive referral business relationship, the counselor may return the favor and interview you, creating a larger footprint for your business as well as valuable backlinks.

11. Host a webinar

Hosting webinars with your own staff is great, but co-hosting webinars with other complementary companies can be even better – you can double the audience and exposure. Webinars become valuable web assets that can drive customers to your website for years to come. In addition, webinars will position you and your company as an expert in the field which will help your positioning in the increasingly crowded educational services space.

12. Create a slideshow on Slideshare

Slideshare provides an easy way of creating PowerPoint-like slides that you can use in a number of creative ways. We have seen tutoring companies use Slideshare to provide helpful tips for parents, students, and schools. Other companies have used Slideshare for press releases announcing expansion plans, new offices, plans to hire, and more. Like Pinterest, Slideshare content can become anchor content that will generate hits and traffic to your website over time.

13. Write an e-book

There is no better way to broadcast your expertise (and by extension your company’s expertise) than by publishing an e-book. Crafting a top notch e-book can take time and energy, but can provide a significant boost for your company in a number of important ways. Not only can you generate revenue off of e-book sales on Amazon or from your website, but the e-book will provide you with a number of opportunities to create valuable back links. You can get creative and allow the free download of certain chapters of segments on your website in return for a name and email address for your marketing list.

14. Create a service comparison landing page

Create a visual comparison chart landing page that outlines your service’s benefits versus that of your closest competitor. Create a PPC ad with the title “Your Company Name versus Varsity Tutors”. Bid on our competitor’s company name as a PPC keyword and run this ad that links to this landing page. This can be a relatively inexpensive strategy that smaller companies can use to take on deep pocketed national competitors. Make sure to include a call to action on the page with a web form for free information on your program or pricing.

15. Create a free multiple choice diagnostic test for subjects that you specialize in.

Create a web form to capture names and emails and use these for email drip campaigns.

16. Host a webinar

Host a webinar on a topic that is really important to your customer. Even if you don’t have a large number of attendees, you can post it as an asset on your website and if it is high interest enough it will generate search traffic well for years to come and will also position your company as an expert in the industry.

Social Media

17. Pin original images on Pinterest.

Images on Pinterest can generate clicks for years – and can become valuable assets for your brand. Pinterest is an excellent place for helpful infographics, pictures, and drawings.

18. Hold a sweepstakes contest

In this traditional form of a contest, you can raffle off a free class, a free consultation, or something valuable to your target market. Make the sweepstakes fast and easy to enter and collect email addresses as an entry requirement. This is a great way to build an email marketing list. We have had success with raffles and sweepstakes at conferences and conventions as well as online through Facebook.

19. Hold a photo contest

Hold a Facebook contest that gives Facebook users the opportunity to be funny and creative. For example, you might try a Facebook contest for best photo of a “It’s time to do your homework” scene between parent and child.

20. Hold a caption contest

Post some photos on your social channel and see what captions your followers come up with. This can be an excellent way to increase engagement and you may come up with some great laughs. Some helpful tips are: a. Post to deal sites b. Create hashtags c. Make contests easily shareable d. Offer bonus points for sharing e. Notify email subscribers of contest f. Promote content on all social media.

21. Post positive, inspirational messages on your social channels and website

22. Create video testimonials with your best customers

In today’s trust economy, the vast majority of parents will read reviews of your service before deciding to contact you. There is no better way to build trust than to get real testimonials from your clients and post these on your website and YouTube.

23. Share all content marketing with your followers on all channels

Share all of your original content on all channels, and to save time, consider tech like Hootsuite that will help you automate this process.

Public Relations

24. Pitch Reporters and Producers through Twitter and Email

Smaller startups should probably use Mark Cuban’s advice and not spend money on PR firms. While PR professionals have contacts and connections at media outlets, you can find lists of contacts on your own with a little sleuthing. Producers and reporters are always looking for fresh content, and often appreciate it when contacted directly by business owners. You can often find reporters that cover education by researching online articles. To get contacts at TV stations, you can tune into some news channels, write down the names of anchors and reporters, and search out their twitter handles and when possible their email addresses. I had a ton of success landing news stories and TV segments by creating newsworthy pitches on interesting new developments at my company and contacting reporters through Twitter.

Promotional Ideas

25. Create rack card displays

Print 4″ x 9″ rack cards and 3″ x 4″ stickers from a good online printer like GotPrint, and buy some cardboard rack card holders. You can place the sticker on the front face of the base of the cardboard rack card holder and develop an inexpensive, attractive rack card display suitable for any location. Place displays in as many places where your target customers frequent (always with store/office permission of course). My tutoring company landed our largest private customer from a rack card display placed in a pediatrician’s office). Not everyone will be OK with this approach as it can create a lot of clutter in offices, so be prepared for some rejections.

26. Create a referral program

Clients love to tell their friends about companies that have helped them or their children. Setting up an official referral program can help

27. Car decal – – or full wrap

Provided that you don’t drive like a maniac, car decal wraps can be a cost effective way to get the word out. Be sure not to clutter the decal with text – instead just use images, your logo, and few key details.

School and Community

28. Give free talks or seminars at local schools

Contact local schools and offer to give free talks on topics that might be of interest to your target audience. For example, one company that we know has been very successful giving a free talk on the SAT test at a number of local schools in their area. Be sure not to turn the talk into a hard sell, but instead consider a raffle for a free consultation to collect names and email addresses. You may find that a number of parents will reach out and sign up for your service.

29. Apply for district and school afterschool RFPs

Many local schools offer educational service providers the opportunity to respond to afterschool program Requests for Proposal (RFPs). These programs can either be district or parent-paid, and can provide excellent revenue opportunities for your company. For more information on how to sell to schools and districts, check out Tutorware’s e-guide.

30. Create a corporate or university discount program

If you are based near a university, check to see whether it has an employee benefits portal. Many universities do, and local vendors who provide university employees with special discounts will receive some free marketing as well as the ever so valuable .edu backlink that will increase your website’s authority with search engines.

The post 30 Creative Marketing Ideas for your Tutoring Business appeared first on Tutorware.

Your website

First impressions are critical. Make sure your website inspires confidence.

Some ways in which your website can convince potential customers that yours is the best service for them is to give them a glimpse of what they can expect. You might consider:

• Course and service descriptions
• Staff bios
• Customer testimonials
• Academic results with charts, graphs or growth percentages
• Introductory special offers with calls to action
• Links to your social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest
• Videos of your services or interviews with happy clients
• Include web forms that allow customers to contact info (We’ll toot our own horn here but tutoring business management software like Tutorware will capture leads generated from your website’s web forms and provide you with advanced tools to help convert them into clients).
• Include helpful downloads on your website – ebooks, whitepapers, and guides that address customer concerns and a web form that requires customers to leave contact info prior to downloading.

With the widespread growth of mobile searching, we highly recommend that you make your website responsive and mobile-friendly. Also make sure that phone numbers and email addresses are clickable.

The Blogosphere

Maximize customer engagement with a consistent schedule of blog posts

Consistent blogging can help position your company as a thought leader and can have a major impact on your SEO and search engine rankings. Here are some ideas that you might consider:

• Service/product of the week
• DIY tip of the week
• Staff/client spotlight of the week
• Opinion article covering a helpful educational or parenting topic

Another effective strategy is to try to guest blog on popular sites. Blogs are starving for high-quality, original content and this strategy can turbocharge follower acquisition. Before you contact a blog with a large following, make sure to have several high quality blog post ideas you can pitch and be sure to refer them to your blog as a reference.

YouTube

A great way to give customers a glimpse inside your business

Once known as just a video sharing site, YouTube is now the second most popular site that people use to search for information (Google is #1). YouTube is a fantastic way to give customers a view inside your business and here are some best practices that can help you get the most out of the platform:

• Feature staff interviews
• Show client testimonials
• Post how to videos as well as DIY strategies and techniques
• Offer short marketing videos (2-3 minute length is optimal)

Posting helpful content is always recommended, as it will position your tutoring company as an expert in the field and help build trust with your audience.

 Facebook

A great way to connect and create customer engagement

Facebook is an excellent way to create customer evangelists who will tell their friends, co-workers, and the community about your services. Some great ways that can you can use Facebook:

• Post questions and quizzes
• Post inspirational quotes, pictures, and stories
• Feature client testimonials and success stories
• Create links to your blog and YouTube videos

Facebook has advanced advertising tools that allow you to segment and target very specific interest groups or even allow you to send sponsored ads to Facebook users whose email addresses you captured from other channels.

Google +

A powerful and growing channel that has major SEO impact

With over 150M active users (and a 33% growth rate), Google + is a very important social media platform that should be a primary focus of your education company’s online marketing strategy. Google+ carries significant weight in terms of SEO and organic search visibility, and if at all possible it is best to post high-quality, unique content to it rather than just reposting the same content from Facebook or Twitter. Here are some tips on how to get the most from Google+:

• Make sure to claim authorship of your Google+ account, and your Google+ photo will appear next to your posts in search results.
• Be sure to add your Google+ badge directly on your business website
• Use hangouts to create and record webinars that integrate directly with YouTube
• Post to communities
• Use hashtags to reach your intended audience and gain more followers

Instagram

Instagram provides another excellent channel to give customers a glimpse into your company

With over 300M users, Instagram is surprisingly overlooked by many tutoring, test prep, and educational services companies. Purchased by Facebook, Instagram allows easy integration between the two systems, while allowing some nice artistic features that will help build connection with your customer base.

Ways in which you can use Instagram:

• Go behind the scenes and take photos of lesson planning, workshops, or tutor training sessions
• Give a virtual tour of your facility
• Staff spotlight
• Take followers with you to events, fairs, or other events.

Pinterest

Pinterest has nearly 100M users and is growing in popularity and influence.

An image-based bookmarking site, Pinterest allows educational services companies the opportunity to engage in storytelling through imagery which can be a useful way to connect with your audience. It is estimated that over 70% of Pinterest users are female and many are Moms – a key marketing demographic for tutoring and test prep businesses. The channel has a typically much longer lifecycle than other social platforms, which means that it can help drive clients to your site months after the pin date (It also create backlinks for SEO). The most popular pins seem to have one or more of the following characteristics – they are amazingly beautiful, unique, or very useful.

Some ways in which your education business might use Pinterest:

• Create boards for certain topics, themes, or age focus (K-8, High School/College)
• Pin articles with useful information for parents or students
• Pin helpful infographics
• Pin interesting photos of your education business in action, staff pics, or client success stories.
• Hold a contest
• Invite customers to events

Twitter

Grow a follower base and drive website clicks and conversions

Twitter is an excellent platform for broadcasting content across different social sites. For the novice, the Twitter feed can seem like a never ending stream of spammy junk snippets. But if you use it correctly, you can filter out unwanted messages, amplify your own content from social platforms, and build a follower base that will visit your website and request more info. A small but consistent time investment of 10-15 minutes a day can pay major dividends and can make a noticeable impact on your bottom line.

Here are some ways that you might consider using Twitter for your tutoring business:

• Share exclusive deals and specials (summer, holiday, spring break discounts)
• Tweet links to positive online reviews
• Inform followers about new services
• Make new staff announcements
• Tweet out links to original content you’ve created for other social platforms
• Tweet links to your blog, press you’ve received, videos you’ve created, or pictures behind the scenes at your company.

Use hashtags to focus in on your target audience and to expand your footprint. Building a Twitter following takes time, but if you stay consistent you will begin to see returns. Here is an interesting article on how you can build a Twitter following.

LinkedIn

Normally seen as just a B2B marketing tool, LinkedIn is rapidly gaining popularity among B2C marketers as well

LinkedIn users report that they place more trust in the professional caliber of their LinkedIn connections, and LinkedIn’s endorsement features allow potential tutoring clients to view tutoring director bios and positive commentary from their colleagues and friends. LinkedIn provides an excellent channel to build your professional reputation as an expert in tutoring and test prep, and many successful tutoring companies use it to expand their blog readership and as a way to publicize other press mentions or guest articles.

For tutoring companies interested in B2B marketing to schools, districts, and universities, LinkedIn professional versions can provide powerful tools to reach decision-makers. You can start by trying to build connections with school principals, Title 1 Directors, Superintendents, and intervention specialists, and can then use LinkedIn’s In-mail if some of these connections are difficult. For a helpful guide on how to sell tutoring services to schools and districts, check out our free download.

Review Sites

Know what your customers are saying about you

The social revolution has made it more important than ever to claim your business’s review sites, monitor your reviews, and interact with customers. Once you have established a presence you can then direct your customers to these sites with the goal of having them tell others about the great experience they had with your tutoring company.

According to Nielson, ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from peers, above all other forms of advertising—an increase of 18 percent since 2007.

To make your review sites as effective as possible, we recommend the following:

• Add photos of your tutoring company in action (pics of staff and your facility)
• List your courses and service offerings
• Add office hours and all contact information
• Add calls to action or introductory offers

The most important review sites that we recommend are Yelp, Google Places, Angie’s List, Yahoo Local, and Citysearch. For those who use Groupon, LivingSocial or Amazon Local, make sure you also track user reviews and ratings on these sites as well.

Are there any other sites that you’ve found useful in building your tutoring or test prep business? Please let us know!

The post Is your tutoring business in the right places online? appeared first on Tutorware.

Just because you are a small or medium sized tutoring company doesn’t mean that you can’t have the same great tutoring management software features that the big companies enjoy. The best tutoring business software solutions integrate nearly every part of the tutoring value chain from HR, Applicant Tracking and On-boarding, Job Broadcasting, Scheduling, Billing, Invoicing, Attendance, CRM, and Educator tools. Advanced tutoring business software can help turbocharge your company’s growth by reducing your company’s expenses, generating more leads and referrals, and freeing you up to focus on growth-oriented business activities.

In today’s market,  tutoring business software should produce a combination of additional revenues or increased savings that produce on average a 10x return on every subscription dollar. In other words, if a tutoring management software costs you $250 per month it should be producing at least a combination of cost savings or increased revenues that amounts to a net gain of $2500 for your company.

In this blog article, we are going to look at ways in which software can help you both save money and increase top line revenue with scalable solutions.

1. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Advanced tutoring software can help you capture leads, nurture leads and clients, track all contact with leads and clients, and help you delight your customers with your personalized approach.

• Software solutions like Tutorware track unlimited sales leads (some software charges by seat or the number of prospects in your database) saving you hundreds or even thousands per year depending upon your organization’s size. You can additionally integrate web lead forms from your website and landing pages and capture leads directly into the software.

• Software solutions should help keep clients engaged and delighted with your customer service. With a combination of CRM functionality, you should be able to enter customer call details, schedule meetings, log follow up calls, and subscribe customers to email campaigns that provide them with helpful information on their area of interest. As a result, engaged and happy customers will have more reason to continue with you and tell others about your company.

• Software solutions should help you handle issues and problems, by allowing you to create Cases, assign the case to a team member, and then track the Cases through to resolution. Nip issues in the bud quickly, easily, and with full transparency, so that minor issues don’t become one star Yelp reviews.

2. Email Marketing

Tutoring Management Software can help you get more clients and earn more revenue from existing ones.

• Tutoring management software should have built-in Email Campaign functionality that allows you to send specific email campaigns, email newsletters, and more to your customers. This feature allows you to save money on email marketing solutions and integrate your email marketing directly into your tutoring management software suite.

• Your tutoring management software’s email system should have an email deliverability service. Tutoring software like Tutorware partners with email deliverability provider SendGrid to ensure that over 99.8% of your emails don’t end up lost and forgotten in customer spam folders.

• Tutoring management software automation features can power referral program offers, workshop reminders, gift card offers, seasonal specials, and more.

3. HR – Recruiting, Applicant Tracking, and On-boarding

Tutoring software can turbocharge your recruiting, applicant tracking, interview/training scheduling, and on-boarding processes.

• Advanced tutoring management software can take the pain out of recruiting, hiring, and on-boarding with automation features.

• Tutoring software suites like Tutorware provide you with a career portal where tutors can apply, applicant tracking, automation of interviews, orientations, and training scheduling, and automated email workflows. These features can save your company thousands or even tens of thousands in administrative costs each year.

• Tutoring management software can help you eliminate employment paperwork with e-signature solutions. This also eliminates filing and copying costs and make all employment documentation searchable with the click of a mouse.

4. Job Broadcasting and Scheduling

Your tutoring scheduling software should have advanced automated job broadcasting and advanced scheduling features that help you place the perfect tutors quickly and painlessly – in the fastest time possible.

• Advanced tutoring software allows you to view your tutors and filter in multiple ways – by status (registered, hired, etc), location preferences, schedule, specialization, rating, clearance, tutor preferences, and more. Tutor scheduling software like Tutorware allows administrators to filter tutors along over 25 metrics.

• Software can help you broadcast jobs to tutors with matching profiles and allow these tutors to apply for these jobs through their career portal. Tutoring and test prep companies can eliminate the back and forth emails and phone calls regarding new jobs, scheduling, and job details and reduce time to placement by 90%. As many customers shop tutoring firms simultaneously, this reduced placement time can land you the contract while your competitors are still typing emails and leaving messages for their tutors.

• Premier tutoring scheduling software has full email functionality which let you set up automated emails, email templates, and customizable workflows.

5. Attendance Tracking

Tutoring business software can help you track tutor attendance in real time and resolve tardy arrivals issues, no shows, and expected: actual revenue problems quickly.

• Advanced tutoring business software like Tutorware have IOS and Android Tutor apps that perform GPS verified tutor attendance. In addition to preventing fraud, the app can help you address revenue leaks caused by tardiness and no shows.

• Tutoring business software with real-time attendance tracking can help your company operate with the professionalism that will earn you repeat business and gain more referrals. It can additionally help prevent customer complaints which in today’s social world can lead to damaging online reviews.

6. Operations and Reporting

Fully integrated tutoring management software helps you reduce administrative expenses, while freeing up your time and resources so you can focus on growing your education business. In addition, advanced software includes a suite of reports that can help you track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), so you can make better decisions.

• Fully integrated tutoring software eliminates multiple software suites, multiple data exports, spreadsheets, and information sharing problems throughout your organization.

• Great tutoring business software can give you a 360 degree view into nearly every part of your education business.

• Automated billing and invoicing features help you save on administrative costs and reduce clerical errors.

• Advanced tutoring business software like Tutorware can help you track important KPIs like Expected Billing versus Actual, Payroll versus Revenue, and Month over Month Revenue.

Tutoring business software can make or save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each year and help your education business grow and flourish. If you are currently using manual systems or a software solution with a limited feature set, we encourage you to shop around and see some of the exciting new offerings available on the market today.

The post 6 Ways Tutoring Software Can Grow Your Business appeared first on Tutorware.

SEM Rush

In this blog we will use one of our favorite tools – SEMRush – to uncover some facets of a US-based tutoring company’s strategy and gain some insights that you may use to improve your own digital digital marketing. SEM Rush is one of the best tools that we’ve found to uncover competitors’ strategy in display advertising, organic search, paid search, and link building. While the free version allows basic functionality and limited report volume, the paid version of $69 per month will give you the ability to run unlimited reports and gain an in-depth understanding of your competitors activities. If the monthly price tag is too high for your organization, it may make sense to subscribe for a limited time as SEMRush does not lock you into any contracts. Chances are many of the insights you will gain will be useful for many months to come, and that you may be able to glean insights fairly quickly that will pay dividends.

SEM Rush Basics

SEM Rush at first glance looks a lot more complicated than it really is. For example in the dashboard below, each one of the windows shows little snapshots of larger reports that are available. You can start with the search bar (circled in red) where you can enter either your own domain, a competitor’s domain, a URL, or target keywords.

Case Study: Varsity Tutors

Our case study, Varsity Tutors, is an independent contractor tutoring agency based in St. Louis, Missouri that has operations in over 20 markets throughout the United States. As Varsity does not provide training, curricula, or professional development of any kind, Varsity does differentiate itself from its competitors through educational content, training, or methodology. Varsity instead must rely exclusively upon digital marketing to generate leads and convince parents of the company’s expertise in tutor selection and placement. In the area of online advertising and content marketing, we think they are creative, and certainly worthy of study.

As can be seen in the display dashboard above, SEM Rush aggregates estimations of Varsity’s Organic Search, Paid Search, organic traffic keywords, and gives you a 50,000 foot view of their overall strategy. Here are some key takeaways:

1. With 78.1K monthly search hits, Varsity Tutor’s organic search nets them the equivalent of 153K in monthly Pay per Click advertising. This demonstrates that their SEO is producing excellent ROI, and is the focus of their digital marketing strategy.
2. While Varsity runs paid search campaigns, their monthly estimated spend is quite low for a company with operations in 20 markets. (When you have SEO this good, you don’t need a ton of PPC).
3. Varsity’s backlink count is over 10K, which indicates that digital marketing content and backlink building is a foundational component to their overall strategy.

Organic Search Analysis

If we click on Organic Search and then positions, we can see a list of Varsity’s top organic keywords and filter by traffic percentage, volume, Cost per Click (CPC), and more. Varsity has first page positions with with a number of important high volume keywords like tutor, tutoring, math tutor, and more. One interesting clue that gave me a better understanding of their strategy is that two of their keywords with the highest traffic percentage came from GED math practice test and GED practice test. With a little more sleuthing, we found that Varsity has launched a free practice test site that requires the user to leave name and email details, which then likely goes into their marketing automation mechanism and follow-up drip campaigns.

This list of Organic Search Terms shows us that Varsity has adopted an effective content marketing strategy by offering free practice tests through it’s website and on the Apple Store. varsity also ranks in the top six with generic keywords like “tutor”, and on the next page demonstrate high ranking with terms like “New York tutors”, “Chicago tutors”, “Los Angeles tutors”, and other large markets where they compete. One key feature that we are noticing in the post Google Panda world is that effective content marketing is more about help than hype, and Varsity’s free resources provide an excellent example of a web asset that has contributed to its backlink volume and SEO positioning.

Paid Search Analysis

As seen below, Varsity uses a number of display ads across its markets that correspond to particular subject keyword searches like Spanish tutor NYC or GMAT tutor NYC. Companies like Varsity perform frequent A/B testing on ads and it is always helpful to check their wording, calls to action, and seasonal discounts broadcast in their adwords text. For a complete list of Varsity Adwords copy, you can run complete reports in SEM Rush.
SEM Rush also features a tool that allow you to study a competitor’s display ads over time, which can help you learn from their mistakes and glean insight on what is producing ROI. For example, we can glean from an analysis of Varsity that they have run a consistent ad over several markets with brand positioning statements such as “affordable”, “100% money back guarantee”, and references to local university grads such as “Ivy League grads” and UW grads in the Seattle marketplace.

Backlinks

As the Google Search algorithm has advanced with the Panda updates, a website’s backlinks are mission critical for search placement. With SEM Rush, you can run a full report on a competitor’s backlinks, analyze their strategy, and pursue their backlink providers by supplying superior and updated content.

As we can see from the screenshot above, Varsity has received backlinks from a number of large national content portals like Yahoo and Huffington Post, which in turn are helping it’s social shares and contributing to it’s overall search rankings. While larger national portals may be more inclined to post content from educational services companies with a national presence, high-quality content with a focus on helping others can often attract attention of bloggers who are always craving fresh content. Performing backlink analysis on an established competitor with a national presence can often lead you to uncover key influencers in the industry and also give you excellent content marketing ideas that you can use in your local, regional, and national campaigns.

Conclusion

Using an analytics tools like SEM Rush can help you collect marketing intelligence on your competitors, help you to learn from their best performing strategies, and help you build on their most successful campaigns.

The post Secret Report: Uncovering your Tutoring Competitors’ Digital Marketing Strategy appeared first on Tutorware.

Remarketing, also known as Retargeting, is the online marketing strategy of targeting visitors who have already visited your website with banner ads. Those who are perhaps not familiar with the practice may have noticed that banner ads from websites advertising products you may have searched for in the recent past seem to follow you around as your visit other sites in subsequent days. Remarketing can be a highly effective strategy for bringing visitors back to your website and has been proven to increase conversion rates by as much as 70%.

Research shows that over 95% of visitors leave a website before making a purchase, and that nearly 50% of prospective buyers visit a website 2-4 times before actually purchasing. For tutoring and test providers who have shopping cart functionality on their websites, it is important to know that on average shopping carts are abandoned 68.08% of the time, and that customers do not purchase over 60% of the items left in their shopping carts.

Remarketing has been proven to dramatically decrease shopping cart abandonment and increase shopping cart conversions. Remarketing can also prevent the loss of potential customers who visited your site and have forgotten your brand name or who use a search term at a later time with which you do not rank as highly and don’t appear on the first page of organic or sponsored search. It also keeps you top of mind, as increasingly distracted potential customers will be reminded of your service or product.

In this guide, we will cover the basics of Google Adwords remarketing. In later posts, we will explore other forms of remarketing such as Search Remarketing, Social Media Remarketing, and Email Remarketing.

Setting up Remarketing in Google AdWords: The Basics

If you’d like to run a remarketing campaign to display banner ads to people who have previously visited your website, you’ll need a remarketing list. A remarketing list is a collection of cookies from people who visited your site. Creating the list is one of the most important steps in setting up a remarketing campaign because you will will utilize this list to target your ads. You can start creating lists at anytime, but they’ll only start getting visitors after you’ve placed the remarketing tag (a small snippet of code) on your website.

1. Obtain your remarketing tag code

If you didn’t receive the tag code by email when you set up your remarketing campaign, you can still find it in your AdWords account. Just follow these steps:

• Sign in to Google AdWords at https://adwords.google.com
• Go to “Shared library” (Found on bottom left portion of Campaigns Screen
• In the “Audiences” section, go to the “Remarketing tag” box at the top.
• Click the View tag details button and then click Setup.
• Click View remarketing tag and instructions to get the remarketing code snippet you’ll need to add later to your site. With Google Analytics, you’ll have the option to use the tracking code that’s already on your site instead. To get this set this up, read these instructions.

For more detailed instructions, read Remarketing tag validations and alerts.

2. Add your remarketing tag code to your entire website

Copy the remarketing tag code and paste it at the bottom of all pages, before the closing “</body>”tag.
Once the tag is published in your website, the next step is to create remarketing lists in AdWords. For example, you’ll be able to create a remarketing list for the people who visited the “SAT Prep” section of your site by defining a list like this: “URL contains SAT Prep.” If you use a Google Merchant Account. you can use dynamic remarketing campaigns, and in order to do so you’ll need to follow Google’s instructions.
Tip: Add the remarketing tag to all of the pages of your website. You may then easily create lists for any pages without ever having to add more remarketing tags. If you can’t add the tag to your entire site, you can still add it to specific sections of your site and then define lists for each of those sections based on their corresponding URLs.

3. How to check if your tag is working

You can find out if your tag is working correctly on the “Remarketing tag” box in the AdWords “Shared library.” Keep in mind that there’s a delay of 1-2 days in the information that shows in the tag validation section. To see when your tag was last checked, follow these steps:

• Click Shared library in the side navigation bar.
• Click the View >> link under “Audiences.”
• Click the View tag details button in the “Remarketing tag” box above the statistics table. At the bottom, you’ll see the date when the information was last updated.

This short video will give you step by step instructions:

Remarketing Best Practices for your Tutoring Company

Here are some remarketing best practices that we have found can have a significant effect on the ROI of your remarketing campaigns.

Craft multiple banner ads that are customized to the purpose, course type, and user. Don’t just use one generic banner ad for all of your tutoring company’s services.

If a previous visitor to your website searched for ACT test prep, remarketing ACT Test Prep banner ads should follow them around and click throughs should lead to an ACT test prep landing page. Create multiple banner ads for your primary offerings and if possible landing pages for each course with a call to action. If you offer special deals on your remarketing ads or landing pages make sure that these are reflected on your website

Use Remarketing to target your competitors’ customers

One very actionable remarketing strategy is to target visitors to your competitors’ websites. One highly effective strategy that we have employed is to create a vs. banner ad that led to a landing page that gave a graphical representation of how the two companies stacked up with an emphasis on our advantages. You can list your advantages and entice your rival’s potential customers to visit your website and purchase or give you a call.

Place a higher bid when your remarketing list audience searches for keywords

Remarketing List for Search Ads (RLSA) is a feature that lets you customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your website, and tailor your bids and ads to these visitors when are searching on Google. There are two basic strategies to help you get the most ROI from this strategy:

• You can optimize bids for your existing keywords for visitors on your remarketing lists. For example, you might increase your bid by 20% for those who previously viewed your website over the last 14 days. Or, you can show a different ad to website visitors who have placed products or services in a shopping cart but have not purchased.
• You can bid on keywords that you don’t normally bid on just for recent visitors to your site, or for visitors that have converted on your site in the past. This can help you increase your sales. For example, you could bid on generally more expensive, generic keywords only for visitors who have previously purchased from your website.

Set and test impression frequency caps and avoid continually sending the same banner ads to the customer over and over again

Frequency capping is a feature in Google Adwords that limits the number of times that a unique user sees your display ad over a given time period. When you turn on frequency capping for a campaign, you set a limit for the number of impressions you will allow an individual user to have per day, per week, or per month. You also choose whether the limit applies to each ad, ad group, or campaign. To get started, go to your campaign’s Settings tab. Under “Advanced settings,” click Edit next to “Frequency capping.” It is important that you set and test frequency caps to make sure that they are running optimally.

If you use a shopping cart for your courses or products, use remarketing to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion

Create a remarketing list for visitors who didn’t complete a purchase, and create targeted ads with calls to action such as 20% off if you buy before 11/1 or whatever would work well for your business.

Conclusion

Tutoring, test prep, and educational services companies can use remarketing to gain more customers, increase brand awareness, or lure away their competitor’s customers. Remarketing is one of the more cost effective AdWords strategies, and can turbocharge your sales in a short period of time.

We hope that you enjoyed the post. Please let us know how things go!

The post How to Use Remarketing to Turbocharge your Tutoring Company’s Sales appeared first on Tutorware.

What factors should I evaluate before making my decision?

Determining whether or not your agency should hire 1099s versus W-2s revolves primarily around the issue of employer control and tutor independence. The greater the amount of control that a tutoring company maintains over the tutoring faculty, the greater the chances that the company will be required to classify its tutors as W-2 Employees. Here are some key questions that you might consider in evaluating your level of control and of tutor independence:

1. Does your tutoring company generally tell its tutors where and when to provide services?
2. Do your tutors generally work set hours with each client?
3. Does your tutoring company provide a training or orientation?
4. Does your tutoring company provide curricula?
5. Is the tutor required to follow a set sequence or routine while performing the tutoring? (For example, does the company furnish the tutor with a student learning plan or with some form of curriculum map or pacing guide?)
6. Is the tutoring performed at the tutoring company’s premises?
7. Does the tutor need to personally perform the contracted services or can other tutors take on the same contract interchangeably?
8. Must the tutor provide your tutoring company with progress reports regarding the work?
9. Does the tutor only provide tutoring services for your company?

There are some other gray area questions regarding whether your tutors realize a profit or loss from the work. The IRS has a helpful page that can provide some insight into this complex issue. You may also find lists on the web of the IRS 20 Point Checklist. In our experience, there is no substitute for finding a skilled employment attorney in your state who can perform a compliance audit on your company. A small investment up front can save you tens of thousands down the road. There is no magic number of factors that makes the worker an employee or an independent contractor, and no single factor stands alone in guaranteeing this determination. Also, factors which are relevant in one situation may not be relevant in another. The keys are to look at the entire relationship, consider the degree or extent of the right to direct and control, and finally, to document each of the factors used in coming up with the determination.

What events can trip a classification audit by a government agency?

While this list is by no means comprehensive, here are some common ways in which tutoring and test prep companies can get flagged for an audit:

1. A 1099 Independent Contractor will file for unemployment with your state’s Department of Economic Security, list your tutoring agency as a past employer, and the agency will send an unemployment claim to your company. The tutoring company will either file a late response which will trip an audit, or the government agency will arbitrarily flag your company for review. In our experience this has been the most common way in which we’ve seen audits initiated since 2007.
2. Regular IRS audits of tutoring agencies include guidance to check compliance with IRS Independent Contractor Classification rules.
3. A tutoring agency will submit a stack of 1099s and a number of these independent contractors fail to pay their taxes, prompting an IRS audit. Under IRS rules, the contracting company is responsible for payment of unpaid taxes in the event of contractor non-payment.
4. A disgruntled 1099 tutor will speak with a labor lawyer who will review your tutoring company’s business practices and file a complaint with the IRS or the Department of Labor. In particularly egregious situations, we have even seen disgruntled tutors retain the services of a plaintiff attorney who then files either a federal or state class action lawsuit on behalf of all of the tutoring company’s grieved employees from the last three or even four years depending upon the state. As many business insurance policies exclude wage and hour complaints, businesses are left to fend for themselves in what can be an extremely costly legal battle.

What if I decide to switch to a W-2 Employee business model? What changes can I expect for my company?

A safe rule of thumb is that running a tutoring company with a W-2 tutoring staff can add a significant amount to your company’s cost structure as well as a need for some sophisticated business processes. Here are some changes that you may experience:

1. Tutoring and test prep companies that employ W-2 Employees need to pay an additional 7.65% to cover the employer portion of the employee’s Social Security (6.2%) and FICO (1.45%) Under a 1099 model, the Independent Contractor pays this 6.25% at the end of the tax year.
2. You will incur the added administrative expense of withholding W-2 tutor taxes and making quarterly payments to state and federal tax agencies. Many companies outsource this task to payroll companies and some even hire PEO firms to manage this process.
3. As a W-2 employer, you will be required to adhere to State and Federal employment laws, which include reimbursing certain expenses, paying tutors every two weeks, paying final checks within a certain number of days in the event of a tutor termination, adhering to Fair Labor Standards Act regulations, and adhering to other federal, state, and local laws that govern employer employee relationships.
4. You will likely need to invest in more insurance for your company as W-2 employees are entitled to more rights and protections under US law and you will need to be prepared for potential issues.
5. The amount of onboarding paperwork increases.

On a positive note, you will have more control over your tutors, can safely assign curricula, train tutors on tutoring best practices, and will most likely sleep better at night knowing that your risk of an audit is fairly minimal.

NOTICE: Tutorware has provided the content of this page for general informational purposes only. You should not substitute this information for personal consultation with a qualified professional in the field, nor should you rely upon this information in taking any action. No attorney-client relationship will be created through your use of this Web site, nor from any response from or conversation with Tutorware employees or others who have posted on this blog.  

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3 Reasons to Start Your Own Tutoring Business

1. Franchise organizations charge a one time fee of 15K – 70K and then take an average of 5%- 9% of your gross revenues for the life of your business.

While many of us get into the tutoring industry for both business and lifestyle reasons, many of us came to realize very quickly that profits are what make your business sustainable. I have many friends who have invested in national tutoring franchises, and many have complained about the 5 – 9% hit to their bank accounts every month. Here’s the big secret that none of the franchise organizations will like to tell you. In the tutoring industry a franchise royalty of 5 – 9% of gross revenue is the equivalent of 20 – 35% of your net revenues. This means that a franchise organization will continually siphon up to 35% your net profits for the life of your business.

2. Many tutoring franchisees feel that they stop deriving value from the corporate franchise office after the 2nd year.

Many tutoring entrepreneurs are understandably nervous at the thought of entering a new business and having to learn the ropes. Franchise organizations love to assure their customers that their business plan, proven revenue model, national advertising support, SEO, Pay per Click (PPC) and corporate consulting are essential to your success. They will insinuate that you won’t be able to do it without them, and then point to the general statistics of business failures each year.

In our experience, with extra effort and taking advantage of resources available on the web, you can learn the business on your own. Here are some things that you should consider pre-launch:

• Create a business plan that outlines your marketing, sales, financial, and academic processes, curricular systems, and operating procedures. If you plan on raising capital from investors, family, or friends, you should develop a strong, well-articulated pro-forma with monthly and yearly projections.
• Select a great name. Have fun with this, and be sure to check the TESS database for companies with identical or similar sounding names in your class. Once you have settled on a name, you can apply for the trade name directly through USPTO or hire an attorney to help with this.
• Set up a legal entity, register it, and get a federal Employer Identification Number (EIN). You will also need to register your business in your State.
• Purchase the right insurance. Our advice is to consult an experienced business insurance broker to help with this decision. Missing or inadequate insurance coverage can knock you out in the event that you have an unexpected liability.
• Make the Independent Contractor tutor versus W-2 employee tutor decision. I highly suggest reading my blog post on this.
• Interview, vet, screen, hire, and manage your tutoring staff.
• Create a professional website with effective SEO and automated marketing features. Set up a blog and update it at least one per week with content that will be of interest to your target audience.
• Create a sales script
• Considering licensing software (Tutorware offers great deals for startups!)
• Create a website. Depending upon your business model and budget, you can go inexpensive with a website from Wix, you can crowd source design from marketplaces like DesignCrowd, or you can hire a designer to create a custom site for you.
• Get yourself set up up with phone, email, fax (if you plan to use paper time sheets), business cards, and brochures. You can find template sites for these, crowd source them, or hire a pro designer.

3. Franchises limit you geographically

Franchise parent companies make their money by selling franchises, and they have a vested interest in selling as many as possible in each metro area that they enter.  Many of these organizations employ franchise consultants and brokers who also make their money by selling as many franchises as possible. Every franchisee that I have met (even the lucky ones who laid stake to the “high rent” zip codes in their metro area) complain that they wish they didn’t have geographical restrictions. Others were sold on the income potential in their one or two zip codes only to find out later that their area was a less desirable zip code with a large population of retirees without children at home or lower income neighborhoods who could not afford the discretionary cost of tutoring. In my area, the franchisee of a large national chain located in a “high rent” area was able to charge nearly $15 more per hour to his customers than a franchisee of the same franchise that was based less than 30 miles away. As the owner of your own business you won’t be limited to certain zip codes but can advertise and accept business from anywhere, including online. This is a huge advantage of starting your own company.

3 Reasons to Buy a Tutoring Franchise

1. Good franchises provide new entrepreneurs with a proven business model

Learning any business takes time, and unless you have owned and operated a tutoring business in the past, it is very likely that there will be a number of skills that you’ll have to learn and master. Often former educators like myself start tutoring businesses, and quickly learn that Pay per Click (PPC) optimization, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), blog content, inbound marketing guides, and affiliate marketing are complicated and enormously time-consuming. As I found, 80-90 hour weeks became the norm during my first year as I had a steep learning curve in a number of areas. Franchise models can help you flatten the learning curve, and benefit from best practices that have been developed and perfected over many years of operation.

In addition, many new business owners skimp on legal and insurance consulting, improperly classify tutors, don’t follow state regulations with regards to termination, and don’t purchase the right insurance. There are so many mistakes that can be made in launching any new business, and investing in a franchise with a proven marketing and operating model, professional HR processes and policies, and a proven financial model.

2. Good franchises provide helpful support and consulting

Another upside of owning a franchise is that you will have the dedicated support of a team of people who have a vested interest in your success. Most franchise models are set up so that the more revenues you generate, the more the franchiser earns. It’s a win-win for both parties. While most franchisees claim that franchise support becomes less and less useful after the second year, the support received during the first 24 months is often critical and can be the difference between success and failure. Statistics on the success rates of franchises versus home-grown start-ups are inconclusive. While you’ll find white papers touting 90%+ success rates for franchises, there are other studies that show that franchises and organically grown company success rates are roughly the same. Here is an interesting article in Entrepreneur that discusses recent statistics.

3. Established franchises provide brand recognition and excellent marketing support

Unless you are investing in a smaller franchise that does not have market penetration in your area, franchise organization generally carry some degree of brand recognition and customers will feel more confident in the service. Even in the case that the franchise is smaller and carries less brand recognition, customers will generally feel more comfortable visiting a website that has operations in multiple markets as well as a track record. While they often charge a monthly marketing fee, franchisers generally provide Search Engine optimization and other content marketing services that drive clients to the corporate website. Many franchisers even provide a call center or lead referral process that will bring you new leads each month.

Conclusion

Starting a tutoring business versus purchasing a tutoring franchise is a decision that most tutoring entrepreneurs confront during the planning process. There is no right or wrong answer, and the decision largely depends upon a number of personal factors which are different from entrepreneur to entrepreneur.

If you feel that you are more drawn to the franchise model, It is essential that you do as much research as possible on whatever franchise you are evaluating. If possible, important that you speak with as many current franchises as possible, and request statistics on franchise failure rates.

For the intrepid souls out there who want to built their own company from scratch, the early days will likely include a steep learning curve, but the rewards can be worth it. Unless you are a seasoned vet, we strongly encourage you to seek out mentors, read as much as you can on entrepreneurship, subscribe to online marketing blogs like QuickSprout , and stay up on industry best practices through great education blogs such as EdSurge. You may also want to consider joining organizations such as the National Tutoring Association  which was very helpful to me especially in the early years.

Best of luck with your decision!

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