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.

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.