The success of your nursing tutoring career depends on retaining the students you have and sourcing new students.
If you're a good tutor and provide a good service at a good price, you'll retain your current students for as long as they need tutoring. Once they know all they need to, they'll likely leave and to keep your tutoring going, you need good ways to find students.
Here are some of my favourites.
Through Your Social Media
Most people already have social media in some form or another and it's a great way of finding students.
Firstly, finding students through social media is free. Personal social media accounts are free and you can also set up professional pages or accounts which can help make your tutoring business look more professional and legitimate.
Your socials are a great way to let word of mouth do its thing. You can use it to let your friends, contacts, and followers know about the tutoring services you offer and even if they don't specifically need nursing tutoring, your name will pop into their heads the next time it comes up in conversation.
With both professional and personal social media accounts, you can post things on your professional accounts and immediately share or retweet them on your personal accounts to help boost their visibility and make sure people know about you.
You can even set up direct messaging through the native messaging services on social media or connect pages to WhatsApp so interested students can quickly send you a message.
It's also a good way to contact students. Be in the spaces where your students like to hang out online rather than forcing them to communicate with you via means they don't particularly like or enjoy.
Find out more about becoming a nursing tutor
With A Nursing Tutor Website
A website for your tutoring services is another great way to find students. Websites act like online business cards and you can tailor and optimise a potential student's journey to increase the likelihood of them getting in touch to arrange a session.
Visibility for posts on social media is notoriously bad if it doesn't line up with the kind of content that the algorithm likes, but with a website, visitors will see and experience the content exactly how you want them to and you don't have to worry about them being distracted by anyone else's content.
Once a potential student visits your website, they're already somewhat interested in what you have to offer. It's your job to make sure the website convinces them that you're the right tutor for them and encourages them to get in touch and become one of your regular students.
You can also use your website to capture contact information from potential students so that even if you're not available to talk to them then, they can leave some contact information so you can follow up with them and explain to them why you're the tutor they've been looking for.
Unlike social media and other websitesur own website can also accurately represent you and your brand. You have control over the appearance, colours, and messaging, which can make it one of the most effective marketing tools for tutors.
Find out more about pricing your nursing tutoring sessions
On Tutoring Websites
To find students, you need to be present in all the spaces (digital or otherwise) where you're likely to find them. Dedicated tutoring websites are the most obvious places for private tutors to set up shop.
The advantage of tutoring websites is that they get HUGE amounts of traffic and lots of potential students will be visiting these sites looking for somebody just like you to help them with their learning.
The disadvantage of these sites is that all your competition is here, too. You have to make sure that your profile on every tutoring website perfectly showcases why you're the right choice and that can be tough when a lot of these sites are home to so many other great tutors.
You'll want to be present on a multitude of these sites and make sure you take care of your profile so that it stands out. To do this, you need to either be better than the competition or different from them. Ideally, you'll want to be both so that students have reasons to pick you over any other tutor in your field.
With Classifieds Websites and Forums
You can also advertise your tutoring services on websites that aren't specifically for tutoring. There are plenty of more general websites offering goods and services where you can put together a classified ad or a post so that visitors can see what services you offer and get in touch if they're interested.
The same is true of forums and other online social spaces. A forum for struggling nursing students would be a great place to drop a message explaining that you're a tutor and that you can help them with their studies.
The quickest way to find the best places to advertise these is by simply doing what a potential student would do, search for them online. By replicating the online journey of the typical student looking for a tutor, you'll find the spaces online where you should be advertising your tutoring services.
Find out why you should become a nursing tutor
By Putting Up Ads and Posters
There'll also be students who'll find you the old-fashioned way, offline. A poster on a bulletin board can also be effective if you make sure you put it in the right place. Nursing is too specific a field to start putting up ads around town, but universities and libraries, for example, wouldn't be a bad place to find them. Just make sure that you always ask permission when putting up posters or ads, though.
Ad placement is important, too. You can waste a lot of time and energy putting up posters or ads so make sure you carefully choose where they'll be most effective and where you'll likely find the most students.
It's sometimes a good idea to leave your contact details on part of the poster that can be torn off by interested parties. Don't forget to leave all these details on the main part of your poster, too, as even once the little tabs of paper have all gone, students can still take down your details.
You can even generate QR codes so that any potential students with a smartphone can scan them and be taken to your website, socials, or even just save your contact details on their phone.
Through Word of Mouth
Last but certainly not least, a bit of referral marketing. Almost every business, regardless of its size, wouldn't survive without referrals and word of mouth. Both online and offline, you have to make sure that as many people as possible know about the service you're offering.
Even if all your closest friends and family won't have any need for nursing tutoring, you should still make them aware of what you're doing because if it ever comes up in conversation, they'll be sure to mention you.
The same is true for your current students. If they enjoy your sessions and really rate you as a tutor, you might want to let them know that they can help you find other students by telling their friends, classmates, or family members about you.
A good recommendation is one of the best ways to get new customers or students, especially when it comes from someone you trust like friends and family. Don't be afraid to ask your students to recommend you.
Find out more about nurse educator salaries and job prospects
Retaining Students
It's all well and good constantly finding new students, but you have to retain your students for as long as you can.
Most students will only need tutoring as long as they're studying nursing so you'll ideally want them to stay throughout their course. Once they graduate, they'll no longer need your services so don't worry about losing these students.
However, you'll want to make sure that every student stays with you as long as they need to and don't decide to stop their sessions or go with another tutor.
The easiest way to retain students is by doing a good job, taking pride in your work, carefully planning your sessions, and adapting your lessons to the student. Students opt for private tutors because of the bespoke service they can offer them so make sure that's exactly what they get.
It's also worth considering the lifetime value of your students. While you mightn't want to lower your rates or offer a discount, if it keeps a student with you for a few years over a month or two, it might be worth it. Offering discounts for paying for several sessions at once is a common and clever way to ensure your students stick around for a while.
And with that last tip, those were some of our favourite ways for nursing tutors to find students. If you have any useful tips or advice, be sure to let us know in the comments!
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