By: Dr. Matt Warnock
As we learned in our last article, using the internet is an essential tool for finding new students in a competitive teaching market.
While many people are going online to build their guitar-teaching studio, there is still plenty of merit, and validity, to going offline and using more traditional methods of advertising to bring new guitar students into your studio.
As a number of tutors new to teaching have emailed us questions over the past few weeks, I’ve put together three tips for finding guitar students that helped me grow my studio when I was first starting out, and all without the aid of YouTube and Facebook.
Check these tips out, and if you have a must-know tip, post yours below for others to check out and learn from as well.
Finding Guitar Students Tip 1 – Posters
One of the best ways to reach new students, or more importantly the parents of new students who are interested in getting their children into music lessons, is to post flyers in visible places such as grocery store boards, library notice boards and church/community-centre boards.
Some music schools, that don’t offer lessons, will also allow you to post flyers or leave flyers near their checkout, which is a great place to connect with potential new students.
Just remember, when doing posters you need to have you contact details and name easily accessible, with tear off tags on the bottom being the most common way to do this.
Finding Guitar Students Tip 2 – Performances
Now, I’m not saying that you should advertise your lessons in the middle of a gig, but, if you have a table where you sell albums and have an email sign up form, you can also put a little info page about your lessons.
As well, many people will come talk to you on breaks and after gigs, especially those that dig your music, and so having a card that you can give them, or a website you can direct them to easily, can help land students who find your music through live performances.
Finding Guitar Students Tip 3 – Workshops
The last tip is to go out and give workshops in your community, sometimes for free if the goal is to land new students, at places such as schools, churches and other community meeting centres.
By getting in front of a room and playing and teaching, you can not only let people that are interested know what you do, but you can demonstrate your teaching ability and excite new students to pick up the instrument at the same time.
Workshops are often the best way to grow you studio as you can sometimes pick up 2, 3 or more students from a single 60-90 minute guitar workshop.
Do you have a tip for finding new guitar students? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.