Advertising for tutoring business

[ScottRobertson]

I am trying to brainstorm some ways that I can do some cost-effective advertising for my tutoring business.

We operate in a city with a fairly affluent population in BC, Canada. The city has a large asian population and they will be some of my main customers (they place a HUGE emphasis on education at nearly any cost [ie. they pay 3x more for tuition out here]) I am still working on determining who makes these sort of decisions within an asian family (mother or father).

So far I have come up with the basic advertising means:

Flyers (assuming I can come to an agreement with these different places) at:
-schools
-supermarkets
-kids clubs
-daycares (we will be offering free sessions with younger children in order to make sure they have the foundational skills that they need to start off on the right foot - many of these parents will have older children as well)
-leisure centres
-ladies fitness clubs
-libraries
-etc

I will also be working on getting local press releases out.

Tutoring sites such as mytutorlist.com

Word of mouth - No, I am not one of those people who claims "all of my business will come from word of mouth - I don't need to advertise". But as you know mothers love talking within their circle of friends about what's new and what they love, and thus I believe it will be a good source for 'advertising'.

Please feel free to post ANY thoughts that you have regarding this - it will all be appreciated!

[AllBallz.Net]

You never specify but I'm assuming tutoring for high school age students?

Definitely consider MySpace or Facebook; your target market is already in place on these sites.

Also don't forget to put up flyers at Asian food stores.

[ScottRobertson]

Paid tutoring will be done from grade 5 through 12 as well as lower level university courses.

Thank you for the suggestion!

[CIsaac]

I suggest you also focus on more parent-teacher advertising. I would form strategic alliances with teachers. How can your business come up in PTA meetings and or parent/teacher one-on-one? How do you reach the parents at their jobs? You know your area well so I would think about that. Also, I'm not sure if there are a lot of tutoring franchises in BC Canada but you might want to research what works for them also and similarly situate yourself; yet try to set yourself apart--since you're going for the same target market.

[S Lee]

I'm not sure how things are in Canada, but in the U.S., marketers who have targeted the "Asian American" market have had a tendency to fail in their marketing efforts. This is largely due to the fact that there isn't an "Asian" culture, and instead there are people of many different cultures from a place called "Asia", which causes marketers to lump them into one category called "Asians".

Instead, I've heard that a newer and better informed generation of marketers target groups that do overlap within what we call the "Asian" market, promoting values that appeal to 1st generation immigrants or children of immigrants (different values), rather than trying to target vague "Asian values".

As a side effect, your research into the immigrant area may allow you to target other immigrants groups, who have a tendency to put a premium on education; for instance, it's a little known fact that in the U.S., African immigrants are the most highly educated of any group here, and evidently have values closer to immigrants as a whole, than compared to the American born population.

I suspect my post was more confusing than helpful, but it's my 2 cents either way.

[ScottRobertson]

I'm not sure how things are in Canada, but in the U.S., marketers who have targeted the "Asian American" market have had a tendency to fail in their marketing efforts. This is largely due to the fact that there isn't an "Asian" culture, and instead there are people of many different cultures from a place called "Asia", which causes marketers to lump them into one category called "Asians".

Instead, I've heard that a newer and better informed generation of marketers target groups that do overlap within what we call the "Asian" market, promoting values that appeal to 1st generation immigrants or children of immigrants (different values), rather than trying to target vague "Asian values".

As a side effect, your research into the immigrant area may allow you to target other immigrants groups, who have a tendency to put a premium on education; for instance, it's a little known fact that in the U.S., African immigrants are the most highly educated of any group here, and evidently have values closer to immigrants as a whole, than compared to the American born population.

I suspect my post was more confusing than helpful, but it's my 2 cents either way.

This was not confusing at all. I have considered that fact, but it seems that maybe I have over estimated the similarities within the different asian cultures. As always, I will continue my research in the area. Thank you for pointing that out and if you have any further information/advice on targeting the "asian similarities" please post them for me, thanks!

I suggest you also focus on more parent-teacher advertising. I would form strategic alliances with teachers. How can your business come up in PTA meetings and or parent/teacher one-on-one? How do you reach the parents at their jobs? You know your area well so I would think about that. Also, I'm not sure if there are a lot of tutoring franchises in BC Canada but you might want to research what works for them also and similarly situate yourself; yet try to set yourself apart--since you're going for the same target market.

I completely agree that I need to do this. Some of these issues are what I have been trying to create solutions for. In my old town, where I went to school, I had very strong connections with my teachers and they referred any students to me. But now I live in a new city and have no teacher connections. I could try giving some of my spare time to be a peer tutor/teacher assistant in classes. As I noted above I will also be giving free tutoring/reading buddies for younger children, which will give me some goodwill with the teachers as well. Any other ideas? I will see what else I can come up with and post here.

There are tutoring franchises here (Sylvan and Kumon are the main competitors there) I have created a table outlining the pros and cons of learning centres as well as independent private tutors. I have to take off right now, but will post that here later (can't remember if I have it on paper or computer file - either way I'll get it up here for a critique).

[S Lee]

Well, if I were planning out marketing strategies for a tutoring business targeting "Asians-Americans ", which tend to be an under-served population in marketing here in the U.S. due to the aforementioned difficulties, I would take a nuanced look at the target market in your target location rather than build a general "Asian" marketing plan at first.

For instance, if a large number of the your target audience are recent immigrants who came over to study, you might be able to segment them into a separate category from those who may be more established and wealthier. For example, take a hypothetical couple who may have recently come over to study; they will likely have younger children, be more cash-strapped, and may be associated with a student organization at their school that's associated with the country they've recently come from (ex. Chinese student association). They may also be more comfortable with an advertisement in the language of that country. For them, I may emphasize tutoring for smaller children that offers great value (monetary), and I may try distributing this ad via the student organization in their native language. All that is a gross simplification, but it gives you an idea of where to start.

If I used that same marketing strategy for professionals who are wealthier and have lived here for quite some time, well. . . probably won't get the same results.

For me, I'd feel safer basing my marketing with that kind of segmenting rather than just for "Asians", since I wouldn't want to have based some part of my strategy on some stereotype that I thought I was accurate for my target market.

[chanson]

I run a marketing business in Central Canada and I know what you mean when you refer to the asian presence in BC(hence the name hongcouver), I also have one of my portfolio managers who is philipino and they do indeed put alot of value into there childrens education. you have the right idea in trying to identify your "Ideal Customer" but trying to focus on race is definately not the way to go. You say that they will pay more for education, it may be true but if a white/black/brown/blue/green/orange big or small or any other type of combination of person is interested then there money si worth just as much. What I am saying is your wanting to target a certain household income level not a specific race. Hopefully I havent missed an important part of the conversation prior to this comment as I briefly skimmed over it. Identify your ideal customer then target them in your marketing plan. If you havent yet found a marketing company to heklp you in your ventures feel free to contact me and we would eb happy to look at your scenario and see how we can be advantageous to you. I hope this helps

[i-ventures]

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