7 Fundamentals Of Music School Promotion For Guitar Teachers
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If you want to make more money as a guitar teacher and build a successful music school…
In this article I'll share with you 7 key elements of music school promotion that make this possible.
Believe it or not:
You can make a lot of money teaching guitar without raising your guitar lesson rates sky-high.
What's more…
You can sometimes increase your income very significantly without even getting new guitar students.
This guitar teaching article explains how.
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
These are the very same things I coach guitar teachers in the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle to do…
And many of the teachers I coach have built up multiple 6-figure per year guitar teaching businesses, while working part-time.
Follow the music school promotion fundamentals below and – over time – you can become one of them.
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #1. Promote Yourself 24/7/365
Your music school's promotion has to be done consistently and on schedule – no matter the time of year or the state of the economy.
And that includes every area of business, such as:
Lead generation (i.e. getting potential guitar students to contact you): You should be doing marketing (e.g. door-to-door flyers) to get prospective guitar students to find out about you.
Conversion (i.e. getting prospective guitar students to say yes to beginning guitar lessons with you): You should have (semi-automated) processes for moving prospective guitar students closer to saying 'yes' to getting started, via follow up calls and email campaigns.
Retention (i.e. making your guitar students want to continue taking lessons): You should be planting seeds for this in every guitar class you teach. More on this below.
Reactivation (i.e. compelling past guitar students to return to your music school and take lessons from you again): You should be consistently thinking up and making offers to your past guitar students – inviting them to come back. That is one of the fastest ways to grow your music school and your guitar teaching income.
Referrals (i.e. getting your current students to recommend you to their guitar playing friends): You should be consistently reminding your current guitar students to send you referrals. (More on this below.)
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #2. Don't Put All Your (Promotional) Eggs Into One Basket
The more ways you have to attract guitar students and promote your school, the safer your business (and income) becomes and the faster it will grow.
It's just like investing money. If you put all your money into one stock, you 'might' win big… but you'll for sure be vulnerable to lose big if that company stumbles.
That's why your guitar teaching business needs to have as many sources of new guitar student leads as possible.
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #3. Be Seen Everywhere
On average, your prospects will need to see and hear your marketing messages 7-8 times before they contact you. The faster you make these touchpoints happen, the sooner those prospects will become your students.
The more consistent you are about following rule #1 (about marketing your guitar teaching business nonstop), the more you will shrink the time between a prospective guitar student first finding out about you, contacting you and becoming your paying guitar student.
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #4. Engineer Consistent Referrals
Every guitar student you have has the potential to turn into (at least) 5 new guitar students.
Here are some proven ways to get more referrals for your music school, so you can grow your guitar teaching business faster:
1. There is no "best" way to get referrals when you're teaching guitar. There are multiple ways that all work for different types of guitar students. The more of them you use – the better.
That said…
2. The 'simplest' way to get referrals is to ask for them. You don't need to offer any bribe or reward for referrals. That's not to say that offering an incentive can't work for getting referrals for your music school… only that a simple 'ask' can sometimes be very effective.
More:
3. Sometimes the best way to thank someone for a referral is to do just that – 'thank them'. And do it publicly (in front of your other students). This has the double effect of making the student who sent you the referral feel special and recognized, while putting the thought into your other students' minds that you appreciate referrals.
4. If you want a simple script to tell your guitar students to send you referrals, simply say this: “You know, I would really appreciate it if you could tell any of your guitar-playing friends about me so I can help them get the same results you’re getting in your playing.”
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #5. Be So Good At Teaching – Your Students Almost Feel Guilty About Not Paying You More
This builds your reputation and keeps your students loyal to you, even if your competitors are charging a lot less than you.
Here are simple ways to improve your guitar teaching skills to help the guitar students at your music school improve much faster:
1. Teach music in groups. Contrary to most guitar teachers' beliefs, group guitar lessons are a much better way to learn guitar compared to traditional 1-1 lessons you find at most music schools.
In group lessons, your guitar students will receive benefits they will never get in private lessons (such as: training on real-life playing with other musicians, learning from your answers to other guitar students' questions, and developing self-reliance in their learning and practicing that helps them improve much faster).
This guitar teaching article explains all the many benefits of group guitar teaching in detail.
2. Train more than you teach. Training (i.e. supervised practice) ensures that your guitar students improve fast between lessons, by installing proper practice habits into their brain and hands.
Watch this video to see an example of 'training' a guitar student instead of just 'teaching guitar' to them.
3. Get guitar teacher training. This means: learn how to teach guitar to others to help them become better guitar players faster. The ability to do this is its own skill.
Watch this guitar teaching video to see an example of guitar teacher training in action.
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #6. All The Money Is In Retention
The longer you can keep your guitar students, the easier it becomes to grow your business and the less you have to work just to keep your income from going backwards.
And believe it or not: there are simple things you can do to keep your students longer that have nothing to do with your guitar teaching skills.
Case in point:
Back in the 90s (when I still taught guitar at music stores), I knew of a piano teacher who figured out a brilliant tactic for keeping her students longer.
What she’d do is take a photo of herself with the student every year on the anniversary of that student staying with her... and hang those photos on the wall of her studio.
I don’t think she realized herself just how effective her one little tactic was (based on how she ran the rest of her business)...
... but that massive photo gallery (that she developed over time), helped her keep her students longer in a few big ways:
- It created an expectation with every new student to take lessons with that teacher for many years (without her having to say a word!)
- It showed proof of how long her students were staying (some started when they were 7-8 and were still taking lessons in their 20s). The photos spoke for themselves.
- It made many students look forward to having their photo taken the next year, which overrode any impulse they may have had to quit during the year.
This wouldn’t work on all students of course (no tactic is *that* powerful), but in theory – anybody can use their smartphone’s camera app to do something similar.
For more tips on keeping your guitar students longer, check out this guitar teaching eGuide.
Guitar Teaching Success Fundamental Rule #7. Focus On Geometric Growth Vs. Linear Growth
The real "secret" to a thriving teaching business is geometric growth in multiple areas of your teaching and marketing. This helps your income grow faster with far less effort.
Imagine that you're you improved by just 10% in each of the core music school growth areas: lead generation, conversion, retention, reactivation and referrals.
Like this: you are now getting 10% more potential guitar students, converting 10% more of them than you did before, keeping your guitar students 10% more than you did before, reactivating 10% more old students than you did before and getting 10% more referrals than before.
How much do you think your business will grow?
Hint: it's NOT: 50% (10%+10%+10%+10%+10%). The answer is: 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1* 1.1* 1.1 or 62.5%
And if you improve by 15% in each area, the growth of your music school would be even faster.
Guitar teachers who focus on geometric growth in their guitar teaching businesses often end up earning 6-figures or more, while working only part-time.
Now that you know the 7 fundamentals of music school promotion, I want to help you keep your guitar students longer, so you can fill your teaching schedule much faster and help more of your guitar students become better players. I show you how in my free eGuide: How To Keep Your Guitar Students Taking Lessons With You For Years. Download it today and discover the guitar teaching secrets most guitar teachers will never know.
Learn how to become a successful guitar teacher.
