This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome back, side hustle school listeners. So glad you're out there. Today's episode promises to be a linguistic adventure. A linguistic adventure, that is what I said, as we help a fellow side hustler expand her language tutoring business. Now, I know we've got all kinds of people out there with all sorts of unique skills, including a lot of folks who have turned their skills and passions into profitable side hustles.
Listen, I am your champion, I am cheering you on. You have done all the work just to be clear, but I think it's so awesome when I hear from just ordinary people who don't necessarily plan on being full-time entrepreneurs, but want to take more control of their financial situation, their career situation, maybe you've got a day job and you don't always wanna have that day job, or at least you don't want to always be dependent on it. So it's always a thrill to explore new ways to grow and scale a venture or start your venture for the first time. I salute you wherever you are in the world, whatever you're up to. And today in the world, we're gonna go to Boston, at least on the podcast, at least our caller today is from Boston.
Her name is Penelope. She has been tutoring for a couple of years in her language learning side hustle, but has kind of like our listener yesterday, listener yesterday, totally different project. They were doing pottery sales, if I recall correctly. But today Penelope has also hit a bit of a plateau in terms of growing her student base. So social media has not yielded the desired results, which to me is not shocking.
I always think social media is kind of overrated for a lot of these local businesses. I mean, sometimes it can be great, but lots of times people put in a lot of work and don't see a ton of return. So Penelope is being smart here and not just doubling down, not just trying to like publish more Instagram posts. She is looking for alternative marketing ideas to reach potential students and fill up her schedule. So I love that.
Let's see what else we can suggest right after the quick break. [Music]
This is Penelope from Boston. I've been running a side hustle as a language tutor for about two years, and I'm looking to grow my student base. I've tried advertising on social media, but I haven't seen much of a return on my investment. What other marketing channels or ideas should I explore to reach potential students and expand?
I'd love to be fully booked up and not have to worry so much about constantly bringing in new students. - Penelope, what's good? Thanks for reaching out. It is great to hear you are looking to expand the language tutoring side hustle. And I totally agree, as I mentioned in the introduction, social media can be overrated in terms of growth strategies for a local business.
There's definitely some other ways to market your service. So let's look at a couple of other ideas to help you grow your student base. Okay, number one is content marketing. So this is different from social media. It is a blog or a YouTube channel or a podcast, could be some other format.
The point is, you're not just making the social posts, you're actually creating tips, tricks, techniques, just truly helpful content that's going to help you establish yourself as an expert in the field. Be someone that people do want to follow in social elsewhere, just attracting organic traffic, gaining the trust of students. So make sure you include a clear call to action with that content, which could in fact direct readers or viewers, listeners, whatever the case may be to your tutoring services. Next, you might wanna try community outreach, just getting involved locally, especially since we're trying to look at non-social media options, maybe getting involved with your local community, language schools, cultural centers, offer to give some kind of free workshop or presentation about language learning, could showcase your expertise, help you get in front of potential students, and might also help you generate some referrals, which is gonna be my last point. Is there any way you can incentivize referrals?
Encourage your current students to refer their friends and family by offering them a discount, maybe a free session, maybe something else. It just could be some kind of good faith reward, could be something that's not necessarily a free session, but some means of recognition, let's say, to tap into your existing network, to find new students who are more likely to trust you and be interested because of the personal connection that they have. So those are my three tips for you, Penelope. Good luck. Don't just keep hitting the Instagram.
You're on the right track by looking elsewhere. Keep experimenting with different strategies until you find the ones that work best for you. I hope this helps you achieve your goal of being fully booked. And listeners, thanks for tuning in. As always, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
New episode comes out tomorrow. My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
