Teaching is considered as a distinct and reputable thing particularly for rewarding success. If you want to become a self-employed or an ambitious entrepreneur to set up a tutoring agency, then follow certain steps and guidelines and be a successful person with earning supplemental income. The following guidelines will help you to increase your odds of success.

According to the journal, online market to grow to 12.75% in between 2017-2021. This is because of the emergence of virtual learning, mobile-based tutoring services, and increasing customizations on online tutoring software.

Blueprint for starting an online tutoring business:

If you are an expert at specific skills and understand to fulfill your needs in a lucrative way, then start your own online business by following the tips.

Pinpoint your Niche:

One of the first steps to starting your career will be choosing the subjects in which you can be an expert. As we know the tutoring is a diversified business, so you need to know about your specific niche requirements like your specializations, focus on your audience, etc.

Scope out the competition in the market if there are any other tutoring businesses in your local area, how they run, how can you set yourself apart from them. If you choose a competitive domain that has already circulated in the market with a well-established reputation, it is quite difficult to break into the marketplace. Therefore, choose and follow comprehensive niche guidelines like location, target audience, demography, etc.

Understand your potential:

Always be honest about your abilities. Focus on your aspects of current strengths and skills. Good knowledge about your specific subject/domain is necessary especially to build a reputation and client base initially.

An effective understanding of the education system is necessary if you want to start a tutoring agency. This helps in managing the resources like the hiring of the right staff, fix a structural plan to prepare lessons, preparing the correct format of content, and maintaining a business model according to your requirements.

Determine the right tutoring business:

If you have outlined your skills, strengths, potential and got an idea about your ideal customers, then comes choosing the best online business models you can follow. The business models will definitely help to convert your ideas into income.

The major business models in e-learning include

• Academy e-learning business model

• Night school e-learning business model

Night School model:

This is a business model which drives the online courses and can provide a blueprint to sell the courses on the website. This business model is a flexible and trustworthy best suited for learners to develop their skills. The customers pay for accessing a course in which the instructors teach them a specific skill. For example Udemy.

This model provides the standalone courses in which the nature of the course may range from online video tutorials, on-demand-live classes, to on-demand physical sessions. This offers the particular skills according to the customer needs.

The students can enroll, learn about a specific skill or lesson on the online platform rather than concentrating the whole module. For Example, you can learn the beginner level of SQL in Udemy and Skillshare or any of the online platform. You will available only for the beginner level rather concentrating the whole course of SQL including advanced level.

Academy model:

The academy business model is the revitalization for e-learning. This model has differed from night school where students can learn all the skills they want to achieve in a single comprehensive school type website. When a student enrolls into an online platform, they come up with the all-round education instead of focusing on one skill or aspect. This model also comes with different features like interacting through social media channels, live question, and answers, coaching calls, etc.

For example- IXL, Byjus, etc.

This model works like the Netflix subscription basis. The students get access to the entire courses and lessons. They can pick and choose according to their type, of course, paying a monthly recurring fee or yearly subscription charges. As long as they pay the subscription charge, they are entitled to access to it.

There is another popular model in the market called Freemium model in which the websites offer simple and basic services for free and the advanced versions of courses at a premium. The basic version has limited capabilities but additional features will unlock only after the users pay for it.

Efront is a good example for the freemium model that offers an LMS in which the core of the software is open source and the hosted solutions from $85 to $1990 per month.

Build an online presence:

If you’re not trying to build long term growth potential, then the above business models will be the best option for you. But if your goal is to sell your courses with full ownership, then it is advisable for the build a platform which can provide your business a great extent.

Most of the businesses want a maximizing potential and with a moderate amount of cost, efforts, resources, and time. The tech-savvy individuals can build their own personalized online learning portal with the help of cutting edge technology to fulfill their requirements. However, there are two well-known options best suited to build your website:

• SaaS-based Solutions
• Custom based Solutions

SaaS Solutions:

SaaS solutions are the most flexible solutions that anyone can install it quickly with limited resources. You will get the readymade application with simple setup. All software development is managed and done by vendors. So you can get a ready solution within a couple of days.

SaaS solutions are not a noble option for large scale business and a long term commitment. Moreover, you need to pay the SaaS vendors at a recurring basis to access their platform. As the whole website is being handled by the SaaS vendors, you can’t do any customization according to your requirements as you won’t get the source code. This tends to induce complete dependability on the vendors for your business.

Custom Solutions:

On the other hand, custom solutions are the best option for growing and dealing medium to large-sized ventures. To avoid the recurring costs as in SaaS, these turnkey solutions provide integrating the best features and functionalities. You can customize, edit, and modify the websites as you have the source code with you.

These solutions need more time for development, setup, and deployment of the final website. Thus, the investment is comparatively high as the resources are to be maintained for taking the business to the highest levels. Time is only a constraint to develop a versatile and adaptable website.

Marketing your e-learning business:

Starting a tutoring business with all the aspects ready and establishing the business requirements, you need to create plans to market yourself. You can formulate a marketing plan that incorporates both the traditional and digital marketing channels.

Word of mouth can be a good marketing strategy though it is a traditional approach. Reach out to schools, colleges, universities, organizations to use your service. Although this business applies to the students, you are ultimately targeting the parents to pay the fees especially in the courses below K-12.

Build a relationship with via social media and online channels to marketing your product. Improve your SEO skills to build online branding opportunities by e-newsletter, blog, information, short videos, etc.

Create brand awareness through both online and offline to build your brand and business to accumulate clients. The customers won’t take it seriously unless they find more information on the internet. You can text and email your contacts, create business cards and high-quality brochures to circulate and make the best use of your perspective.

Takeaway:

Many business owners often struggle to maintain a possible brand in the market. But if you invest your time and resources in a fair manner to provide better services and with good prices, soon you’ll be able to be a pioneer in the emerging eLearning industry.

comments