Advertising for New Students

January 10, 2011 Jennifer Boster

I just had to get that Merry Christmas post off of the top of the blog – onto a new year! 🙂 I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and are on to great new semesters of piano study. We have a lot of great things coming up on The Teaching Studio. For now, I thought it would be a great time to re-visit the topic of Finding New Students.

I have made many-a-flyer in my years of teaching piano lessons. I decided it was time for a new, more professional-looking one. I wanted one that I could email out to people (I have had people give my name to people who are interested in lessons, and wanted something professional-looking that could be forwarded on to others). I used Microsoft Publisher to make this one and I love how it turned out! I have never used this program before, but I loved all of the professional-looking templates you can choose from and customize to your heart’s content. What do you think?

Now, tell me – what kind of information do you like to put on your flyers? If you use flyers to advertise, how do you make them? Where/how do you like to distribute them?

Happy Monday!

Pedagogy Books: Practical Piano Pedagogy

July 9, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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Practical Piano Pedagogy by Dr. Martha Baker-Jordan is a wonderful resource for any piano teacher looking for some great ideas and printable resources for their studio. Yes, this book includes TONS of free printables (you can photocopy them from the book, or load them on your computer from the included CD!) – including all sorts of studio forms and other resources. (I mentioned this book before in a post about personality types and piano methods.)

The author has written a great chapter called “The Business of Piano Teaching,” which discusses good business procedures which help to make you more professional. This chapter includes many forms such as a Telephone Interview form, a Beginner Interview form, a Readiness Evaluation for Beginner form, a Studio Policy, Billing Form, Yearly Tuition Schedule, Letterhead Stationary, etc.

Other great chapters include: “Tuition: Being Paid What You Are Worth,” “Strategies for Acquiring Students,” “Now You Have Them – What Do You Do?,” and “The ‘Black Hole’ of Piano Teaching: Why Does it Exist?” (Can you guess what the “black hole” refers to? – Improvisation, Harmonization, Composition and Transposition!)

I have not yet finished reading this book, but so far have enjoyed it very much. I definitely will use it as a resource in the future!

Finding New Students in the Summer

May 15, 2010 Jennifer Boster

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While in college, I would come home for the summer. I needed a job, and wanted to teach, but wondered how I could find students just for the summer! Anyone ever have a similar predicament?

I advertised a lot (in ways such as these) and was happy to end up with about twelve students – not too shabby!

I think that with a little creativity and with a good attitude, the summer months really can be ideal for building up your studio & recruiting new students. Even though a lot of people like to start up lessons in the fall with the beginning of school, and summer can be a really busy time for some families, I do think that it is possible to be successful in finding new students during these months. Here’s what I did…

I made flyers advertising “SUMMER PIANO LESSONS” (because in my case, I would only be there for the summer months…I wasn’t sure how many students I could actually get, and was pleasantly surprised with the response!). Here is what my flyer said:

SUMMER PIANO LESSONS

any age, any level, everyone welcome! (does this scream desperate or qualified? hmmm…not sure. hehe. and no, this part in parentheses was not on my flyer.)

Have you ever wanted to take piano lessons, but never had the time?

Have you had lessons in the past, and would like a refresher course?

Is your child too busy during the school year, but would like to start piano?

Has your child been asking for piano lessons, and you’d like to give it a try?

By being a bit creative in the way I advertised and in the target audience I was advertising to (people who otherwise might not sign up for long-term lessons), I was able to get a pretty good-sized studio for the two summers I was home from college. I had a wonderful mix of ages and levels, including young beginners, older beginners, adults, teenagers, and transfer students of various ages. Sadly, I had to leave my students at the end of the summer to go back to school, but they knew that would happen all along, because that is how I advertised it! (Luckily I also have younger siblings who also teach, so I was able to pass on a few of my students to them!) We had an end-of-summer recital, and I think the students/parents were all pleased with the progress made in those short few months. Here is one of my cute little beginners who started lessons that summer – definitely one of the students I was sorry to leave!

So my point – you can see either see summer as a tough time to get new students (which it can be), OR you can work hard, use a little creativity in your advertising, and have a great summer teaching your new students.