Private Music Teachers: How do you market yourself?

Mark Wein

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
Just curious....you guys have an idea of how I do things..this site, Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, other guitar forums, Youtube, the local Yellow Pages (which I think this is the last year of), flyers and on and on....what do you do?
 
The academy does most of the promotion, but a huge amount of our business is word-of-mouth. We also have a pretty strong presence in our local community press and have even had a few articles about us in the Cincinnati Enquirer. We've also received a lot of attention with the studio videos, both from the press, music forums, and even from the bands themselves and that has gotten a lot of students excited.

I've personally advertised on Craigslist, but it seems like everyone is these days and the prices are getting ridiculous. Most of my own students are referrals from current or prior students or from my business cards that I leave on community boards at bookstores, coffeeshops, etc. I have an LMA bumper sticker on my car and sometime I'll have people ask me about it in parking lots... those aren't always guitar or drum students though.
 
Craigslist used to be great for us but with the downturn in the economy our local CL has been choked full of anyone who has ever strummed a G chord advertising cheap lessons...some folks will come to your house for $20 an hour.
 
Mark Wein said:
Craigslist used to be great for us but with the downturn in the economy our local CL has been choked full of anyone who has ever strummed a G chord advertising cheap lessons...some folks will come to your house for $20 an hour.
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I've seen $15 an hour in-home. :messedup:

When I did in-home it was $25 per 30 min.
 
In the old days when I did teach, it was ad boards, ads in the local classifieds and word of mouth. I also rented a room out at a music store so I had traffic there as well. Don't know what the world would be like today. It has changed so much now with the internet that I would have done what you have done Mark.
 
Mark Wein said:
I've never really done "in-call" lessons...my friends charge at least $50 an hour, though.
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That's how I got started. Mum would get people asking her about guitar lessons (this was about three or four years before LMA opened) and she referred them to me. I was waiting tables and bartending at the time, so I'd teach on my off days. I actually still get referrals from a few of those parents. :lol:
 
I moved this here to get a bit more traffic before putting back into the "teachers Lounge", a subforum I'm sure most of you don't know exists :tongue:
 
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