Music Lesson Marketing Tactics

Music lesson teachers are experts who’ve spent years perfecting their craft. They’re also organizing curriculum, teaching and balancing books. That leaves little time to do one thing music lesson enterprises need: marketing.

Word-of-mouth and a stellar reputation gets new students, but simple digital marketing practices bring in more clients and increase profit margins. Here are four techniques that turn marketing music lessons into an achievable task.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, means tailoring a music academy’s website to search engines’ (typically Google’s) algorithms. An optimized webpage appears higher in searches, meaning more people will see it.

Optimization? Algorithms? Admittedly, it sounds more complicated than it really is.

To make a music lesson website rank higher in searches, focus on relevant keywords and content:

• Choose a specific keyword like “drum lessons,” “piano teacher” or something similar.
• Use that keyword early on the webpage and naturally throughout. Include it in the opening sentence and headings if possible.
• Throughout the page, modify keywords with locations like “guitar lessons in Lexington.”
• Link to other pages on the website. If your guitar lesson page references a blog post about a concert or recital, link to it.
• Use specific, relevant keywords for links. Something along the lines of “affordable piano lessons for beginners” is much better than “click here” or “contact me.”
• Don’t try to stuff as many keywords as possible into text. Organic, natural text ranks much better.

SEO practices get more complicated than that, but keyword usage is a great place to start. It’s worth it to pay someone with music lesson marketing experience to optimize a website to make it as visible as possible.

2. Content Marketing

Potential students want to know what a teacher’s lessons are like. Not just which instruments they know, but how they teach them. Show that off with content marketing.

Content can be blog posts, videos, podcasts, pictures, newsletters or anything that shows off a why a music teacher stands out. This matches teachers with ideal students and more of them.

If you’re big on music theory, write an informative post about it. Maybe your lessons are aimed at more casual students — post a video of you having fun with your instrument. Proud of a particular student? With their permission, record them performing.

Remember to share content on social media so others can see it and share it themselves. Combine content with SEO best practices for a music marketing double whammy.

3. Pay-per-click Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising involves buying visits to a site through ads. Basically, you bid on keywords through Google or other search engines. When people search for those keywords, your ad pops up.

Every time someone clicks on the ad, you pay the search engine a small fee. When setting this up, establish a budget so the search engine knows how much you’re willing to spend.

Multiple businesses may bid on the same keywords, so search engines have formulas to calculate who earns that ad space. The first part of the formula is the cost-per-click bid, or the highest amount a business is willing to pay for a click.

The second part is based on quality. This includes how many people click through a site, the quality of the landing page and the keywords’ relevance to the topic.

That’s where it can get complicated for music teachers and programs. In areas saturated with music lesson options, planning ad campaigns around the right keywords is top priority. To do it right, consider what potential students might search for and why your lessons stand out.

Let’s use a violin teacher as an example. The most obvious keywords to bid on are “violin lessons” or “violin lessons in” whatever city they’re located in.

Go deeper than that.

Who do you cater to?

What are your prices like in comparison to the rest of the market? Based on that, add keywords such as “for children,” “for advanced students” or “inexpensive” into ad campaigns to reach the right consumer base.

4. Social Media Marketing

No matter what music school marketing techniques you use, use social media. Recently, tech news website Review42 gathered some interesting statistics about the intersection of businesses like music academies and social media marketing:

• 90% of businesses see an increase in exposure with social media marketing.
• 71% of consumers say they recommend brands based on social media interactions.
• 74% of consumers share videos from brands on social media.

That’s all well and good, but how does that apply to music teachers and academies?

As a musician, you have the opportunity to create captivating, unique social media content, so take advantage of that! Working on an original piece? Did you and some students or fellow music teachers have a fun jam session? Post it on your music academy’s social media page and encourage people to share and comment.

Do it consistently so audiences look forward to entertaining posts.

Other Ways Digital Marketing Improves Music Lessons and Academies

When bolstering a music academy’s or private lesson enterprise’s marketing plan, the main goal is to generate more profits. However, improved marketing has a number of secondary benefits:

• Boosting attendance numbers for schools: schools with music lessons and programs average 93.3% attendance while schools without have an average of 84.9%.
• It keeps you in the race with stiff local music lesson competition.
• It creates more profits to invest in resources for teachers and students.
• A growing number of students helps teachers stress less over problem parents and students who bicker over missed lessons.

Invest your newfound profits and energy back into the music lessons themselves by adding programs that interest younger music students or bring a wider range of music students together. It’ll only help in the long run.

Hopefully, these marketing strategies inspired you to develop a plan. If you’re intimidated or a little loss, don’t worry. 

Music lesson marketing experts turn ideas into actions and transform private music lessons into well-rounded, profitable businesses.