Aug 17, 2017
Re-engage your clients with an email to kick off the new school year.
As the end of summer nears, it’s time for tutors, students, and parents to start gearing up for the back-to-school season. Each year brings excitement, uncertainty, and new activities for every student and things can get a little bit hectic. To get things on track for a successful tutoring season and re-engage with previous clients that you’ve worked with, consider sending a back-to-school email. Writing an email that contains information pertinent to the upcoming school year and your own tutoring business can be immensely helpful for your clients, as well as remind them that your services are available. If you’re interested in providing this to your clients, here are six sections to include:
Annual recap: The best way to open an annual email is a recap of the previous year. Clients will enjoy reading about any big wins you may have had from the previous year and as well as statistics or data you may have found through your tutoring endeavors. You can also include testimonials from other clients that you may find pertinent. Providing relevant information and illustrating your tutoring successes is a good way to get additional recommendations as well (it’s not hard for clients to forward an email to their contacts!). At the same time, steer clear of spending too much time highlighting your own wins to avoid sounding boastful. Writing about challenges you faced can also be helpful as clients always appreciate transparency. If you do decide to note challenges, ensure your focus is on the year as a whole and not on specific clients, and address your plan for tackling these issues moving forward into this year.
Upcoming academic dates: A client email of this nature is a wonderful opportunity to bring up important dates that may spur clients to hire you. Include upcoming test dates, such as SATs and ACTs, along with midterm periods, and any other key academic milestones with which clients may find themselves requiring some extra tutoring help. It’s also a great idea to highlight important weeks or national academic holidays. If you want to do something unique for these dates, such as holding special sessions or student outings, be sure to communicate that -- advertising fun and different activities may help secure more business from your clients.
Changes to the educational landscape: People like to read informative and pertinent emails, not just advertorials. Thus, spending some time discussing broader changes to the general academic landscape is a great idea. Here, you’ll want to highlight new policies that affect schools, along with updates affecting your local community. For example, The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) goes into effect this upcoming school year and putting emphasis on this new law and how it can affect your clients will be helpful.
Your policies: Including a section about your policies in your email is a great refresher for clients and sets the tone for the new year. Remember to outline parameters for payment schedules, cancellations, lateness, and anything else you may want clients to know up front. Providing this information in clear format is a great way for you to ensure that you’ve communicated this information, especially if you find yourself dealing with clients who break protocol. This section is especially important to highlight if you have any changes that you’d like to implement for the upcoming school year.
Your own details and dates: Try to convey any significant dates in your own schedule for the upcoming months. For example, any vacations you may be taking that will potentially affect your clients. It’s also important to highlight announcements or updates on your end. If you are thinking about adding new subjects to your repertoire, for example, you should describe these in this section -- it could lead to new business and client referrals.
Contact information: You should always include your information in any email you send to multiple contacts. This is certainly critical if your contact information has changed or if you have a new method of preferred communication. Since some of your clients may have been out of touch over the summer, a reminder is key. Also, it’s possible you may have some past clients on your email list, and it’s critical that they are updated -- your email may remind them that they should hire you again. In this section, you can also include relevant social media handles and any other information along those lines.
In the tutoring business, client correspondence is essential. Writing an email to your entire client list is a great way to ensure you aren’t over-communicating while simultaneously conveying important information about your business. The back-to-school season is a perfect opportunity to take advantage of this strategy. It not only will make you appear more professional, but you’ll increase your chances of word of mouth marketing and referrals if you craft your email correctly. If you’ve included the above six categories, you should be in a great position to start the school year successfully.
Are you ready for the back-to-school season this year? For tips on making the most of your tutoring business this fall, subscribe to Clark today.
