3 Must-Do

Strategies
to get more
Guitar
Students

The 3 Strategies that helped me to enroll over

3000+ students in just 2 years.

Author: David J Hart

The Essential Guide to Teaching Guitar © Copyright 2012. G4 GUITAR

 1. Start local
If you want more students and you teach from a studio or your home then the
most likely place that students are going to come from will be your local area.
Your best strategy is to market to the people who live in your immediate area.
Guitar is extremely popular with around 6% of the U.S. population owning a
guitar. A big misconception that many teachers have is that there is a shortage
of guitar students. I have never found this to be the case. Guitar is hugely
popular and if any thing there is a shortage of good teachers. I know this fact
from operating guitar schools for many years. I always found it much easier to
find students then was to find suitable teachers to teach. I believe the
misconception comes about by confusing a lack of students with a lack of
marketing.

The best way to market to local students is by doing a local flyer and putting
one in each and every person’s letterbox. I Delivered over 100,000 flyers over
an 18 month period and enrolled over 3000 students over a two-year period.
Very few guitar teachers do this kind of local marketing and that’s why it
works so well. You are unlikely to have any competition. Ask yourself when
was the last time someone put a guitar lesson flyer in your letterbox?

Your next best local marketing strategy will be Internet CPC ( cost per click)
ads like Adwords. These ads are highly targeted and will be seen by people in
your local area. sure they will cost you a little bit of money but you should
note that the average guitar student is worth thousands of dollars. If it cost
you $100 on Adwords to get one new student you are still way ahead.

The third local strategy that I recommend is to advertise on any websites that
have a good local audience. Especially those that appeal to kids and parents
and are focused on local activities. A good place to find out which websites are
best is to ask your current students and their parents and speak to other local
businesses to see what they recommend.

The Essential Guide to Teaching Guitar © Copyright 2012. G4 GUITAR

 2. Deliver
I have found that many businesses underestimate the power of word-of-
mouth (WOM). One student could potentially refer dozens of students but
they need to have a good reason. One person raving about you can start an
avalanche. One of my guitar schools ended up with around 100 students
coming from just two local schools and no doubt a large percentage of that
business came via referrals. We have all seen it. Restaurants that are booked
out for months or concerts from bands who did no advertising and gained
their fans purely through word-of-mouth.

Underestimating the power of word-of-mouth means that most business

owners view each customer (student) with a short term view. For example if
your student is successful long-term that will equate to $5000 or more in
fees. Now if that students was to then tell 10 other students to enroll with you
that would be another $50,000. Those students in turn would tell more
people which would result in exponential growth. As you can see one student
could in fact be worth $100,000 or more. To show you how these are not just
numbers I will use my business (G4 Guitar) as an example. I was able to
enroll over 3000 students in just two years and turnover more than $1 million
in student fess because of this referral affect but I will point out that it’s not
the money that excited me most. It was the fact that my students were getting
results and my reputation was spreading through the community.

The best way to get referrals is to start by ensuring your current students are
getting results. When you deliver on your promise your reputation will
naturally spread because people like to share good news (and bad). When you
to deliver people can’t help but talk about you. We live in a world where most
companies fail to deliver on their promise. If you can deliver what you say by
teaching students to play guitar you will have more students than you could
ever imagine. If you are unable to deliver you will always struggle. Whatever
we do we want to make sure that we do it so well that people rave about us.
This is not an ego trip, it’s a measure of how well you deliver. We owe it to
our students and we owe it to ourselves to deliver and the true measure of
your service will come in the form of word-of-mouth. In fact I will go as far as
to say that if the word is not spreading about you and your service then you
need to question whether or not you are truly delivering on your promise. If
your promise is to teach guitar how many of your students are achieving that
goal. If you reach an 80% or higher success rate with your students you
reputation will grow.

The Essential Guide to Teaching Guitar © Copyright 2012. G4 GUITAR

 2. Networking
Networking was the 3rd pillar in my successful strategy. This works in many
ways but let me give you a few examples.

Partnering. When I started my studio in 2005 I opened up next door to a

piano school. I then approached the owner and introduced myself explaining
that I was opening up a guitar school next door. I showed Sharon (the owner)
my flyer that I was distributing to local homes and asked her if she would like
to join me by being on the reverse side of the flyer and split the cost of
printing and delivery. Sharon was happy to give it a go. Initially I personally
delivered the flyers which worked out well because it meant that I was being
paid while I built up my student numbers. Sharon was already doing well as
her business was established so she was simply looking to take her business to
the next level. We also did other forms of advertising and referred students to
each other. We even shared two more commercial premises to reduce the cost
of rent and general overheads. Our partnership was beneficial for both parties
and is an excellent example of networking.

Students. All my students they began with a five-week private introduction

and would then join a group. Initially my motivation was to work less and
earn more. I had some experience teaching groups and felt confident that I
could be just as effective teaching students in groups as I had been teaching
privately. What I didn’t expect was the powerful networking effect of grouping
students. When you teach students one-on-one you miss out on this effect
because when students learn in groups the conversation that begins in your
lessons continues after the lesson. That is students will talk amongst
themselves about the lesson you just gave immediately after and sometimes
for hours and even days after. Think of like when you go to a restaurant with
friends and have a great meal. You all continue chatting after leaving the
restaurant remarking on how good the food and/or service was.

Guitar teachers. An important and often neglected networking

opportunity are other guitar teachers. Other guitar teachers will offer you
valuable insights into how they built their businesses. Other guitar teachers
also have strengths and weaknesses which you can learn from. There are also
many opportunities to do combined marketing, workshops, student referrals
and so on. There is too much to know and do for any one person so
networking will help you to dramatically leveraged yourself. Joining a
network of guitar teachers or creating a network will put you on the fast track
to growing your business and learning how to be a better teacher.

The Essential Guide to Teaching Guitar © Copyright 2012. G4 GUITAR

 Bonus
I hope the above strategies have helped you to see how you can quickly
and effectively build your student numbers. As a bonus I would like to
give you a few more ideas on how to find more students so here 10 more
ways to fine students.
 
1. Letterbox flyers. 
2. Make a website. 
3. Post on Craig's list. 
4. Wear a t-shirt with ‘Guitar Lessons’ on it.
5. Run a free beginner workshop
6. Give local schools and sports clubs a voucher for fundraisers. 
7. Lead a local business network and refer business to each other. 
8. Run an Adwords campaign. 
9. Place a Facebook ad. 
10. Share email lists with similar businesses. 

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The Essential Guide to Teaching Guitar © Copyright 2012. G4 GUITAR