Are you scared of not making any money this summer? Consider how you can market summer music lessons to keep your schedule full.
Then, you won’t have to borrow money to pay your bills. And you won’t have to dip into your emergency savings either.
Before we get into the guide, this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy to learn more.
Why Market Summer Music Lessons
Marketing summer music lessons may seem like a lot of work. If you’ve consistently seen students quit, you may wonder if it’s even worth promoting that you teach over the summer.
Consider the following reasons to market yourself and your studio even during the summer.
Minimize the Income Dip
A lot of students and families take a break from private music lessons over the summer, but not everyone does. When I was growing up, I would take lessons over the summer break to stay busy and maintain my skills.
Marketing summer music lessons can help you avoid a huge drop in income from May to August. Then, you can still pay your bills and keep from having to take money from your emergency fund.
You may still earn a bit less than you did during the school year. But the difference doesn’t have to be as dramatic.
Fill Your Schedule
Of course, along with the income drop comes some extra free time. But if you’re like me and get bored with too much free time, you should market your services. Then, you can fill up your schedule.
Some parents may be eager to get their kids out of the house. Even if that’s only for an hour a week, it can help your students stay busy. And it can keep you from getting bored.
You can also teach lessons earlier in the day since students aren’t in school. So if you find you’re more energetic in the mornings, you could take evenings off for a while.
Prepare for the Fall
Offering lessons in the summer can be a great way to help prepare for the fall. You won’t have to rush to fill lesson slots in August or September. If you get new students over the summer, you can turn them into year-round members of your studio.
And you can keep current students on your roster. A great way to do that is to tell students and parents that there’s no guarantee their time slot will be available in the fall if they pause lessons.
So by keeping students, you can predict your fall schedule. And if it looks to be a bit slow, you can market lessons earlier. Then, you can get more students to fill your schedule and bank account.
How to Market Summer Music Lessons
If you want to avoid the annual summer income dip, consider a few ways you can promote your summer music lessons.
Start Early
The sooner you start marketing, the greater your chances will be of finding enough students to teach. If you haven’t already, you need to start promoting yourself online and in your local community.
School may not end for another couple of months, but families are already planning their summers. If parents don’t realize you teach over the summer, they may not plan on keeping their kids in lessons.
So it could be as easy as telling people about summer lessons. And if you want more students, you can get online or network with other music professionals.
Contact Local Band Directors
A great way to build awareness around your studio is to work with band or orchestra directors in your city. You can send them an email mentioning that you’re a private teacher and have openings for the summer.
Now, this can work on its own. But if you want even better results, offer to visit their class and give a clinic for their students. Then, you can work directly with people who may want to study with you.
You can send home flyers with the students. If kids like you, they may tell your parents about you and your studio. Then, you can convert those families into studio members.
Network With Other Teachers
Another thing you can do is network with other people who teach the same instrument as you. It may feel like they’re your competition, and they can be. But every teacher is different and can offer a unique learning experience.
That means other teachers may have some students that aren’t a good fit for them. In some cases, those students could be a good fit for your studio. And if the other teachers know you well, they may refer students to you.
You can also refer students to other teachers when you get a student that isn’t the best fit for your studio. And if someone has a waitlist, they might refer students to other teachers when students don’t want to wait for lessons.
Use Social Media
Social media can be a great place to promote summer music lessons. You can interact with other teachers in your area, but you can also engage directly with parents on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
If you want to be successful, you need to create good, unique content. Post that content and reply to any comments or messages you get. You can also do outbound engagement with hashtags and location tags.
That way, you can attract the attention of parents in your city who may want a teacher for their child. Now, it can take time to build a business with social media, but you can start now and maybe get students for the summer or fall.
Consider Teaching College Students
If you have a full studio during the academic year, consider marketing summer music lessons to college music majors. When I was in college, I took lessons over the summer with a teacher in my home town.
That way, I could keep up with practicing and get better before the fall. You can help music majors with this, and you can provide a different perspective from their degree teacher.
If you want to go this route, contact college professors in your state and surrounding states. Let them know you’re offering summer lessons to college students. Then, they may promote you to their studios.
Look for Local Bulletin Boards
A more traditional route you can take to market summer private lessons is to use bulletin boards. You can put up a poster or your business card in a popular restaurant or coffee shop, for example.
I’ve never tried this, so I don’t know how well it would work. It probably depends on your audience and where you live. But as long as it’s free to post your information, give it a try.
You might not get any students from the poster. However, you never know what could happen.
Offer a Discount
If you currently charge per lesson or per month, consider offering a set rate for the entire summer. Give it a slight discount compared to what someone would pay monthly or weekly for the whole term.
Then, you can compare those prices to encourage people to pay for a a summer lesson package all at once. That can help you get more students for the whole summer, so you won’t have to worry about losing all of your income later in the season.
Of course, you need to be careful with discounts. You don’t want to drop the price so much that it keeps you from earning enough to pay your bills. If you can’t do a discount, offer something extra for free, like a piece of sheet music.
Final Thoughts
Offering summer music lessons can be a great way to keep from losing out on income for almost a third of the year. But you need to know how and where to promote your services to get the best results.
If you want to give social media a try, enroll in The Instagram Marketing & Sales Academy. I’ve learned a lot in that course, and I still use the info.