Simpedia

Cheryl P. Texas

I’m a homeschool mom and I have 11 homeschool students. In my opinion, the best way to advertise to homeschoolers is through a homeschool support group or by placing fliers in a local homeschool store. If you know a homeschool mom, you can ask her to post a message about your piano classes to her homeschool group. Also, you will want her to put “please cross post” on the message so it will be forwarded to other groups as well. In addition, sometimes support groups have open houses where teachers and other vendors can have a table to promote classes, curriculum, etc. This would be a great place to advertise as well. Google “homeschool group” plus your city and country’s name in your search engine and you should find some local homeschool groups to contact. Of course, I’m located in the US so I’m not sure if this will work for Australia but it should help you get off to a good start if things work similarly there.

Karina S. California

What a cool name you have! I can’t speak really for down under – but you might want to just Google home school groups in your area. Then, contact the point person(s) for the group and see about offering a presentation. I just started home schooling this past year and I also became a vendor for the local charter school that caters to Homeschool families. You can also check with your local school and ask about homeschool groups. Again, not sure how it’s done in Australia.

What I can say is that Homeschoolers are great to work with. You can fill slots during the day and many understand and embrace a different way of learning along with having a video as a lot of schooling is done online (at least for upper level).

Patti P. Hawaii

One of our homeschool associations sends out email advertisements that are inexpensive. They also send out a printed newsletter I’ve advertised in, which is a bit more expensive, but still reasonable. Huei C. and I also manned a table at their convention in March, which was a great way to spread the word about Simply Music.

Another thing you might check into if you’re interested, is homeschool co-ops. I’ve taught at one on Tuesday mornings during the school year for a number of years. It did involve lugging a keyboard around, but it worked for me for awhile. I’m probably not doing it again, but I’m getting pretty full so I’d rather be in my own studio space.

The homeschool market has been great for me personally. They really spread the word about your studio!

Carla R. Texas

I’m a homeschooling mom. Homeschoolers love to give their kids opportunities of all kinds, and at the same time they are usually stretched financially, since most are single income households. I offer big discounts for siblings, (100% for the first student, 50% for all siblings) since many of my students are homeschoolers, and as one, I know how difficult managing a home on a single income is. Since I can teach shared lessons, and homeschooling moms love consolidating time, shared lessons with siblings at a discount saves them time and money, and they’ll love you for it! I have recently agreed to teach a free class to our homeschool co-op next year, and have already picked up several new students just by telling about the free class! I expect that next year my studio will be full as a result. You might want to contact the homeschool co-ops and support groups to offer a free class for a semester or two, and you will probably pick up quite a few permanent students as a result. Homeschoolers already think outside the box, and the Simply Music method of teaching fits right in to our views of education, which is exactly what made me search for a new way of teaching piano. I teach my own kids very un-traditionally, and wanted an untraditional way of teaching piano. If doing a free class doesn’t sound doable for you, you could see if the groups will allow you to hand out flyers. Maybe even a summer workshop for homeschoolers would work. Homeschoolers are great networkers and word of mouth advertisers.