Starting a tutoring
business could be a way you can get your name registered on the internet
business world. The business is good as you will have enough time and the cash
in hand; but that depends on the quality of knowledge you have.
Good primary- and secondary-level education is
believed to be the foundation of a strong future. As such, ample of stress is
laid on children to pass their examinations with fly colors. This has lead to
an increase in demand for tutors who can kindle the minds of gifted students
and help them with their studies outside the classroom.
On top of all this, students are faced with growing competition in every
field. Some extra help is always welcome so as to gain an edge in such a
competitive world. Establishing a profitable tutoring business is thus an
excellent means for teachers to earn extra money while helping students achieve
their dreams. So now, shall we begin with how you can start a profitable
tutoring business? If yes, below are steps you need to take to start up.
1.Do a Market
Research
As
a tutor, you need to choose your specialist subject(s) according to your
educational level. There are A Level choices and a university course.
It’s
important to research your market before narrowing down your subject, so that
you will not choose a competitive and over-saturated subject. People will
hardly find you because your competitors who are already known in the field
will outsell you.
What
you need is a subject that has a considerable audience that will give you
attention. You can find them at forums or local schools in your area.
You
need to have enough knowledge of any subject you want to teach, and choose the
subject that complements your qualifications and your market.
You
have two options in this business: you can either do it home-based or visit the
student’s home. Going to the student’s house will attract costs as well as home-
based. You need to give this a thorough consideration, and decide on a more
profitable option with fewer costs.
2.Have a Very Good
Knowledge of Your Subject and the Industry
You
need to know your chosen subject and the Industry, and use your qualifications
to win customers. As you are new in the business, building up a reputation and
a client base will help you a lot until you are known and trusted.
You
also need to understand the school and examination system, and join your
competitors to improve grades. For starting an agency, you need to have
knowledge of the education system and subject lists to help you hire the right
staff and understand what areas you need to cover.
You
need to have a passion for teaching in order to inspire your staff or students,
coupled with good time-management and organization, as well as enthusiasm and
positivity. Remember to be sociable and try to create comprehensive business
plan.
3.Prepare Your
Teaching Materials
You
need to possess teaching materials such as books, business cards and letterheads,
as well as stationary.
Plan and schedule your lesson accordingly to avoid
confusion. For information on how to start up a business, visit https://startups.co.uk. You will get there the technology needed to build
a successful business.
4.Market and
Promote Your Business
If
you want to become that knowledgeable and motivating teacher, you need to establish
a strong client base. You also need to set up a website and get on social media
to build their profile in order to gain exposure.
You
may discover that you no longer have the resources and time to manage all the
students by yourself; a proof that your business has started growing and so you
need teachers to help. With more tutors, you can build up a name and client
base in less time. If you are to employ teachers, make sure you look for qualified
staff who know the job well.
Conclusion
If you can make proper
use of the information here, you’re surely on your way towards building a
profitable tutoring business that can stand a test of time.
You need to practice
the step-by-step guide to be able to get the best out of your tutoring business.
The guide is professionally constructed to help you achieve your dream.
Do you have any experience with tutoring business?
Or maybe you’ve taught in a school and would like to share your experience with
us; please use the comment box to express your work experience.
Have you ever read a blog post when you would have preferred to watch a video instead?
That’s essentially why vlogging was created. To cover a blog topic, but using a video. It’s a pretty broad label, covering many types of content:
Online journals.
Tutorials.
Reviews.
Comedy skits.
News segments.
Videos
are much more effective at covering certain topics. It would take
hundreds of words to explain how to do a basic squat, but about 10
seconds of video.
Just like there are professional bloggers, there are professional vloggers.
The most popular ones, like PewDiePie make more than $15 million per year.
Honestly, you probably
won’t get to that level, but that doesn’t mean that vlogging couldn’t
produce a significant side income, or additional income stream for your
business.
It’s a lot of work.
By the end of this post, you’ll know:
How vloggers make money.
How to get started.
The main keys to success.
What equipment and tools you’ll need.
How Professional Vloggers Make a Living
The
goal of most vloggers is to build up a large subscriber base. Most of
which will watch new videos and create a steady income for the blogger.
Many have been able to accumulate well over 10 million subscribers. As of early 2018:
PewDiePie – 61 million subscribers.
VanossGaming – 22 million subscribers.
Yuya – 21 million subscribers.
JennaMarbles – 18 million subscribers.
I bring this up to show you the size of the market and demand for video content.
Think about how many subscribers would make a significant difference for you or your business.
But How do Vloggers Actually Make Money?
They put all these resources into making entertaining videos and then give them away for free on sites like YouTube.
So where does the income come from?
There are 3 main types of monetization for vloggers:
Advertising –
Video sites (like YouTube) usually offer some sort of advertising
service for video uploaders. When viewers see or click the ads, the
vlogger gets a percentage, and so does the video site.
Sponsorship – Not easy to get at first, but
once you have a significant number of subscribers, some businesses will
pay you to mention them during videos. The amount depends on the number
of expected viewers.
Affiliate marketing –
Easier to come by than sponsorships. Vloggers link to a product (or
provide a coupon code) either in the video itself or in the video
description. If a viewer buys something, the vlogger gets a cut.
Advertising is by far the most common because you can use it even if you don’t have a high subscriber count.
But there are 2 big issues with it.
First, is that it doesn’t pay great. The average is somewhere around $3.00 per 1,000 viewers.
So if you get 100,000 views, you get $300.
On top of that, the video site takes a big cut. On YouTube, the video creator only gets 55% of the advertising revenue. Google takes the rest.
So
it’s a good start, but you’ll want to move onto affiliate marketing,
and eventually sponsorship if you’re trying to make vlogging your sole
business.
Step 1 – Selecting a Niche
When you start a blog, you need to select a niche.
Unless you’re incredibly famous or interesting, you have to pick a topic or two to specialize in.
The same rule applies to vlogging.
Certain types of topics work really well with video content. The most popular vlogging categories are:
Makeup
Gaming
Food
Fitness
Unboxing
Tech reviews
Travel
Comedy.
That
doesn’t necessarily mean that your niche has to fall into one of those
categories to be successful, but it will improve your chances of
success.
Regardless of which niches you’re considering, you should always validate that there is demand for your niche before selecting it.
How to Validate a Niche
It’d probably be a bad idea to vlog about watching paint dry since no one is looking for videos about that.
To
validate that there is a reasonable amount of demand for the niche that
you’re considering, you’ll have to start with keywords.
If you don’t already have a keyword in mind, head over to KeywordTool.io, specifically the “YouTube” section. Enter in a broad keyword, and it’ll spit out some more narrow ones that people actually search for on YouTube:
Select an Angle
Once you have a niche, you need something that differentiates your videos from established, popular video creators.
If
you just try to make videos that are similar to PewDiePie, why would
anyone watch yours, which are probably lower quality as well?
But what if you choose a more specific subtopic or style?
For example, DanTDM became well known for videos that focused on Minecraft.
After his subscriber base grew, he then expanded to more general, popular topics later.
Step 2 – Content, Content and More Content
Unless you get lucky with a viral hit, it’s going to take a lot of vlogs to get traction.
Top bloggers typically post 1 videos per day.
Whether or not it’s 1 video a day is up to you, but you should make a schedule and stick to it.
There are a few main benefits of posting frequently:
Your old videos will continue to get views and lead to subscribers.
Your subscribers get used to looking for your new videos on a regular basis.
Some viewers like to watch multiple videos before subscribing. Having more videos available increases that chance.
What Defines “Quality Content”
Quality is just as important as quantity, maybe more so.
Everyone’s definition of quality is a little different, but they usually share a few things in common:
Good picture quality.
Good sound quality.
On topic and useful.
Interesting.
The
first 2 are covered in the next section about equipment, there are ways
to stay on topic outlined in the script section later on.
Being
interesting is the hardest part of being a successful vlogger. Some are
better at it than others. It’s way beyond the scope of this guide, and
there are entire sites and courses dedicated to improving storytelling
and marketing skills.
Step 3 – Equipment and Home-Studio
Go look at the first videos that any
vlogger put out when they were beginning, and the quality isn’t
amazing. That includes vloggers with millions of subscribers today.
You’re aiming for high-quality videos, but there’s a lot to learn over time.
Understand that your first videos won’t be perfect, and build on them.
However,
you want to make the best videos as possible, and to do that you’ll
need equipment. Here are the basic pieces you’ll need:
Camera
Microphone (if not included on camera)
Tripod (“Support”)
Filter (optional)
Lighting (optional)
Green Screen (optional)
Most of it is optional if you’re just trying to get started.
Over time, you’ll likely find that you need more pieces to up your quality. So how much does all this cost?
Start With a Camera
Without a camera, you can’t film a video, so it’s pretty important.
Some
of the latest phones do have high enough quality cameras for most types
of vlogs, but you may still prefer to get one dedicated for vlogging.
A Panasonic G7 with a 14-42mm Lens will run you around $600-700 depending on where you buy it from.
You may be able to find discounts or sales occasionally, or you can look for a used one.
This sounds like a lot, but it’s cheap for a “good” camera, and pretty much the minimum you’ll need.
You’ll Need a Microphone
In almost all cases, you’ll need a microphone that is usually attached to the camera.
A
good microphone is crucial for good sound quality. It will pick up the
sounds in front of the camera while blocking out background noise.
These aren’t terribly expensive. For example, the Rode VideoMicro is under $100.
There are even cheaper options if you think you’ll be filming in good sound conditions.
A Tripod is Usually a Necessity
There are certain styles of vlogs where the video doesn’t need to perfectly steady on a tripod, but they’re rare.
Any cheap tripod should work at first. Most will cost around $20.
Do You Need a Filter? (Optional)
A filter really helps lighting quality if you’re filming in different environments, and they’re quite cheap.
For example, you can usually find the Fotga ND filter for under $20.
Do You Need Lighting Help? (Optional)
Ever notice why the pictures of your food never look like the ones on recipe sites? Lighting is one of the biggest differences.
The same applies here. Great lighting is a necessity for a good quality video.
To achieve consistent quality, it’s a good idea to pick up a lighting kit.
You can find one for under $200.
The worse your typical lighting conditions are, the more important it is that you buy high-quality lighting.
Do You Want a Green Screen? (Optional)
Most vloggers do not need a green screen, which will cost $50-100.
It depends on the video format you’ll be making, and it’s completely up to you if you need it or not.
An
alternative is a ChromaKey LED light ring. This is a ring that attaches
to your camera lens and enables you to capture green screen video
without the green screen. Pros use a gray screen; some even use a white
wall background.
Pros and Cons of Green Screen vs. ChromaKey Light Ring
Feature/Aspect
Green Screen
ChromaKey Light Ring
Lighting
The screen needs to be well and evenly lit in addition to the people/objects in front of it.
The background does not need to be separately lit.
Pros
Any image can be placed in the background. Images can be swapped out quickly in editing
Same as green screen.
Cons
Requires
careful shooting, lighting, and editing. Otherwise, subjects filmed may
have a green tinge to them, from light bouncing off of the green
screen.
None other than editing time required.
Cost
Green screens themselves come in cheap versions. Remember, good lighting is required.
Wide price range. Expect to pay over $150. No lighting required for the screen.
Pro Tip
Don’t
expect the lighting that comes with green screen kits to be useful or
adequate. It’s often of poor and even unusable quality. Cheap
alternative: work lights from a hardware store.
Some pros ditch the gray screen when traveling and shoot against a white wall.
Step 4 – Script or Improvise?
Other than a few exceptions, big-budget movies are mostly scripted.
But
vlogs are a completely different type of content. Viewers want to feel
connected to vloggers they watch, which is only possible when they
perceive the vlogger as being authentic.
So is improvisation always the best?
Not necessarily.
The Case for Improvisation in Vlogging
The biggest strength of improvisation is that it seems more “real” (authentic). This is ideal if possible in most cases.
You can also potentially leverage platforms like YouTube live to expand your reach.
But there are some potential negatives as well:
It’s harder for most people, especially if inexperienced.
You will make mistakes, and your recording will likely take longer.
You may forget to include important things.
It makes planning the actual video content tougher.
The Pros and Cons of Using Scripts
Scripts have a lot of benefits:
They keep you from rambling.
They force you to communicate clearly.
It’s simpler if you’re not comfortable on camera.
They can help you plan camera angles and footage ahead of time.
But they have the obvious weakness of making your video sound less “real.” Pro tip: Use a teleprompter. There
are plenty of affordable mini-teleprompters available like the Parrot
Teleprompter featured in the video below. Most work off of an iPad or
iPhone, attach directly to the camera or to the tripod via an extra
accessory rail and come with an app and remote control.
The Best of Both Worlds: Create Outlines
There’s a way to get most of the advantages of both improvisation and scripts, without as many of the negatives.
To do so, make outlines.
That’s exactly what I do before writing a blog post, and it applies to vlogs as well.
Your
outline should include all the main points you want to address, and in
what order. This allows you to cover everything you need and stay on
topic, but you don’t need the exact words (as in a script).
You
will still make quite a few mistakes at first, but as you get more
experienced and comfortable on camera, you’ll get much better.
An outline also lets you think about which camera angles and footage you might need.
Step 5 – Editing and Software
All good vlogs need to be edited, but certain types need to be edited more than others.
You can use editing to make your video more engaging or add advanced features to it. For example, jump cuts are a popular basic editing technique that can only be done through editing.
You have 2 options for editing: hire someone or do it yourself.
You can hire a video editor from a site like Upwork for $30+ per hour.
If you can’t afford that (most beginners can’t), you’ll have to spend the time learning yourself.
Here are a few video editing programs you could use. It makes sense to pick one and get really good at it.
DaVinci Resolve is a powerful, free software.
Despite being free, it’s a legitimate competitor to most expensive paid options out there.
If you need to do any advanced editing, it’s a great free choice.
There
are tons of other video editing software out there, I just don’t want
to overwhelm you with choices. These are 4 of the most popular that
cover different budgets and use cases.
Step 6 – How to Optimize Your Video Details
If you’ve ever blogged before, you know that throwing up content and just hoping for the best is a bad idea.
You could write a book on optimizing your video details, but here are the most important fundamentals.
Start With Keyword Research
Just as you use keyword research to find a niche, you can use keyword research to find the topics people are searching for within your niche.
Again, my favorite tool is KeywordTool.io (the “YouTube” category).
The tool works by pulling the autocomplete suggestions that YouTube gives, which are in order of relevance and popularity.
Eventually,
you’ll get access to youtube analytics, which shows you your traffic
sources and keywords that you get views from. You can use this extra
data to find more keywords to target.
For now, type in your niche to generate keyword suggestions.
You want to start with low competition keywords. These are phrases where very few videos are optimized for that keyword phrase.
For
example, searching for “plumbing snake” yields only 1 result with the
exact keyword in the title (although 1 with a synonym).
It also only has 573,000 results, compared to millions that higher competition keywords usually have.
Once you have a keyword you want to target, along with the video uploaded, put the keyword at least once in the:
Title
Video description
FAQ on how to start a vlog
How do I get started vlogging cheaply, without buying a lot of gear?
Use
your smartphone as a video camera. But be mindful of audio quality.
Research how to use accessories to improve the audio quality of your
phone. If you are capturing audio separately, try a Zoom H4nSP digital
voice recorder. And get a decent mic to feed into it.
I don’t like the green screen look. How can I get a good background for indoor shooting?
What are some cool techniques I can use to make my vlogging stand out?
Explore
using a drone to shoot aerial footage. This could be used for any
outdoors-focused vlog, such as outdoor sporting, trekking, boating,
living in a log cabin, or for events like music festivals, outdoor
conferences, and so on.
Michelle Phan knows
a thing or two about making a fun and profitable YouTube channel--and
turning viral hits into a long-term business strategy. The 29-year-old
entrepreneur is among the highest-grossing celebrities on YouTube,
pulling in roughly $3 million in ad revenue through the social network,
where she posts makeup tutorials to her more than eight million viewers.
Phan's
channel has amassed over one billion views to date. She's also parlayed
her social media fame into a beauty subscription service, called Ipsy.
Felix Kjellberg, another star vlogger, is the highest-paid on YouTube, according to Forbes' most recent estimate. He goes by the gaming alias 'PewDiePie.'
Last year, Kjellberg brought in a reported $15 million through his
channel, where he entertains his 43 million subscribers by playing video
games and inserting lurid commentary. Kjellberg's main chunk of
revenues come from sponsored advertisements, as well as a handful of
game endorsements. Read on...
