How To Find The Right Students

One of most basic concepts of marketing and consistently finding new students is identifying and knowing how to speak to your target audience.

If you’ve been putting out offers for your services to just anyone, without a clear idea of who you are actually speaking to, you’ve probably realized by now that you aren’t getting much interest. And you’re probably not seeing the steady stream of new students that is vital to a thriving business.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

When I started my own private practice back in 2013, I struggled to find enough students to turn my accent training services into a full-time career until I realized that getting really specific with who I wanted to work with was the way to go.

At first, I was afraid that by getting specific, I’d miss out on potential students who were interested, but didn’t fit the narrow audience that I focused on in my marketing.

But I really wanted to make my business a success, so I was willing to try something different, just for a few months.

I sat and thought about which type of student I really wanted to work with.

I’ve always loved working with young actors who are at the start of their careers and since I’ve done some acting and voiceover work myself, I’m really good with this population.  I understand their fears, their goals, and their very specific speaking challenges.

So, I changed my focus, changed my messaging, changed my ads, and changed the way I talked about my programs and services to appeal to young actors who had recently moved to the United States and needed to learn an American accent for roles and auditions.

And that’s when everything changed for the better and my business really took off!!!! 

Looking back, it makes perfect sense. A 22 year-old actor from Bulgaria and a 52 year-old accountant from China are going to have totally different goals, fears, and speaking challenges!!! These two very different people would never work on the same things in our training sessions so why would I market to them the same way?

And to set the record straight, narrowing your focus doesn’t mean you are forever limited to ONLY working with the audience that you identify in the beginning.

You can always branch out later and work with different types of students, but until you have a steady stream of students, having a narrow, focused audience is what will get you noticed and help you stand out from the crowd.  This is what will establish you as their go-to speech expert.

And it’s funny, when you start getting those glowing testimonials from your target audience, other populations relate and want to work with you too!

But it’s all about being really specific with your marketing at the beginning.

If you are not clear about who you are, what services you offer, who you serve, and how you can help…no one is going to notice you among all the other noise that we are all competing with right now.

I spend a lot of time working with other accent coaches, instructors, and teachers to help them identify their own specific audiences and develop marketing messaging that brings in a steady stream of students.

These Live Group Coaching sessions are free to all members of The Accent Channel Method Teacher Training Program.

Want to learn more about the program?  You can learn a new skill, expand your services, and earn ASHA CEUs:  Click here for all the details.