Marketing toolkit for teacherpreneurs: The 10-step toolkit

Congratulations on starting your first microschool!

By now, you’ve figured out what you want to offer, created a beautiful listing on CottageClass and found a space or decided to host in your home.

So now it’s time to connect with the families who are eagerly waiting to find an amazing learning opportunity just like yours!

Here are 10 tips we’ve designed to support you successfully promoting your microschool! You can click on any step to see a play by play on how to implement it using some cool tools I love to play with.

MARKETING 101: THE ESSENTIALS

Caitlin’s Backyard Atelier

Step 1: Get personal: Send personalized emails to your friends.
CottageClass has built a tool where you can send a customized email to every person you’ve ever met using our connect to gmail feature. To learn more, visit our guide on “How to fuel word of mouth.”

Marixsa’s “Tambor Spanish Playgroup”

Step 2: Be a social media butterfly: Pre-schedule your social media posts and #CottageClass A lot of teachers find social media overwhelming, but using Buffer, you can pre-schedule 10–2000 posts in advance. This post explains how to craft a successful social media post and why posting a lot is so important.”

Step 3: Join your online parent groups: Yahoo, Facebook, Meetup
Yahoo groups, Meetup groups and Facebook groups can be powerful channels to reach parents. Take a day to join these groups. It’s well worth it. In this 3-part post, we explain how to find and Join your online parent groups, a special mention to Facebook groups and how to save time and use these groups to their full potential.

Step 4: Build trust: Get more reviews
We’ve found that if teachers are doing a lot to promote their program and still aren’t getting students, it’s generally because they don’t have enough references. Here’s how to get more reviews and why they’re so important. Learn about reviews in our article on Building Trust.

Brooklyn Apple Academy “Explorers Club”

Step 5: Share the love: the power of the CottageClass teacher referral network.
Following up on social media — in this post, we dig into how you can harness the power of the CottageClass referral network by liking other teacher’s posts and signaling them to like yours using the hashtag #CottageClass. Learn about how we’re building a grassroots movements of teachers and parents at “Share the love.”

MARKETING GURU: ADVANCED

Feeling ambitious? Here are some more fun tips and you can use to ensure your program grows and blossoms.

Step 6. Get Press.
A guide and some cool tools for reaching influencers.

Run a Luncheonette Camp

Step 7. Find your Feeder
How to find a school to partner with to get students in the door at your microschool

Step 8. Host an event
An event can be a great way to generate interest in your microschool.

Step 9. Get listed.
A step-by-step guided to make you searchable in your directories.

Mom volunteer day Cottonwood Cooperative

Step 10. Choose a Parent Ambassador
A Parent Ambassador can be hugely helpful in getting your program up and going. Here’s how you can use them to their full potential.

Gabi’s Creative Cottage

Give yourself some love. You did it!