Being a musician who can teach music online might be one of the most rewarding job there is.
Seeing your students excel from complete beginners to adept musicians, or witnessing them record their first songs is one of the most gratifying things to experience.
However, deciding to become a music teacher is the easy part. The hard part is doing all it takes to make your business a lucrative one.
One of the possible routes to consider is to teach music online.
There are tons of benefits of this approach, and practically no downsides at all. You could choose to do it full time or to combine online lessons with face-to-face ones.
Here are 7 ways to teach music online:
Make online music courses
There’s a vast number of platforms out there where you can sell video courses. The most popular these days are Udemy and Skillshare, where you can earn anything from $10 to a couple of hundred of dollars. After you’ve joined their partner programs, pick your subject, record and publish your lessons. However, it’s necessary to follow their in-depth instructions so you can know your material fits their standards.
Selling courses using these platforms can become a sustainable side income for the future. What’s even greater, you only have to shoot your course video once and sell it a countless number of times. You will, on the other hand, need to update some of your teaching material. But only if it gets outdated. If you decide to use Udemy for this, it might be best you make a couple of free courses at first. This will establish your reputation as a teacher, and raise interest in your material.
Set up a music lesson website
It goes without saying you should look at your lessons as a business. And what does every business need?
A website!
Making it could have a huge return on investment in the long run. Having a website doesn’t require spending too much money, either. Nowadays you can find free WordPress themes, or buy premium for a few bucks. All that is left is to pay for your domain and hosting.
Be aware that thousands of people every day are looking for music teachers using some of the search engines available. That’s why it would be wise to put some effort or money into optimizing your site for the search engines. Do your keyword research, and start covering topics your audience is searching for!
For this, you’ll have to start a blog on your website. The greatest benefit of this is that by conveying knowledge you’ll increase your trustworthiness and level of competence. After you have established your reputation, it’s time to start selling online courses, ebooks, learning materials and other resources on this website.
Start a Youtube channel
Having a channel here can drastically boost your earnings as an online music teacher. There’s no time like the present to step in front of that camera and press record. But, that won’t be enough to stand out from the hundreds, if not thousands of other competing channels.
The basis of your success on Youtube is a thorough research. Make sure you only cover topics that your potential students are searching for. This method takes a little time and an initial investment in your equipment.
At first, your main goal here shouldn’t be making money, but getting people interested in your tutorials and teaching style. Of course, you could start earning from Youtube ads. Since it requires a lot of time and views to do this, you should aim to get people to your website. Selling your own products is always more worthwhile earning a percentage. Then again, you shouldn’t neglect the power of affiliate marketing. Put affiliate links in the description of your videos, and earn a commission.
But, only put links to the brands you trust and recommend, cause you don’t want to lose your credibility.
>> Get a free toolkit that shows you some resources that will help you get paid teaching music click here or the image below. <<
Skype Music lessons
Teaching music online using Skype (or any other video chat software) doesn’t mean you have to abandon your in-person music lessons. But it can greatly supplement your teaching schedule. There are a couple of benefits to this approach. Firstly, it saves time and money. You won’t have to travel to your students’ homes while spending money on gas and being stuck in traffic. Secondly, you’ll have a bigger choice of students, as it allows you to book classes with those who are not in your close vicinity.
On the other hand, there are a couple of setbacks. At first, being a Skype tutor requires spending some money on the right gear. You don’t want your sound and video quality to be poor! There’s also the issue with the internet connection, which may break sometimes, and make you lose the flow of the lesson.
Advertise
In order to make money, you’ll have to spend some of it. But, to make sure you won’t just throw it away, thorough planning is required.
Utilizing social media to your advantage is a must nowadays. But you shouldn’t just dive into it without preparation. Setting clear goals and objectives is a necessity. Without knowing who your target audience and region are you’re set for failure. That’s why sometimes it’s a better choice to hire someone to do it for you. It will be money well spent.
Your main concern here should be growing interest in your services and increase engagement.
Then again, you shouldn’t rely solely on social media. Try using some of the well-known advertising websites. People are still using those! Put an ad on Craigslist or Gumtree, or any other similar site, and wait for the response.
Sell teaching material and sheet music
Also one of the many perks of world wide web. There are countless teachers out there looking for teaching materials for their classes. It is definitely cheaper for them to buy resources from you and it saves them time in preparing for the class. You could sign up for a number of platforms (like Teachers pay teachers), and start selling your material today.
Another thing you could do is selling original sheet music. Alternatively, you could get paid to transcribe other people’s music. It requires a good, trained ear and ability to transfer music to paper. Once you get a song, it’s all up to you to listen to it and write it down to a note.
Take fewer students
Although this step seems counterintuitive at first, it actually isn’t. Taking on too much work can lead to you becoming less prepared or sometimes even demoralized. In the long-run, this could damage your music teaching business.
Try taking fewer students, but charging them more. You need to know what the average rates are in your home place and raise them a little. By doing this, you’ll feel a surge of motivation and enthusiasm for your classes. In return, this will improve the quality of the lessons you provide, thus enhancing your reputation among potential students.
Conclusion
As you can see, it takes some effort to teach music online.
Running a music teaching business and having success with it is a day-to-day endeavor. It is not just about your musical abilities. You need to at least offer a little more than your competition if you don’t want to be left out on the margins.
After you’ve put in some work into it, and witnessed the results, you’ll see how satisfying this job really is.
Guest post: Stevan Milankovic is a musician and an editor at Jamifind. Besides writing about and discussing various music-related topics, he enjoys playing live shows with his band.
(P.S. To get a free toolkit that shows you some resources that will help you get paid teaching music click here or the image below.)
