Introduction
London is an international city. Just under 40% of the population of London was born outside the UK and over 300 languages are spoken here.
Other than English, you will find the most common languages that people speak here to be Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Chinese.
You can have a more detailed look at the exact statistics on the ONS website.
It is therefore not surprising that in an international city with a population from different backgrounds, speaking many different languages, you will find a large number of schools, companies and individuals teaching language classes.
You will come across everything from individual conversational classes to accredited programs aimed at achieving official certifications of fluency in a wide range of languages.
Here are some examples of language proficiency tests that are available.
Whether you specialise in teaching children their second language, improving the speaking ability of people in business or helping new immigrants develop their English skills, you are likely going to advertise your services in some way.
We’ll focus largely on leaflet distribution as that is what we specialise in at The Private Postman. However, to give you more of an insight into what is possible, we will also discuss other methods of marketing like social media and more.
Why flyers?
As a leaflet distribtuion company, we believe that flyers or leaflets are an excellent way to advertise language classes of all types in London. The power of the leaflet lies in three main areas.
You can reach everyone
The great thing about leaflet delivery is that when you select an area in London you want to target with your campaign, your leaflets will reach every single household with an accessible letterbox within this area.
Some of the online platforms/social apps allow for amazing targeting but inevitably exclude everyone that doesn’t use the given app.
Flyers get your message through every single accessible door in your target part of London.
If you are a tutor that travels to people’s homes, a school with a set location or even multiple locations, focusing on advertising in specific geographical areas is often needed. Flyers are a very good tool for this.
Your local area is a cross section of places that are geographically close to you and places that include demographics you want to target.
For a language school or a tutor, this could mean areas that are within walking distance or sub 20 minute commute.
To find these places we can look at public transport connections, driving options and
more.
At The Private Postman, we can help you check which demographics are prevalent in these areas as well, and create a plan for delivery campaigns of various sizes using our proprietary mapping system.
To find out more about how our mapping system works, have a look at our tracking and mapping page.
The leaflet is physical
The physical nature of the leaflet is one of its biggest strengths. People often tend to keep flyers they find interesting for later reference.
Even if they are not interested in your services, they will interact with your flyers in some way. As such, you can build mind share in your key areas over longer periods of time and when people finally need the services you offer, they will already know of you.
This is especially true if you spend time carefully designing your flyers and making them look as good as possible.
You can find various statistics on flyer delivery in our blog dedicated to statistics and facts about leaflet distribution.
A well-made physical flyer delivered to every single household in your key area is a great tool to spread the word about your language courses and classes.
With leaflets you are in control of your advertising
In the online sphere, a few big players often tend to dominate the market and control how most smaller companies can market themselves.
There are apps, websites and directories dedicated to connecting people to language tutors. However, these technology companies often control how you can present yourself on these platforms. You will also find that you are likely going to be listed next to all of your competitors.
This is perhaps the biggest weakness of these platforms. Everyone you are competing with is listed on the same page with many people or institutions fighting for the same clients.
Leaflets are completely different. You get to decide what your flyers look like. The size of the leaflets, the design elements, the size of the images you use.
If you work with a good leaflet distribution company, you are also never going to have your flyer delivered together with any of your competitors.
At The Private Postman we make sure that there are no conflicts in any of our deliveries. Flyers give you back control over how you present yourself, who you target with your advertising, and they allow you to do so separately from your competition.
Social media
With all of that said, it would be unwise to completely ignore all the advertising options the online world allows for.
It might be a good idea for you to include your profile on a language teaching app or a platform. However, it might not be wise to rely on it exclusively.
More interestingly, you can focus some of your energy on social media. You don’t have to worry too much about competing with every single other language tutor or school in the world.
You can create content, whether it’s video, images or text that is relevant to your area and the people that can physically come to your location to learn (if that is your focus).
You don’t need millions of hits on your instagram posts. Just make sure that when someone who is interested in language classes or is looking for a course you offer stumbles across your profile, they find value in what they see.
Social media can act as a kind of an indicator that your business is active.
The tone of your posts can also illustrate the atmosphere in your classes. It can be serious and professional or playful. This completely depends on how you structure your courses and how you want to present yourself.
Ads
It might be a good idea to spend at least a little bit of your time playing around with the various advertising options on your social media app of choice.
In general, they will allow you to target very specific demographics. You can either make custom ads for specific courses or you can simply push your normal content to people.
Whether you decide to go with the hard sell of an ad or a soft push of your content over a longer period of time, you can always do so in tandem with your flyer deliveries.
You can have 10,000 leaflets delivered in a specific area of London one week and follow up with a week of social media ads in the exact same location.
Combining marketing methods in this way can work very well. When a potential client sees your advertising in the real physical world as well as online, your campaigns can become more effective.
Website
If you are going to be spending any time working on your online presence, try to focus some of it on your website.
Many people will tell you that websites are not needed and that social media is all that matters online.
This is not the case for many types of businesses. Many of your serious potential clients will come visit your website when deciding whether to try your services.
On a well designed website, you can include a great amount of information about yourself, your classes and courses in a way, that is very hard to replicate in any other format.
Your flyers can be an effective way to get people to visit your site as well. The leaflet can contain some basic information and then move people who are interested directly to your website via a clearly outlined URL or a QR code.
Driving relevant traffic like this is a good way to get people acquainted with what you do and to convert potential clients into paying students.
