Are free trial lessons effective at attracting new clients?
That’s an interesting and not-so-easy question. Free trial lessons are usually an effective strategy to attract new clients for an online tutoring business, especially at the beginning, but they also have downsides. Provided that you give a good and convincing lesson and you do some careful screening of your clients before the lesson, a free trial lesson will allow you to attract clients who are sceptical about online tuition and clients who are not familiar with and afraid of making online payments to a stranger. On the downside, offering a free trial lesson will make you more vulnerable to time wasters and students who just want to get away with a free lessons. That will happen sometimes even with a careful screening of your clients before offering the free lesson and is definitely a major problem especially if the tutor is working non-locally and internationally.
Also, another problem related with offering a free trial lesson is that a free lesson could be perceived as a weakness and a lack of clients for the business. A tutor with a solidly booked schedule is not expected to offer free lessons, so some prospective clients may be sceptical if you offer them a free lesson. Instead of offering a free lesson you can direct the clients, especially those who are sceptical about your business, to some free lesson you made so that they can assess your teaching style before possibly hiring you.
