Educo Tutoring’s rapid growth with Retailer Academy support

Every week, Educo Training welcomes over 800 students through its doors to receive tailored lessons and personalised support to increase their confidence and academic performance. It’s a huge number that has effectively doubled in the past 12 months because of strategies unlocked through The Retailer Academy.

There are two Educo centres, and one is part of Frasers Property Australia’s Ed.Square Town Centre. The tutoring company caters for students of all school ages and abilities, operates a mix of groups and one-on-one sessions, with around 60 teachers across its two centres. Educo Tutoring at Ed.Square opened in 2022, the initial Flemington centre 15 years before that.

Founding principal Jimmy Liu carved out a successful business at Flemington without any marketing support. As the author of 32 published books and counting, Jimmy has a high profile which helped customer conversion. But the challenge was always getting the word out.

That challenge has been overcome because of The Retailer Academy.

Starting new conversations

Frasers Property created The Retailer Academy as a tenant-centric resource with a range of specific modules delivered by expert consultants which all retailers in its centres have free access to. It’s an investment which has had a rapid and transformative impact on Educo Tutoring.

“What we do, we do very well,” explains Jimmy.

“But what we didn’t do well is communicate this effectively with our target markets. Previously, we had not been successful in getting the word out. We didn’t know where to begin. The free session Frasers Property Australia held for all retailers at Ed.Square as part of The Retailer Academy was the game-changer for us. It triggered a whole new way of marketing, including how we think about marketing.

“For instance, we understood that parents who are considering tutoring for their kids will obviously have plenty of questions. Before, we had a phone number listed on our website and people could request a call back. The Retailer Academy helped us recognise that this was a slow and clunky experience for potential customers.

“With the Frasers Property team’s help, we developed a streamlined process so people can now simply book a free assessment online, with no strings attached. It has vastly improved our conversion rate.

“The Retailer Academy demonstrated how important it was for us to remove barriers when we’re communicating with our customers, and it also provided practical solutions for us to create an easy dialogue through the channels that are most convenient for them.”

Social strategy

These days, those channels are typically social.

“Through The Retailer Academy, we were fortunate to have a session with digital e-commerce specialist Kelly Slessor, and within about three months, we had an integrated social media strategy not only developed, but implemented and delivering results,” Jimmy explains.

“We left the session with Kelly with a step-by-step list covering Facebook and Instagram engagement strategies, social post content and structure, and dynamic visuals, supported by a complete website review, SEO enhancements and more.

“We went from asking ‘how do we get the word out?’ to a situation in which enquiries were flowing in at a rate we’d never before experienced. There were months in which we doubled our growth.

“Our social strategy also enables us to tap into other cultural audiences. Western Sydney is obviously a very diverse place and now we are able to get our message across to a range of different communities within our community.”

Growth outcomes

In a relatively short space of time, Educo Tutoring achieved major growth. For Jimmy, the focus has shifted from getting bigger to further enhancing the offer – including recruiting more teachers.

“The results have been hugely significant. We’ve had experience in other shopping centres with other businesses but we’ve never had a resource like The Retailer Academy to leverage. It has been a blessing which has super-charged our growth,” Jimmy says.

“At the moment, every room and every class is consistently full. Instead of growing numbers, our immediate focus is recruiting quality teachers and growing in terms of the service we provide at our tutoring company.

“Part of this is being aware that we’re in a Frasers Property centre, which means holding ourselves to a certain standard. We’re proud to be part of a tenant community at Ed.Square that is so closely bonded.

“Through the Ed.Square community we were able to meet Jasper Avenue, our visual content agency, which has played a major role in our social media, including quarterly photo shoots to ensure our imagery stays fresh.

“As retailers, we share discounts with each other and the word of mouth between everyone helps with each other’s businesses.”