4 Must Do Ways to Market your Childcare Business
Marketing your Childcare Business
Need some ideas to increase your enrolment?
Then you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we will be discussing four important ways you can market your childcare business.
These are crucial ways that you should be using to market any childcare business, whether that be a nursery, pre-school, childminder, nanny or any other childcare business.
This article is part of the book ’99 proven ways to market your childcare business’. If you want more ideas to help boost your enrolment, get the book on amazon here.
Marketing your childcare business is all about coming up with strategies to implement in order to boost awareness, show your expertise, promote your brand and ultimately get more children through your door.
Here you will learn four key ways to do so and how to do them effectively.
Starting with:
1 – Flyers
Flyers are an easy and effective way to let people know about your business and services. It is an important marketing tool for all businesses and you should be creating some for your setting.
Many people believe that flyers are outdated, which has led to some companies not having it as part of their marketing plans.
You shouldn’t follow them!
Other companies reducing their flyer distribution is actually an advantage for you.
With less companies distributing flyers it leads to less competition in this area.
Did you know?
45% of consumers regularly keep flyers they are given.
This increases if you can hand your flyers to and put your flyers in places where parents are likely to be.
Five benefits of flyers
- Flyers are cost effective – each flyer costs up to a few pence to make, which is much cheaper than getting yourself in front of customers via other means.
- Easy access to customers – you can reach specific customers placing them in places they are likely to see.
- Tangible nature of flyers – having something parents can hold and keep is an advantage. Especially if it is well-designed.
- Personal relationship with customers – by handing a flyer to customers directly, creating a personal relationship with them. Prospects will look at flyers multiple times and it will remind them of your conversation, which is an effective form of advertising which online advertising does not offer.
- Easily convey benefits of your business – you can put key information and selling points on your flyer helping to convince parents to use your services.
Flyer Creating Tips
- Plan your flyer – your flyer will be a marketing tool you will use for a long time and isn’t possible to be edited once you have printed. Therefore, you want to make sure your flyer is done correctly before printing and ordering in bulk. Make sure it is designed professionally and include pictures of happy children.
- Don’t overload with information – it’s important to get your main points across, and that the information is quick and easy to read. Keep it to the main facts, keep it simple and make sure to include your logo. Include your contact information and what makes you unique.
- Print in colour – you want your flyer to stand out. Colour does this! Black and white not so much. With that in mind, try not to use too many different colours. Up to three main colours will do.
- Print on both sides – always print on both sides. The cost of printing on an additional side is not usually much more. However, the benefits are great. It gives you more room to explain your benefits to your potential parents and makes your flyer look more attractive and professional.
- Have offer on flyer – having a reason for parents to keep the flyers will increase its effectiveness. One way to do this is by putting an offer on the flyer for example ‘10% off your first week with this flyer’. Think about what you can add to your flyer to encourage parents to keep it. The more unique the more effective it will be.
2 - Website
Every business needs a website!
A website is one of the most important marketing tools.
If you’re thinking of starting your childcare business without one, you are putting yourself at a great disadvantage.
Why a website is so important
It’s fair to say that a website is a necessity, but it’s also an opportunity — and one any business owner shouldn’t pass up. Here are three reasons why.
- Online Presence
A website is essential as it gives you an online presence.
Parents are able to find you anytime and from anywhere. Unlike your actual childcare business, which is only open a certain time.
- Information Exchange
A website provides a quick and easy way to communicate information to parents.
You can list your opening hours, contact information, show images of your provision, and use contact forms to facilitate enquiries.
You can put as much information on there, and as the user has control of what information they access they will not feel bombarded with information.
- Credibility and Trust
There is an expectation for any reputable childcare business to have some kind of online presence.
Potential parents would likely be distrusting of any setting that didn’t have a telephone number or a physical address, and the same can be said for not having a website and email address.
Creating your website
There are two ways you can get your website created.
The cheapest way is to create it yourself.
The easiest way is to pay someone to do it for you.
With website builder websites like WordPress, Wix and Squarespace creating your website has become much easier.
You can create beautifully looking websites for free by following instructional videos online – of which there are literally thousands.
I even have a 5-day website builder challenge on my website, where you can learn how to build a childcare website with all the key pages in just 5 days.
You can learn more by going on the following link:
https://openanursery5969.live-website.com/course/5-day-website-builder-challenge/
So, if you do want to save money and want the challenge and rewards of building your own website, I encourage you to give it a go.
Learning to create your own website also gives you the expertise to make changes to your website without having to go back to a designer.
However, sometimes getting a professional to design and create your website is better.
Although, it can be more expensive. It can be worth investing in this part of your business if you have the budget.
Website Creation Tips
Some key things you should do when making your website is to:
- Keep your website homepage minimalistic and clutter free
- Use clear and bright pictures of happy children and/ staff
- Avoid stock images
- Create easy to read content
- Make your website easy to navigate
- Ensure your website loads fast
- Make your website mobile friendly
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3 - Fun Day
A fun day or open day is a set day that childcare businesses can put aside to carry out specific activities across all the age groups that are looked after.
This might be linked to a national event, or a theme that is fun and informative to explore.
During a fun day, you might ask children to dress up in a certain way to celebrate the theme, and set menus might be created that are also linked to the themes.
A fun day can be a crucial part of your marketing, especially if your childcare business is not open yet.
What to do on your fun day
Make it fun!
You don’t need to spend lot’s doing so.
Come up with games and activities the age of your children would enjoy doing. Some ideas include:
- Face Painting,
- Bounce Castle,
- Tuff Tray Activities,
- Obstacle Course,
- Baking,
- Scavenger Hunt.
You can also, set-up activities that you might have on your typical day. Like arts and crafts and sand and water play.
On the day, provide lots of refreshments for both parents and children.
If you provide food for children at your setting, it can be a good opportunity to show parents the healthy meals you provide.
Your biggest asset is your staff, so be sure they are at hand to help with the fun and to answer questions.
Fun Day Tips
- Have a photo opp – an example could be by purchasing a photo cut-out board. Providing photo opportunities helps to extend your marketing as parents share these photos with family, friend and online.
- Have something parents can take away with them to remember the day. You will get some ideas of what you could give away later in the book.
- Give parents timeslots – if you expect your open day to particularly busy give parents’ timeslots otherwise things can become hectic and unorganised.
- Consider using the event to raise money for a cause like a community project or charity.
- Partner with other businesses.
4 - Welcome Packs
Another important way to market your childcare business is to produce a welcome/ parent pack for your parents.
Why?
Making happy and loyal customers is important to growing your brand.
Sending customers, a tangible welcome pack is the ideal first step to creating contented customers because it will make them feel special and remind them that they should choose your brand because of its attention to detail, efficiency and thoughtfulness.
A professional, high quality and personalised welcome pack will help to build a relationship from the outset, one that shows you clearly value your parents.
What to include in your welcome pack
Your welcome pack can be similar to those that you may have seen handed out at universities or at colleges.
Some things you can include are:
- A prospectus – detailing some key information about your childcare business including sessions, fees, USPs, reviews, curriculum etc.
- An introductory letter – telling your story, making it as personal as possible.
- A gift – something they could use and that is linked to your business.
- A business card – including a high quality, tangible business card creates a quality impression, means contact information is always at hand, and your details can be easily passed on.
- Guidance on finding a childcare setting/ what to ask on a viewing. This will put parents at ease and help them to be prepared for your viewing.
- A list of various testimonials designed nicely and attractively.
- Packaging that adds another ‘wow’ factor.
- Video testimonials – provide a CD, USB, QR code or link to somewhere parents can view some video testimonials.
- A treat – that they can enjoy whilst going through your parent pack.
These are just some ideas of things you can include in your parent/ welcome packs. You can use some or all of these, or come up with your own.
Add a section on your website where parents can request a parent pack. If these parents are local to you, you can aim to deliver these on the same day.
This could be done by hand.
Delivering these packs by hand allows you to meet your prospective parents, allowing you both to get to know each other more.
Conclusion
These four ways are a great way to get you started marketing your childcare business and getting more children to your nursery, childminder etc.
If you want more ideas to help market your childcare business, then get the new book out now on Amazon:
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