Having less number of children in a daycare center is a situation that no daycare center owner would like to have. There are many daycare centers with average facilities having a good number of children while there are also child care centers having much better facilities but fewer children. The difference-making factor here is “marketing”. If you don’t have proper daycare advertising ideas, your business will suffer despite having good facilities. So we have listed robust daycare marketing ideas to attract parents to your daycare center in order to ensure more enrollments.
1) Website
At a time when people search online even for the smallest things related to them, having a good converting website holds prime importance for marketing a daycare center. A good converting website means that it should have the following qualities:
A) The layout and content should be well organized.
B) It must load quickly as people have a short attention span these days and they will press the back button if the website takes time to load.
C) Contact number should be clearly visible on the homepage itself.
D) It must be mobile-friendly as the number of people accessing the web through mobile phones is growing.
Also, make sure to incentive the website visitor to contact you. This can be done by installing a live chat widget and assigning a person to handle visitor queries directly and quickly through the daycare website chat widget itself.
2) Google Rankings
With billions of searches conducted on Google per day, it is the topmost target that must be involved in framing a marketing plan for a childcare center. When people search for a daycare center in their locality, they usually move over to Google and search for queries like “daycare near me”, “daycare in Ohio”, etc. If your website or any other digital asset does not show up on the first page of Google when people conduct such searches, then you are bound to lose daycare searching customers to your competing businesses. To ensure that your website captures such visitors, pay attention to your Search Engine Optimization also called SEO (short form). There are plenty of resources online to become familiar with SEO. You can also hire any digital marketing company for managing the SEO of your child care center.
3) Paid Ads
Paid ads bring visitors quickly due to which sales and profit increase. The two best mediums for running paid ads for advertising daycare centers are Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Running Google ads is more beneficial as it can bring hot leads for daycare centers that are actively searching for it. However, if you do not know the elemental aspects of choosing the right keywords and ads, then your return on investment can become negative too i.e. you will lose money in managing ads. The same goes for Facebook ads too. You must invest time to learn to manage ads and keywords else the budget can go out of control. You can otherwise get the ad management done by any online marketing company.
4) Go Social
Mark your presence on the top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. To promote your daycare on social network like Facebook, start with making a dedicated page for your business name. You can also join various local Facebook groups of your city to do selective and careful promotion (by adhering to the guidelines of the group). Similarly continuously posting new and relevant updates on Instagram and Twitter will slowly build up your follower base which means more people who trust your business and who can also refer your daycare to others.
5) Referrals
Parents getting referred by other parents is a high converting marketing strategy for any child care business because in-person referrals are much more convincing and powerful. To get such referrals you can come out with discounts on fees, free gift cards, free child care essentials kit, etc to incentivize people to refer your business to others.
6) Press Releases
Issuing press releases regularly is a marketing method that is adopted by many small and big businesses due to the numerous benefits it provides. It builds the brand value of your daycare and also helps to get a better ranking of your website in search engines due to high-quality backlinks. It also generates quick views for your announcement through distribution on 100’s on sites.
7) Reviews
People are more careful when it comes to children. Though there are a countless number of researches pointing out that reviews are a crucial element in affecting buying decisions of people, it becomes much more significant for a daycare center as no parent would like to take any safety risk with their child. Also, Google local business listing displays the reviews left by people. You can get good reviews by ensuring good service and by asking your satisfied customers to leave a review online. To make sure that they leave reviews, you can come up with any relevant offer that fits well with the parents.
8) Local Influencers
Note down the key influencers in your locality/city and contact them to advertise your daycare center. Influencers are people who have a high number of followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. There are also micro-influencers with less number of followers who usually charge less rates for promotions. There are many services out there that serve as a middleman between influencers and advertisers, you can make an account on such websites and can then sort and select them for marketing your daycare.
9) Using Competing Daycare Centers
Note down the list of all prominent daycare centers in your area. Now make individual posts targeting each daycare center and post in on your website and social media along with providing your daycare as an alternative. This can also be done effectively through Google ads. You can bid on the brand name of your competing daycare centers and can show up your ad every time someone searches for them. Please note that while doing this method, you must only provide information and must refrain from downplaying or criticizing their business.
10) Emails
As a result of your marketing efforts, many people might arrive on your daycare website. However, only a few out of them will call you. To get the best results from your website, be sure to ask for their emails so that you can follow up and establish a better relationship with them which is a key factor in increasing sales. People will provide you with their email address if you come up with a good offer that can compel them for leaving their email address. You can make a short ebook related to children or can offer free diapers or other low-cost baby utilities in exchange for an email address. Email marketing for a daycare can become rewarding once you learn the art of collecting emails and following up.
11) Videos
Local searches for childcare are usually not as competitive as generic and non-local keywords. Videos are known to perform much better for low competition local keywords as they are not only quick to rank in Google, they also have good conversion rates as videos are far more interactive and effective than text. If you don’t know how to come up with videos, you can get it done for cheap from freelance sites.
12) Networking
If you pay attention to your business model, you can come across many other businesses that have a similar target audience and that can function as a good source for leads. You can network with them for cross-promotion or can pay them a fixed fee for referring. Some of such businesses include toy shops, kidswear shops, pediatric doctors, etc. By the right networking, your childcare marketing efforts can get a good rise.
13) Creative Marketing
You can come up with low-cost creative marketing ideas for your daycare to stand apart from the competition. Some of such ideas include
A) Get custom carry bags printed with your daycare name and logo. Now give these carry bags for free to toy shops, kidswear shops so that parents will get to know your business every time they purchase items in these shops.
B) Talk to pediatric doctors and give away free medical prescription slip books with their business names and details at the top and your business name and details at the bottom.
C) Get your daycare banners posted near parks, playgrounds, schools, etc.
D) Distribute free balloons with your daycare name printed on them.
E) Give away single-piece baby diapers (with your daycare name printed) for free distribution on medical shops and big retail shops.
You can get many such custom materials printed and ordered for a low price through online custom printing sites.
14) Kid Competitions
Hold or sponsor kid competitions like painting, essay writing, art, craft, cycle racing, etc. It is a good way to attract parents to your daycare. You can also hold such competitions by partnering with non-competing businesses like toy shops etc to lower your advertising costs.
15) Free Tests
Giveaway free health care facilities like free eye tests for kids, free dental checkups for kids, etc. You can do it at your own cost or can become a co-sponsor with other related businesses like kid accessories shops, chemist shops, etc. It is a creative way to get many potential customers for a daycare.
16) Local Newspapers
You can approach journalists of local newspapers and can offer to write on issues like the importance of pre-school education, pre-school child communication, etc. By this method, you can not only establish your daycare business but can also open new opportunities to write for big publications later.
17) Informational flyers
Many parents don’t know the importance of pre-school activities that help in shaping a child’s mind and behavior. You can get it written by a child specialist and can distribute it in form of informational flyers (obviously with your daycare name printed) to parents who visit parks, hospitals, toy shops, etc. Informational flyer marketing for daycare will yield much better results than simple promotional flyer marketing.
18) Offline Marketing
Offline marketing methods for a daycare include giving ads on local newspapers, utilizing billboards, banners, radio station ads, etc. Generally, these offline marketing methods for daycare are too broad but yet fruitful despite the fact that the results cannot be accurately tracked and analyzed.
19) Good Service
Finally no matter how much marketing you do for your daycare business, if you don’t provide a good service it won’t take much time for your business to suffer because negative reviews spread much quickly online and it will hamper your image in the long run. Always try to imbibe new and advanced facilities to stay different from other childcare businesses. You can try new methods like free pick up and drop of children, professional daily/weekly notification of child’s growth, etc to get a good reputation of your business.
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