The hours you spend each day attending to the details of your child care center may not leave much time to think about what your center’s marketing plan is. You know that growing awareness of your daycare and keeping your center at capacity are important. However, your marketing to do list seems to do nothing but get longer.
Building an online presence for your child care center is important because it’s where your customers spend time and do research before purchasing a product (or enrolling their kids in a daycare). These digital child care marketing ideas are small projects that you can tackle in short chunks of time throughout your day. Each will make your daycare appear more professional and make it easier for potential clients to engage with your business.
1. Update Your Social Media Profiles
Making sure that your business name, address, phone number and website are correct and consistent across your social media profiles is a quick marketing strategy that ensures parents know how to contact your center. Refreshing your profile and cover photos, updating your about sections, and responding to reviews and comments also help put your center in a positive light.
You can also take this opportunity to evaluate which social media profiles attract engagement and which aren’t worth your time. Maintaining 1 or 2 social channels with updated and engaging information is more important than having a lot of profiles!
2. Check Online Directories for Accuracy
Online directories often display on the first page of Google’s results when potential clients search for your daycare. This is true for both general directories like Yelp and Yellow Pages, and industry-specific sites like Care.com. Make sure that your business name, address and contact information are correct, respond to reviews (both positive and negative) and dispute any comments that are untrue.
3. Claim Your Google My Business Page
If your child care business doesn’t already have access to your listing on Google, claim it with these steps! Claiming your business lets you edit the information and photos that appear in Google search results and on Google Maps.
4. Collect Email Addresses from Potential Families
Email marketing can deliver a huge return on investment: $44 in revenue for every $1 spent. This means that you should be making every effort to collect email addresses from both current and potential clients. Of course, having email address lists isn’t helpful if you don’t send emails. Consider this daycare marketing idea for parents who called but haven’t visited, families who toured your center and current parents.
5. Ask Parents to Leave a Review
Online reviews play a huge part in attracting new parents. Ask current families to leave a review on Facebook or Google in your newsletter and in person.
6. Write a Blog Post
Focus on writing a single blog post to share on your social media and newsletter. A short, informative post about center updates or a recent event will do!
If your blog is already regularly updated or your website doesn’t have a blog section, write a guest post instead. Ask your professional network if they know of mommy-focused websites or local elementary school newsletters interested in guest authors. Provide an informative article using your unique expertise and you’ll enjoy a large audience for your post without paying hefty advertising costs.
7. Create a Behind the Scenes Video
Video is a great marketing strategy for sharing unique aspects of your child care center. Take your Facebook followers on a tour of one of your rooms after hours, introduce staff members or go behind the scenes while planning lessons and activities.
Social media platforms like Facebook favor video content and YouTube videos often show up on the first page of Google search results. Videos don’t need to look like they were produced by a professional studio, but make sure both the visuals and any sound are high quality!
