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How to Attract Parents To Your Daycare Center: Winning Marketing Strategies
Running a daycare center with best-in-class systems is not an easy job. With a number of daycare centers coming up, parents have a hard time choosing a perfect one for their child. And that’s where marketing comes in. Marketing can help you stand out from your competitors and tell the parents exactly why they should choose you. While daycare apps can help keep your center, the best of the marketing strategies can keep it running. That being said, here are some winning marketing strategies that will help attract parents to your daycare center.
Why is it Necessary to have a Robust Marketing Strategy?
Remember, a robust marketing strategy augments your management software, while the latter amplifies the former. You cannot make them work in silos. That is how you fulfill the demand for premium quality childcare services.
Winning Marketing Ideas to Establish Your Brand
1. Build a Brand Message
it is important to keep your brand values in mind. For this, you have to start building your perspective and string brand message for the childcare marketing strategy. Brainstorm points and highlight the best-suited ones. Remember that you have to think from parents perspective, too.
Answer significant questions like:
Why would a parent come to your center?
What are your core values?
What makes your center different from other childcare centers?
How would you attract a large audience?
These are some of the questions that you need to address before you launch the action plan. Build a unique story for your brand and promote so that it is on the top of the mind of new parents.
2. Create a Website
A website is the most important tool to establish your identity in the market. This is the first step that leads to the discovery of your daycare center. Moreover, it provides all the information regarding your center. You need a domain name and hosting that you can procure according to your budget. Various options in the market are already free, for example, Wix. When you build your website, ensure the following points:
- Always create an ‘About Us’ page that gives a fair analysis of your brand values.
- Expand your communication channels by adding your phone number, email ID, address, and links to your social media pages.
- Highlight the different services that you offer.
- Ensure the content is interesting as it will reflect how interactive your childcare center’s activities are.
- Make the website engaging by adding videos and pictures.
- Build a separate section for the enrollment procedure.
3. Promote Your Business on Social Media
We hope you are on social media already, and if not, it is high time you build your brand’s presence on social channels. These are powerful tools to increase your reach to the larger community. According to Social Media Marketing Industry Report, creating a Facebook brand page can influence two-thirds of the market business. As Facebook has a larger community of people, you can always inform them about the key events like open houses, important dates, or updated learning services on your brand page. Always maintain a warm and professional tone while communicating with the audience on social media.
4. Create a Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile is a great tool to attract your target audience and help them get in touch or learn more about your daycare center. It has been found in the Global Online Survey that 3 out of 4 clients search the business online and make their selection. You need to build your Google My Business Account and answer a sequence of questions. Make sure your information is up-to-date since that is the point of contact between you and your prospective customer.Some tips to highlight your daycare center are:
- Make your profile visually appealing by uploading photos.
- Put a link to your website.
- Always try to reply to your customer’s review.
5. List your business in local directories
- One example is Yelp, which, like Google Maps, displays local businesses as well as consumer reviews. You could also look for childcare centers on local websites or directories. Make sure you chart out all the listings that you wish to mention yourself in and update your center details there.
- You can look for local directories by either Google searching for daycares and childcare centers in the area, or typing in your competitor’s name in the search bar and going through the directories they are listed in
- Directories are beneficial since they create traffic for you, but they can often turn out to be inconvenient and irrelevant if you are not listed.
6. Invite Parents to Visit your Daycare Center
It is always a good idea to hold an open house for parents to review all the facilities at your daycare. You can plan it twice a year or in alternative weeks according to your convenience. You can arrange any fun daycare activity to engage parents and their children to enjoy together while learning. Also, you can invite parents when the center is in full action so that they can get a clear impression of your daycare center. Take special safety measures, especially during this post-pandemic time, so that the parents are assured that their children will be in a safe environment.
7. Hire Quality Staff
The most important feature that can instantly increase the quality of your daily care center is the responsible staff and teachers. Always remember to add the minimum requirements for a preschool teacher. For example, high school diploma or GED, performance and credit points in childhood education, number of hours working with children, child CPR and first aid certification. Further, having a daycare app in place can help teachers spend more quality time with the children as the other work is automated and streamlined. So make sure your staff is tech-inclined.
8. Online reviews
Positive reviews about your business on the internet add value and credibility to your brand. It encourages your potential customers to trust you and increases the chances of conversion.It is best if you build the community of these good reviews online over time. You can individually request parents to share their experience on user rating and social data platforms such as G2, Software Advice, Capterra, etc. You could also post the link to the review websites on your social media and urge people to fill in their experiences.
9. Share Educational Content Regularly
Make it a point to share educational content like informational blogs, infographics, etc. on your social media platforms. You can publish content on topics such as ‘How childcare applications are influential in creating opportunities’ or ‘How the parent communication program helps parents monitor their child’s activity’. You can write blogs or short articles based on your strategy. You can upgrade your presence with many outreach options such as:
- The blog section on the website
- Guest blog
- Magazines and newspapers
- Regular posts and stories on social media platforms.
10. Referrals and Discount
You can also place certain referrals and discount schemes in place. By offering parents a surprise discount while they sign up will alleviate the utility they derive from your services. Or you can try and increase the signup rate by offering some discounts. Referral schemes work when the parents who have signed up refer your services to someone else. This is a strong marketing tool as word-of-mouth continues to impact the behavior of prospective clients like never before.
11. Google Adwords
This is without a doubt one of the most successful methods for potential consumers. Because it delivers individuals exactly what they need, Google AdWords is the most powerful form of advertising today.When parents search for “daycare” on Google, your ad appears! It’s even better if you have a fantastic website to drive them to.You might want to employ a consultant because AdWords has a bewildering amount of possibilities. There are several upsides such as you only have to pay if someone sees your site, and you can select your daily budget. It can cost as little as $5 each day, making it a viable alternative even if you only want to try it out.
12. Join Regional Groups on Social Media
You can search for local groups in your area that provide information about your competitors. You can open a Facebook page and search according to your city area and group type. When you join that group, you can put up a post about your daycare center.
You can also build trust among parents by answering their queries. In this way, you can be a valued source for finding the best option for their child.
How can Illumine facilitate this?
Parents are now incredibly passionate about the special plans or the unique technology that satisfies their choice for daycare centers. They are looking for centers that keep them updated with the new technology and make parenting easier. Here comes the role of daycare management software like Illumine.
We provide several features that can make a difference in your daycare business. Our daycare management app gives you access to easy billing and fee collection, a standard assessment framework, and hassle-free remote learning by loading all the lessons on one platform. It also features the best child care attendance app, enabling several methods for attendance such as contactless self-check-in/check-out, kiosk setup, and manually on the app. This application makes the process a lot easier for daycare centers to tracklogs or temperature checkups to share with the parents.
To conclude, depending on your audience and budget, you can strategize your unique set of marketing ideas to promote your childcare center.
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