Marketing your Preschool in the Digital Age

Why do some child care centers have waitlists while others struggle to fill seats? Often the difference is a marketing system rather than scattered efforts. In this session, Tim Seldin, President of The Montessori Foundation, and Navneet Rastogi, Founder and CEO of illumine, walked through how to define what makes a school different, what a website and a landing page are each for, how to capture leads and how to nurture families automatically until they enroll. This is the written recap. The full recording is at the top of this page.

Key takeaways

Why marketing matters more than ever

Tim described the pressures facing centers in the United States: a falling birth rate; parents who have become more demanding and anxious since COVID; rising costs, from insurance upward, with a limit on what families can pay; competition for staff from large retailers; and public school districts expanding programs for four-year-olds and, increasingly, three-year-olds. State subsidies can help, but the overall market is getting tighter. Navneet added that these challenges apply equally to large brands and independent owners.

Tim was clear that relying on word of mouth is risky. A health department citation or a single incident can damage a reputation in a heartbeat. With more providers, fewer children and an unsettled economy, a center has to keep working to make the phone ring, or risk empty seats.

Three steps to enrollment

Start with what makes you different

Tim's starting point was that schools are not selling child care by the hour. A commodity is something that is the same wherever you buy it, so people choose the cheapest or fastest. Your school is not like that. Its location, building, playground, languages, faith, opening hours or meals can all set it apart. The question is what you already do well that sets you apart from other centers nearby, and how you communicate it.

He asked attendees to complete one sentence in the chat:

Parents who want ___ will love our school because ___.

Answers included a faith-based education, a focus on both academics and spiritual development, and a low child-to-teacher ratio. Tim's feedback on those answers is useful for any center:

Navneet shared a question he heard from a small owner at a recent conference: how can I compete with a big chain that has a huge marketing budget? His answer was to market smartly and nail your positioning, because a bigger budget does not make a brand any more distinctive.

Ask families why they chose you

However long you have been open, Tim recommends asking your team and your families why they chose you over the other good options nearby. Then use real parent testimonials. You are not the most believable voice about your school, because everyone assumes you want to sell. Authentic, heartfelt stories from families are. He also urged centers to watch their ratings on review sites closely and to keep encouraging families to leave honest reviews.

Your website is a brochure

A website is essential, but Tim was clear that it will not make the phone ring on its own. What it must do well:

Navneet recalled a site shared in an earlier session that opened with a headline followed by a video of children playing, which caught attention straight away. Tim's practical test: try your own website and forms on a phone. Parents are often filling them in while standing in a grocery line or waiting at school pickup. If it is not quick on a phone, you lose them.

Capturing leads

Lead capture means getting a family to share enough to start a relationship. Every extra field makes people more likely to give up, so ask for a first name, last name and email, and ideally a cell phone number. Tim said inboxes are so crowded that a text message is far more likely to be noticed, as long as you do not spam.

Tim distinguished between two kinds of marketing. When a family is actively looking, they search for something like "preschool near me", so you want to be near the top of those results. You can also build awareness with ads on social media or signs before families start looking. Either way, the aim is to turn interest into contact details through a landing page, a well-judged popup or a contact form.

Lead magnets

A lead magnet is a free, useful resource, usually a PDF, offered in exchange for contact details. Tim's examples:

It costs nothing to print, but it should look good and be free of errors. Navneet added that AI writing and design tools now make it much easier to create an attractive lead magnet.

Landing page or website?

Navneet showed the difference using a school's site. The website had a full menu covering its approach, leadership, faculty, programs and admissions. Clicking "Schedule a tour" opened a landing page with one goal, the booking form at the top, no menu and no footer, and the same look and feel as the main site so it did not feel like a different company.

Trust signals can include testimonials, local awards and, as Navneet suggested, publicly available inspection results. Tim also noted that you can create different landing pages for different audiences and route families to the right one depending on what they choose.

Know your families' timeline

Tim said families looking at schools often start months before they plan to apply, while a child care center may get calls from parents who need a place on Monday. Navneet added that many parents are simply unsure whether they need to join a waitlist early or can book a month ahead. Nurturing content during that research period draws them toward the center they come to like.

Nurturing leads automatically

Tim said owners often agonize over spending on advertising, then fail to follow up well when the phone does ring. Automation lets a small office team respond fast and consistently. But nurturing is more than an instant thank-you with a PDF attached. It means building a relationship with content that helps families, whether that is why families choose a faith-based school, why play is children's work or how to start toilet training. In Tim's words, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Tim shared a sample sequence, by email, text or both:

Tim stressed that the timings are only an example. Navneet added that sequences work best when spaced out according to the family's start date and tailored to the program: potty training and settling in for toddlers, for example, or ratios, hours and feeding for infants.

How illumine supports enrollment marketing

Navneet showed how illumine brings these steps together:

• Every inquiry in one place. Leads from landing pages, the website, social media, events or a QR code at reception arrive in one pipeline, so you can see which sources work best. Read about managing leads from multiple sources and our guide to a childcare CRM.
• Automated follow-up and nurture. Templates create tasks, send email and text reminders and run nurture sequences, with tours assigned to the right staff member automatically. See automating enrollment follow-up.
• Self-service tour booking. Families can see open slots and book directly from your website. See self-service tour scheduling.
• AI guidance on each lead. The system highlights promising leads and suggests next steps, such as sending a feedback form.
• Registration in the same system. Once a family is ready, registration and paperwork happen without switching platforms. See admission management software.

Tim's closing point on automation: owners are often quicker to hire another office person than to work smarter, when the right systems can make the office more effective without adding headcount.

Closing advice

Questions from the session

Can a low child-to-teacher ratio be our main selling point?

Tim urged caution. If you simply meet your state or county requirement, every other licensed center does too. If you go below it, you raise your costs and may price yourself out of the market. And most centers claim low ratios anyway, so look for building blocks that are truly yours.

We are an AMI Montessori school. Is that our unique value?

It can be, Tim said, but only if you help families understand what it means. Assume parents do not know what Montessori or AMI stands for, and lead them to why they would love your school.

How many centers are already automating their follow-up?

A quick poll showed a mix: some attendees had it fully automated, some partly and some not at all. Tim said that for anyone not yet doing it well, there is a real opportunity to change their center's future.

Resources mentioned

• Professional development credit: continuing education units (CEUs) from Sarasota University for a modest fee, or a free certificate of continuing education.
• Free weekly webinars from The Montessori Foundation on marketing, admissions and retention.

What to do next

For more on filling seats, read the recaps of How Modern Parents Choose Childcare in 2026 and The Multi-Site Childcare Enrollment Playbook for 2026, or our guide to enrollment forms that capture inquiries. To see how illumine can help, book a live demo.