Running a daycare business can keep you very busy, but before you start your daycare, you need to get customers – or you will not be busy at all.
Many to-be daycare business owners do a terrific job at entertaining and caring for children. They are responsible, reliable and hard working. However, child care providers generally do not have lots of experience in marketing or advertising – why would they? Their background, skills and knowledge lie in child care.
The good news is that a degree in marketing is not required to successfully acquire new customers. Even without an advertising background, you can manage simple marketing tasks on your own without having to hire a marketing professional – unless you want to, of course. To do your own marketing, you simply need to start out with a little market research and planning.
Market Research
Understanding your market is key to finding new customers. Knowing where to find them and what they want will enable you to offer them what they are looking for and be able to contact them with that information. What age group will you be caring for? Where do the parents go for kids activities? Find out what publications they read, where they shop for their kids, etc.. This information will give you a good place to start as far as reaching potential clients.
Planning
Developing a marketing plan does not have to be complicated. You mainly want to establish objectives and tasks to reach your customer acquisition goals. This involves laying out a budget and timeline. Knowing this information in advance can also help you speed up your rate of success substantially.
So what are some specific advertising strategies that you can use to get more children attending your daycare?
Testimonials:
Since child care is such a personal service, referral marketing strategies will get you the most bang for your buck. Personal recommendations in this line of work are very beneficial to have. Start by getting as many testimonials as you can. These would be from people for whom you have provided any type of child care services.
Print Materials:
Next, you want to have business cards and brochures printed up. Professionalism counts, but you can still get printing done affordably using online design and print services. Besides contact and service information, list your experience, specialties and benefits that children receive by attending your daycare. This would also be a good place to include a few testimonials that you have collected from previous customers or associates (with permission of course).
Setting up a website with the same details can give potential clients access to this information instantly on the web. This also can be a low cost do-it-yourself project which, for many novices, can take just a couple of days with the proper tools.
Online Directories:
Another way to make your daycare easier to find for people looking for child care services is to use online daycare networks and directories to list information on your care center. Some example sites are Daycare or Daycare Match. If you already have a website, you can usually link directly to it from your company listings, so that prospects can quickly get information on your daycare. This “instant information” can sometimes be the difference of a customer choosing your service over another.
Community Involvement:
As a service provider, if you can sell yourself, you can more easily attract clients and market your services. One way you can do this is simply get more involved in your community. If there are programs or classes for children (like arts and crafts) that you can teach through your city or library, this is a great way to introduce yourself to parents, costing only your time. If you charge money for your classes, this can be an extra source of income as well.
Referral Groups:
Get to know other business professionals in your area who work in fields focused on activities or services for children. With a group of professional individuals, you can build a referral network where you can refer customers to each other, and you may be able to get many more clients than you would through a paid advertisement.