Local marketing for daycare can be tricky. With so many daycares in each city, how does your daycare rise to the top? Here are some daycare marketing ideas to help you build a strategy and grow your enrollment today.
Local Marketing to Increase Day Care Enrollment
When people search on Google, the site uses their locations to help find the proper businesses nearby. There are thousands of daycares all over the country. It is nearly impossible to compete with all of them, so focus on competing locally.
You will never be able to outspend a big brand of chain daycares, so don’t waste your precious capital attempting it. Instead, think about ways to target your local audience through local SEO, social media, and getting to know your community IRL (in real life)! This is a much smarter approach to marketing for daycare businesses.
Target Market
Your target market focuses on parents of young children, who are adults ages 18 to 35. People who fit into this age group are usually quite comfortable with technology. You need to know that your target market consists of people who start their search for a daycare center online. Don’t forget that your offline marketing efforts should also cater to your target market!
Social Media Marketing Strategy
A big part of your online marketing strategy for your daycare will be your social media presence. Use your social media platforms to encourage interaction with parents. You can host a contest to build a social media presence and get parents involved!
Your social media presence can increase the likelihood of being found by parents looking for a daycare center.
What social media platforms are most popular with your target market? Pinterest is popular among women between the ages of 25-35, so find a way to connect to them using this platform. There are tons of fun childcare activities and kid-friendly recipes on Pinterest, so there is plenty of content to share.
Daycare Marketing – Mingle!
Marketing your daycare business includes building relationships both online and offline. Align yourself and your daycare with other organizations involved in child care. Connect with the local Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies that act as a go-between for parents and child care centers. Does your community have a local daycare association? If so, join that as well. These associations are important for local marketing for your daycare.
Use community events to learn about families in the community and let parents learn about your child care center. You can host events that attract potential new families to your daycare center. Think of these types of events as an open house. New families will appreciate the human approach to your local daycare marketing ideas.
Do you know any real estate agents in the area? Connect with them as well. New families moving into town will want the scoop on child care centers in the community. Leave business cards or promotional materials with real estate agents to offer to these families looking for a new daycare!
Local Marketing Strategies for Day Cares
There are certain tactics online that will help you with the local online marketing of your child care center. One of these most important tactics is business directory listings. Make sure to list your daycare online with the proper address and contact information on various sites like Google, Care.com, and Yelp.
It takes little time or energy to start on this today by entering your daycare’s information into Google My Business. This business directory is also free, so you have no excuses. Get started!
1. Ask Parents For Recommendations
Happy parents can be some of the best advertisers for your child care center. Don’t waste the magic of word-of-mouth! Encourage parents of currently enrolled children to recommend your daycare center. You can put a reward system in place for when a recommendation from a current parent yields a new enrollment!
2. Local SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) can seem like a daunting task, but it’s important. SEO is one of the best ways to get your daycare out there on popular search engines like Google.
You can optimize your website and content across the web or focus on local optimization. If you work on optimizing your website and blog posts for a local market, you can increase your chances of being seen!
Incorporate local SEO into your daycare marketing plan to yield higher enrollment results. If you take the time to focus on local SEO, your daycare will pop up on search engine results for local searches for child care centers.
One of the most important things about the world of search engine optimization is quality content. If you just put the name of your town on your website over and over again, the search engines will not be pleased. Instead, use the blog feature of your website to write advice for parents in your area and mention the town.
The Tortoise and The Hare
It is important to realize that you may not see an immediate return on investment when it comes to your online marketing efforts for your daycare. Most sites pop up within the first page of local searches by building authority over time.
This is not something that will happen overnight, but you should still start today. Lay down the foundation for marketing your child care center by auditing your current marketing plan. What have you been doing so far? Has it worked? What has not? From here you can get a sense of what you need to adjust with your daycare marketing plan – both online and in person.
Start to build your authority and a sense of community by utilizing email marketing for your daycare. Make sure your website is a good representation of your daycare and also optimize for mobile usage. Set up accounts across different social media platforms for your local daycare. If you do a little bit each day, the task will not seem so daunting.
Local Child Care Marketing for Day Care Businesses
Local Child Care Marketing can help you find the right combination of services to get your child care center noticed! Improve your online presence to grow your enrollment. Local Child Care Marketing offers website hosting and development, business directory listing management, and local SEO content programs.
We help you build your reputation online and manage it with our reputation management program. Additionally, we can also set up and integrate your social media platforms to build a community online and reach out to new parents!
We also offer child care business and sales consulting. After working with over 75 child care centers across the country, our expert team understands what works and what simply does not work.
Call (855) 215-3838 to get started on marketing your daycare today!