Child care marketing isn't easy whether you are an education center, kids gym, play space, or day care facility.
Parents are extremely careful about which services they choose for their kids and do more research online than any other category.
Creating and executing child care marketing strategies are often the answer to low enrollment rates, even when operating on a small budget.
Below are 5 marketing tips a child care facility can implement to increase their enrollment.
1. Have a Modern and Mobile Website
The first step is to have a modern website that can be found by search engines and is mobile friendly. A website is crucial in order to grow a business and help develop the company brand. Without a quality website, parents may not even know services you provide. When somebody doesn't have a friend's referral they go to the Internet to find a local business, most of the time they will not click beyond the first page of search engine results page.
Abrakadoodle has done a great job with their website. The navigation bar is simple, yet effective. A parent unfamiliar with your offerings wants to learn more about your business and programs. If they like what they see, they will want to know your locations. All of this information is easily found within the navigation bar and also contains the same links within the footer.
2. Embrace Local SEO (local search engine optimization)
This means companies need to embrace how they appear on local search engines. Local SEO incorporates several strategies and tactics with the goal of positioning your website on Google's first or second page, your Google Place page on map searches, and your directory profiles on local and mobile searches. Very few people are going to open a phone book to find a child care facility, most people going to ask a friend or are going to perform a local search on their favorite search engine. If you aren't listed on the first or second page of Google and local directories, you won't hear your phone ring as often as you should. See 5 Steps to Local SEO Success.
3. Embrace Content Marketing As More Than Blogging
Content marketing should also be considered when marketing your business; it's a great way to build connection with parents. It allows parents to understand what actually goes on in your facility. If possible, try to include pictures within your articles; as you are much more likely to gain trust and visual elements make social media sharing more compelling. Leverage your content everywhere you are online. Use it to power newsletters, social media posts and use keywords throughout your copy, titles and URLs to help you win important local search keywords. Remember, building a compelling content footprint online is critical to controlling your reputation. See Content Marketing - The Future of Local Brand Marketing.
4. Drive Your Social Reputation on Social Media Networks
Being active on the social networks that reach parents should also be a cornerstone to your marketing plan. Parents need to feel comfortable leaving their children in your care and will look online for reviews, what you put out there and what people put out there about you. By embracing content and social media marketing, you are able to develop trust, control the conversation with your topics, and show them how your run your business while you care for their child. Your values can shine through and by communicating regularly with your loyal customers, you are more likely to solicit positive reviews (see 8 Simple Tips to Get Positive Yelp and Google+ Reviews).
Below are great tweets from Citibabes (a family membership club offering educational and fun family activities). The tweets are great for a couple of reasons. First, they include pictures and link to their Instagram account. Second, they are using popular hashtags such as #graduationday and also incorporate geographic hashtags, i.e. #NYC and #SoHo.
5. Remember Email Marketing Still Has the Highest ROI
Child care facilities need to embrace email marketing to retain their current parents and upsell them to new services. Your parents want to know what is going on at your facility, as well as being informed about your new activities and events. Not only will existing parents find more reasons to come back, they will also take your emails and forward them to their friends who have children. Email marketing returns $38 for every $1 spent and is still the most underutilized marketing channel in the child care marketing space in our opinion. See 6 Steps to Better Email Marketing.
If you utilize these 5 modern marketing channels, you will stop losing potential clients, increase repeat customers and start to see your child care enrollment increase.
The post 5 Marketing Tips to Increase Child Care Enrollment appeared first on LocalVox.
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Child care marketing is very tough. It takes a new child care location 18 months or more to ramp up.
This is ramp up period eats up a lot of working capital. And requires a tremendous amount of nurturing to get parents to switch to a new provider.