Help Writing a Marketing Strategy for a Daycare Center
Your daycare might offer the best care, the best staff, and the most welcoming environment, but, without parents signing up their children, you don't have a business. Your marketing strategy should focus on the parents, targeting the people and the places that people with children are most likely to live, work and gather.
Other People Are Reading
-
Networking
-
Since you plan on making your new daycare business an integral part of the community, you'll need to make yourself known in the community. Start with the elementary schools, public library or local community center. Volunteer at the library's reading programs for young children or perhaps spend some time at a community center working with their summer youth programs. If you are offering an after-school program in your business, get to know some people at the school's front office and start taking about partnerships. Conduct a workshop on parenting at a local moms group and network when you are out at your kids' soccer games, for example, or taking a walk in your neighborhood. The more good will you can spread and the more connections you can make will earn you valuable prospects and leads.
Targeted Direct Mail
-
Direct mail is expensive, especially for a start-up business, but you can target and craft campaigns for your local audience. Create a postcard or flier inviting parents of appropriate-aged children to an open house or a private tour of your facilities. You can rent the list of names you need from a list broker but be specific on the demographics you are seeking, including ZIP code, age of children in the family and salary ranges. Your direct-mail budget is too precious to be wasting funds renting names that will never have an interest in your services or could not afford your prices.
-
Targeted Advertising
-
While traditional advertising such as in local "Pennysaver" magazines or in the Yellow Pages is the foundation of your advertising campaign, advertising can also take a non-traditional form. According to Entrepreneur.com, try tactics such as leaving door hangers on front doors, fliers on car windshields or notes in a mailbox. To maximize your expenses, though, you'll want to stay local with your efforts and stay targeted to the demographics that you think will work for you. Whatever you leave behind must be branded with your business and must include a way for customers to make contact, either through an email address, web site or phone number.
Parent Referrals
-
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of your marketing plan lies with parent referrals. Referrals are the life's blood of any business but especially so with a daycare business. Parents want to know the daycare will offer a safe, comfortable, and loving environment for their children and having a friend or relative pitch your business for you is all the more powerful. Consider offering a rewards program for existing parents who offer up referrals and always look at younger siblings who have the potential to become future classes. Referrals might also come from school or community programs that you have volunteered with, adding another benefit to spreading your good will and good name.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images
