Childcare Marketing Strategies

Implementing effective childcare marketing techniques can have a significant impact on maintaining maximum enrollment at your center. It also plays a crucial role in establishing and upholding a stellar reputation within your local community. By utilizing a few straightforward tips for marketing your childcare services, you can differentiate yourself from the competition and attract and retain new families. Consistently applying these strategies will ensure consistently high enrollment and foster strong community engagement.

Continue reading for the best marketing strategies for your childcare business.

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Create a childcare marketing plan

Before starting on your marketing strategy, you need a marketing plan. Your strategy will describe how your childcare business will execute its goals and objectives. To start this process, you need to know what information to put in your marketing plan. The components to include when building your childcare marketing plan are:

• Market research
• Goals and objectives
• Unique selling proposition
• Target customers
• Competitor analysis
• Marketing tactics and strategies
• Key performance indicators

Market research

Market research is a combination of customer information and economic trends. This information will allow you to project the financial success of your childcare business. Consider looking into your customers’ demographics, needs, and buying decisions while focusing on what your industry competitors offer in the childcare business.

Some questions you might ask during this process include:

• What is the size of our target market? 

• How many potential childcare customers are there?

• What are the demographics of our target market?

• Are our competitors advertising their childcare businesses online?

• What consumer trends are currently present in the childcare industry?

• Where do we get most of our customers from?

• Who makes up our market and what are their challenges?

Market research can help you to understand your industry more clearly. Research is also helpful to learn more about your current and potential customers—their wants, challenges, and pain points. Once you’re equipped with this information, you can begin strategizing how your business will be the solution.

Goals and objectives

Your childcare business goals and objectives work together, and you’ll want to consider both when planning. Business goals are what your business plans to achieve; objectives are measurable results of your goals. When working on this part of your childcare marketing plan, ensure that your goals are SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.

Unique selling proposition

What makes your childcare business unique? Your unique selling proposition (USP) is the one thing that makes your business stand out from your competition.

There are likely other childcare businesses in your area—what makes yours different? What makes it better, and why should families choose you? Once you have your USP, it can help guide your business strategy in areas like preschool promotion ideas or daycare advertising.  If your USP is clear, you can create your marketing style in a way that clearly demonstrates it.

Target customers

Who is your ideal customer? Take some time to think about it. Once you can identify your target customer, your marketing strategies and plans can speak directly to your target customers. The first step to strategizing how to attract families to your childcare program effectively is knowing exactly who they are.

Develop a profile of your target customers, and keep it current and updated with local trends. These are the people you want to attract to your childcare program. Outline their demographics including age, gender, education level, occupation, and family dynamic. Once you know who you’re talking to, you can strategize how to talk to them.

Competitor analysis

Next, work on identifying your competition. While some businesses have to worry about competing on a national or global scale, your childcare program may be operating against local competition. Taking some time to research these businesses and evaluate them using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis can help you to find gaps in your own offerings. The SWOT analysis technique allows you to determine the performance and potential of a business. While this is a helpful tool in analyzing your competitors, it’s useful in evaluating your business as well.  Is there anything your competitors are offering that you could add to your program as well?

Additionally, some questions you might ask when conducting competitor analysis for your childcare program include:

• Do our competitors offer more flexible hours for drop-off and pick-up?

• Are our child-to-teacher ratios on par with other programs?

• What services do our competitors offer that we don’t?

• What marketing channels do our competitors prioritize?

Taking a look at some competitor analysis strategies can help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competition and use that information to boost your marketing strategies.

Marketing tactics and strategies

A complete marketing plan can include the marketing tactics and strategies you plan to use now or would like to work toward implementing in the future. Some of the promotion ideas you might outline in your plan include: 

• Networking
• Direct marketing 
• Local advertising
• Business website or social media
• Public relations

When brainstorming your marketing tactics, remember to tie it back to your target customers and where and how they’re likely to consume the information about your childcare program.

Key performance indicators

To determine whether your business is successful, it’s helpful to identify markers that indicate success. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are a large part of any marketing plan. They’re measurable values that gauge your business performance and allow you to determine how successful it is, and to compare performance over time. KPIs can vary based on the industry, but there are common KPIs every business can use to begin.

Try applying the following KPIs to start the marketing plan for your childcare business:

• Gross profit margin: A percentage that represents revenue left over after subtracting the cost of a company’s labor and materials
• Customer acquisition cost: The amount of money a business uses to get new customers
• Customer satisfaction: A measurement that evaluates how satisfied a customer is with a company’s products, services, or experience
• Customer retention rate: A percentage that measures the number of customers a company keeps as existing customers over a given time
• Return on investment (ROI): An evaluation of how well an investment has performed

KPIs are an irreplaceable tool to manage your business and track your goals.

Once you’ve created a marketing plan for your childcare business, you can dive deeper into the childcare marketing strategies explained below.

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Childcare marketing strategies

Childcare marketing strategies encompass a diverse range of approaches aimed at showcasing the unique value proposition of your program, fostering strong connections with families, and ultimately attracting new enrollments.

These strategies often include creating compelling and informative website content, leveraging social media platforms to engage with the community, implementing targeted advertising campaigns, nurturing positive word-of-mouth through testimonials and referrals, and establishing partnerships with local businesses or organizations.

Have an online presence

Families looking for child care often start their search online, and having a website or social media presence can boost your visibility to potential new families. Luckily, there are great, low-cost options these days for building websites—no programming skills required. You can try a user-friendly website builder or social media page to create an online presence. These platforms can be great ways to give searching families as much information as possible about your program.

Maintaining an up-to-date website or social media page can offer everything a family would be interested in when on the hunt for child care. Not only are photos of your staff, center, and activities important to include, you can use your own style to really show off your school or center. Choosing childcare can be a tough decision, so the more details you can share, the better!

Here are a few ideas on how to make your website a strong selling point for your childcare services:

Make a great first impression

Your website or social media page is an opportunity to make a great first impression on prospective families, giving them a sense of the quality of your program. Consider including a short video tour and introduction, as this type of content can be highly effective at attracting potential customers. Photos of your classrooms, highlights of your curriculum, and other such insights, will help parents form a clear first impression of your childcare center.

Through your website you can share important information with families regarding the enrollment process, the pricing, educational philosophy (Montessori, Reggio Emilia, etc.), and the services your childcare center offers. This will give families easy access to the important information and help them decide if they will join your center. which will help you build a transparent, trusting relationship with them.

Contact information

Your website, and all online presence, should include details on different ways in which families can contact you. Your website can include an online contact form, but also a phone number, email, and address. This way, you encourage families to reach out to you when they want more information, and you establish a direct channel of communication with them.

In addition to your website, you can list your childcare’s contact details on directory services. Creating a Google Business profile for example, is an easy way to make sure your contact details are easy to find and appear for users who search for childcare options in their area.

Optimize your website for search engines

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a process of building web pages in such a way that they rank higher in search engine results. This means that the more your website is search engine optimized, the more likely it is to appear in the top results that families see when they search for childcare options.

While you can seek professional help to achieve this, here are three simple steps you can take on your own that will make a big difference:

• Define your audience: Who do you want to reach? Is it families in a particular area? Is it families looking for childcare centers with additional services or with sibling discounts? Understanding the audience you are trying to reach will help you understand what they are searching for.
• Choose the right keywords: Proper use of keywords in the right places should help your website rank higher in search results. The keywords will correspond to what parents you want to reach are searching for, and should appear frequently on your page. Place important keywords in the URLs, page titles, headlines, and other highly visible areas, so that search engines know they are important to your business.
• Monitor and optimize: Ultimately, SEO is an on-going, trial-and-error process. Keep an eye out for how your page is ranking for a set of important keywords over time. If your pages do not rank higher for specific keywords than other websites, look at the placement of those keywords on your website and consider updating the sentence or paragraph with additional information.

Go social

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.com (formerly known as Twitter) can be really useful channels for you to engage in childcare marketing, depending on your desired client base. Your social media presence allows you to reach parents and caregivers who might not otherwise be aware of your program.

Take it slow

When you’re starting out in social media, it’s a great idea to choose one platform and post well-prepared content to build engagement before expanding to additional platforms. It can be helpful to choose Facebook or Instagram as a starting point, since lots of families may be familiar with those apps—bonus points if you or someone who can assist with your page is, too. 

Pick your audience

Social media platforms can be great for childcare marketing, because they allow you to target a specific audience that may be interested in your services. For example, if you are willing to spend some money on social media marketing, Facebook ads are a great way to reach a highly targeted audience. There are also ways to reach a targeted audience without spending money. On Facebook you can look up parent groups in your area. Search for “[your city / area] parents” and look for the Groups option. This will give you access to local parent groups, and a great insight into what matters to them.  

To reach an audience of younger parents, consider diversifying the social media platforms you use. TikTok in particular is popular with younger age groups, so having a presence there will enable you to reach a distinct audience of younger parents. 

You may also consider directories such as Yelp, Google, and NextDoor, which are great places to have a listing for your childcare business. While they provide less information, they are easy to upkeep and maintain, and can yield great results by directing people to your business. Do keep a list of the directories where you have listed your childcare center, to know where to update the contact details and other information when needed.

Tailor your content to the platform

Different content performs better on different social media platforms. When developing your preschool social media marketing strategy, consider what type of content you have access to and want to promote via each platform. Instagram posts are mostly focused on visuals, so focus on posting photos. Consider using a specific filter or a particular set up for your photos, in order to achieve a consistent aesthetic that will help your account get more attention. You may also want to use tools such as reels or highlights, to emphasize specific information that will attract your audience. When using TikTok, make sure your videos are short. The app recommends a length of 21-34 seconds as optimal for in-feed advertising. Trying to tailor your videos to specific trends on the platform will also ensure they gain more traction from that momentum. 

Another great tool for childcare marketing is YouTube, where you can post longer videos to promote your childcare center. This longer-form content can be used to post video testimonials, sharing parents’ first-hand experience; having visual tours, to showcase your facilities; or hosting vlogs with childcare experts and educators from your center, which helps you establish a clear profile as experts in the field. While about 63% of users watch videos from the app on a mobile device, a considerable number use a laptop, desktop or bigger screen to watch YouTube content. To maximize the effect of your content, make sure it is in high resolution and that it displays well on a horizontal screen.  
 
When posting videos, photographs and testimonials it is important to always remember to check you have received the necessary consent and permissions to post. Especially if you want to use visuals of children who attend your facility, make sure you have their legal guardian’s consent for commercial use.

Engage with your audience

Your social media platforms offer a great opportunity to engage directly with your audience and interested families. Encourage them to message you through these platforms, or to post comments and questions on your page. Encouraging engagement will build a direct communication channel with prospective families, but will also push your content to a wider audience through the platforms, so new followers can find your page. Make sure to respond to these comments, and do so promptly, to ensure your followers feel heard!

Engagement on social media also requires a consistent presence. When developing your childcare social media marketing plan, build a content calendar so you can schedule what content you will post when. This way you ensure you have regular content to post, and you can also plan ahead to create varied content in time. You do not have to post on a daily basis. It is better to determine a frequency that you can keep up with, and be consistent in your posting.

Build a reputation

Word of mouth is priceless, especially when it comes to child care. Keep your current families happy and they’ll be your best marketing channels whenever they run into other families at the playground or the grocery store. Encourage happy families to share testimonials, posts, and reviews on your social media accounts. Consider giving current families a discount for any referrals they send your way. Also, consider hosting an open house for prospective families and ask your currently enrolled families to help you spread the word and invite people they know to your event.

One of the most crucial aspects of building a strong reputation is engaging effectively with negative feedback and reviews. It can be disappointing to receive negative feedback, but it does not need to affect your reputation, if handled correctly. In fact, addressing negative feedback promptly and constructively, can help you build an even stronger reputation by showing that you listen to your audience and that you take their concerns into account. Read more on How to Respond to Negative Reviews about Your Childcare Center for Preschool to create an effective strategy that will turn negative comments into opportunities and build your reputation. 

Get networking

Your local community is a fantastic resource to get involved with, share information about your business, and find new families. Getting to know other small business owners, regardless of whether they specifically serve families with children, can be such a great advantage.

Word of mouth is still a highly effective marketing strategy, and there are so many ways to spread the news about the important work you do. For example, you can offer to share your childcare expertise with a new parenting support group. Introduce your business to local real estate agents, who can then send families new to the area your way if they’re seeking child care in your area. 

When you’re asking families to trust you with their children, building trust in your community is a great first step. Another useful tip is contacting your local Childcare Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agency as they have many resources to support childcare providers. Building community connections can grab the attention of prospective clients and differentiate your program from other childcare centers in the area.

Beyond your local area, you can also look for networking options with the wider childcare providers’ community. Consider attending professional conferences for childcare providers, such as the NAYEC Annual Conference Expo or the Child Care Success Summit. In these events, you can connect with other practitioners from the sector to share insights with them, to stay updated on the latest practices in child care, and to identify opportunities for collaboration and partnerships.

Other marketing ideas

Thinking outside the box and teaming up with your staff or families on marketing plans can yield unique, fun ideas that can draw in new families to your business. Here are some examples of childcare marketing ideas to get you started!

Host events

Consider hosting events after hours in your facility to engage with the community. You can host community events or fundraisers at your facility, which will provide exposure to families who are involved with those projects. 

You can also host events for families, so they can do fun things with their children, such as a picnic or an egg hunt. 

Consider periodically hosting evening care for children, so their families can have a night out, or a child-free evening at home. You can promote this with families that use your services already, or to others in your community. 

Or you can host an open house! This will give families who are considering enrolling their children at your facility an opportunity to see your facilities first-hand.

Collaborations and sponsorships 

Great opportunities to engage with your local community and build a stronger reputation and name recognition for your childcare facility can be found through collaborating with others in your area. 

Joining forces with schools and other educational institutions to run joint workshops or events can help position your childcare as a trusted partner in the education sector. 

Sponsoring local events aimed at families, such as festivals, or supporting local sports teams, can give you visibility in the wider community and create positive relationships. They also demonstrate you are committed to the local community and want to build on their success.  

You can also find opportunities for you and educators from your center, and even families, to volunteer as a group in local organizations, including charity initiatives. This will provide opportunities to meet the local community in person, and to show your commitment to community support.

Newsletters

Sending frequent newsletters and posting them on your website can be a great way to increase engagement with parents and the local community. 

Newsletters can be less frequent than social media posts, which can make them feel quite personal and targeted, because they are sent directly to the recipient rather than reading information in a public forum. This can build a stronger relationship with families in your area. 

You can learn more about ways to reach a wider audience with your activities by reading The Power of Daycare Advertising: Maximizing Your Reach. 

Use technology

Embracing technology to keep your communities engaged is another surefire way to attract new business. Brightwheel is an easy-to-use software platform to manage your center and stay in touch with families. You can use brightwheel to grow your enrollment by making it easy for prospective families to submit an application online and automatically enroll incoming families from your waitlist.

Brightwheel also offers secure, digital check-in/check-out, messaging, and a simple, paperless billing system. The peace of mind this technology will provide your families will be a program differentiator, making you stand out from the crowd. Plus, who doesn’t love to receive a midday photo of an important child in their life?

Plan first, strategize second

The idea of planning and strategizing can be overwhelming, but it’s important to take the time to prioritize both. When creating your plan for your business, think long-term. Where would you like your company to be in the next three to five years? For your childcare marketing strategies, think short-term. How will you get full enrollment for the upcoming year? How will you reach new parents and caregivers? As you prepare your business for growth, implement the tips in this article to guide you towards success.

Brightwheel is the complete solution for early education providers, enabling you to streamline your center’s operations and build a stand-out reputation. Brightwheel connects the most critical aspects of running your center—including sign in and out, parent communications, tuition billing, and licensing and compliance—in one easy-to-use tool, along with providing best-in-class customer support and coaching. Brightwheel is trusted by thousands of early education centers and millions of parents. Learn more at mybrightwheel.com.