Ways to Promote Your Child Care Business

If you are trained in CPR and first aid, make it your child care's USP, and highlight this fact in all your promotional materials.

With an increasing number of parents working, looking after babies and toddlers has become difficult. Also, leaving kids under the age of 10 alone at home is not safe. Hence, working parents often choose to avail the help of a child care agency.

This increase in demand has resulted in a spurt in the growth of the number of child care agencies over a period of time. Hence, if you want to stand out in the competition and make people notice your business, you will have to undertake strategic promotion.

While this may include advertising, participation in events, sponsorship's, etc., networking will also play a crucial role in promoting your business. Try to network with other child care centers so that they can send over clients to you when they do not have space. You can also reverse this favor when there will be no space at your child care center.

Also, if they do not accept children below a certain age group, you can ask them to recommend you. If you want to know some more ways to advertise your business, read the following points.

Print advertising is an excellent medium to reach your target audience. Many magazines, newspapers, and publications offer to design an ad for you. You can even send ad inserts to focused areas through newspapers. This way, you will also save on the cost of hiring a design agency.

✦ Local magazines

✦ Community publications
Ensure that your accurate contact details are mentioned in the ad.

When people visit your website or facility for an inquiry, they must get an electronic or hardbound version of your business brochure. It should be designed in such a way that the clients will be left impressed with the offerings. Needless to say, you must lay emphasis on the safety, health, and hygiene standards in your facility.

You can also speak about the activities and learning methods adopted for the overall development of children.

Apart from that, also include:
✦ Unique features of your business
✦ How different it is from your competitors
✦ Special offers and discounts
✦ Photograph of the facility and services provided

✦ The child care policies you follow
✦ Accreditation and awards, if any
✦ Details of your employees
✦ Parents' testimonials

All this will definitely help your prospective clients get an insight about the offerings of your business.

Word of mouth will work as the best form of promotion for this type of business. Parents like to trust a child care provider who has been referred to them by their friends, family members, colleagues, etc. Hence, you can ask your existing members to recommend your business to other parents as well.

Offer them discounts, gifts, or other perks, which will be affordable for you. This will encourage them to spread the word about your business and help you rake in profits.

Design attractive posters, and put them up at strategic locations, which will be frequented by parents. As many new moms prefer to hit the gym to reduce their weight, you can capitalize on this opportunity by putting up a poster on the gym's bulletin board.

You can also tap in health spas, beauty parlors, hair studios, etc. Of course, you will need permission of the owner for this, but getting it done should not be a problem. One more idea is to leave your business cards at the counter so that people can approach you if they need child care services.

You can also put up posters and distribute business cards at:
✦ Offices of pediatricians
✦ Offices of gynecologists
✦ Banks
✦ Grocery stores
✦ Cafés
✦ Commercial malls

✦ Toy shops
✦ Community and church bulletin boards
✦ Beauty salons
✦ Barber shops

You can also send flyers through direct mail to houses in your targeted neighborhood.

» Try to find out social and support groups for parents, and try to give a presentation about your services. You may also find out about such groups on Internet forums, and connect with them for introducing your services.

» If you can target a working mom's group, you can explain how you are equipped to take care of their children while they are at work. You will need to incorporate the solutions to the problems that these moms face for accommodating their children during the day in your presentation so that the audience will relate to you.

» Ensure you explain how safe and secure your facility is. This will be an important decision-making factor for parents.

» In today's age of Internet, one cannot undermine the power of social media. It acts as a medium for you to reach your right target market. Hence, create pages for your business on all social networking websites.

» Ask your friends and family members to promote them and make them popular. This will help communicate about your business to many others who are looking to hire services like yours.

» You can also pay for Facebook ads to reach the prospective customers at the right time. Tapping into this kind of promotion can help you gain widespread popularity.

»You will have to create a website for your business. The design can be simple, yet it should communicate how serious you are about child care.

» Incorporate testimonials from some of your clients. You can also have a walk-through video of your facility to convince the parents to send their children to your child care center.

» Ensure that you enlist the various licenses required for this business. Lay emphasis on the fact that you aim to provide quality care for children of a certain age group. Get your website search engine optimized for various keywords.

» Enlist your business in various online and offline directories and websites. This will help your prospective clients to look up for your services.

» Also, register with your local Child Care Resource & Referral Agency to find clients and reap other benefits.

» Register and have your child care business BBB-accredited. Many parents refer to the BBB website for reviews and ratings about child care services. Hence, do this on priority.

» Have some nice snacks and drinks, and don't forget to arrange games and toys for the kids to play with.

» As parents will take a look around, speak to them and explain the strengths of your child care. This is one opportunity to interact directly with your prospective clients. So, you should not let it go.

» Write articles or advertorials for local publications.
» Participate in the local community health fairs.
» Start a blog on child care to make your business popular.
» Network with pediatricians, school teachers, realtors, etc., to promote your business.

Apart from the ones mentioned above, you can also make a news splash by sending out press releases for all the milestones of your business, like grand opening, branch inauguration, etc. You must undertake learning and playing activities for children while they are under your care. Advertising child care services is easier, provided you have a strategy in place and know exactly what to communicate.