How to Advertise Your Child Care Business | Nextdoor

From nap time to snack time, running a family child care business means creating a welcoming environment, creating engaging activities, and managing the daily needs of children and their parents. But it also means effectively advertising your business to attract new customers. 

Effective advertising helps share your core services with your neighbors and establish your business as a trustworthy one. 

From sharing your business’s story to connecting with customers on social media, this guide will run the gamut of child care marketing ideas to help you connect with neighbors and grow your community.

1. Create a personal website

While you may have had luck growing your child care business from word of mouth and personal recommendations, it may be time to expand online. 

While a personal website may not be the first thing you think about when building a child care center, it offers some distinct benefits as you work toward reaching more clientele.

When establishing your small business marketing strategy, consider the specific uses of a personal website:

• Create a virtual business card – Instead of a piece of paper with your contact information on it, you have a highly professional website to refer potential clients to. Build a contact page for your child care program that allows anyone to get in touch with you quickly and reliably and you might find your doors flocking with happy parents and their children. 
• Establish a trustworthy reputation – Trust is key in the child care business. No one wants to leave their children with a stranger. As such, a website is a great place to start establishing yourself as a reputable and trustworthy child care professional. Not only can you list your resume and previous experience, but you can also offer testimonial quotes from anyone you’ve worked with in the past. Consider asking your happy customers to write out a few goodwills to pin to your website’s testimonial page. 
• List your service and availability – Make it easy for interested parents to find out if you’re a good fit for their child care needs. If you’re a full-time nanny and they’re looking for an evening babysitter, you might not be the best fit. Likewise, if you’re booked up on weekends, make that clear on your website to streamline communication between you and your neighbors. 

Sometimes, you’ll be reaching out to prospective families who are looking to establish a relationship with a child care provider before their child is even born. Be sure to create a message that connects with these potential customers as well. 

Beth Fryer, owner of Teddy Bear Daycare in Traverse City Michigan recognizes that many prospective parents sign on to multiple child care waiting lists prior to the birth of their child. As such, it may be in your best interest to target parents-to-be when crafting an advertising campaign. 

A professional and up-to-date personal website is often looked over as an effective advertising tool due to the breath of the internet. However, it actually creates an accessible HQ for you and your clients to learn more about each other and relay information regarding needs and services. 

Begin by collecting the information you wish to share, then buy a relevant URL and start putting your best foot forward—into cyberspace, that is.

2. Tell your story

Have you spent a lifetime following your passion for professional child care? Are you a student looking for real-world experience? No matter your background, everyone has a story to tell. Sharing your personal journey can establish a sense of trust and make your services stand out against the competition.

By telling your story you can build a repertoire with your audience and show them who you are as an individual. Sharing your background allows your customers to connect with you on a personal level and gives potential clients insight into your values and experience.

When crafting your story, consider questions like:

• What does my business offer that others don’t?
• How would my customers describe my business?
• What is my child care history?
• What do I wish to bring to the neighborhood?
• What values inspired me to enter the child care business?

Delores Hogan runs a 24-hour daycare center in New Rochelle, New York, and developed her business by directly accessing her community's needs “to serve those essential workers, to work with the parents that have multiple jobs, that have flexible and rotating shifts as well.”

Hogan’s services target the specific needs of the parents within her neighborhood. As such, consider integrating communal research into your advertising efforts to pinpoint specific pain points local parents may be dealing with. Then, shape your services around those needs and explain your inspiration online through your website or other mediums like social media.

Your story can be the focal point of your branding. Once you’ve fully realized the story you wish to share, you’ll be able to advertise more clearly, establish a more focused message, and develop advertising materials that reflect your standards.

3.  Offer incentives

Sometimes the best way to attract new customers is by inviting them in with a specialized incentive, such as a discount. Parents are often looking for ways to save a few dollars, so offering them a deal on child care can be enough to bring in a whole new assemblage of clientele.

There’s plenty of room for creativity when developing the right deal to bring in some fresh faces to your child care business. To that end, here are a few possibilities:

• Referral discount – Offer an incentive to your current customers through a referral discount. For every new customer brought in by a customer referral, they can earn a free day of care, a dollar discount, or whatever works best for your business. An influx of referrals establishes a chain of business growth opportunities.
• First week free – For first-timers, there are few things better than free child care. Offering parents a trial period to evaluate your services improves the integrity and trustworthiness of your business. Plus, once you show them how you conduct your business, you can look forward to years to come of consistent child care. 
• Multi-child discount – The more the merrier. You can give parents a break by giving them a deal when you watch more than one of their children. They’ll appreciate the discount and you’ll have a great new advertising campaign that’ll bring in even more little tikes.

By advertising yourself through discounts and incentives, you can establish a competitive child care business that looks out for parents just as much as it looks out for their children. Top-notch service coupled with unbeatable deals establishes your business as one that stands out.

4. Reach out through social media

This generation of new parents is active online. Many parents hold multiple social media accounts that may influence where they take their business. That means the best way to reach them might just be through their online profiles.

Knowing how to advertise babysitting on social media is crucial to your business’ success. Building a presence on social media isn’t just about sharing your discounts and services, it’s about finding your customer base, making genuine connections, and creating content that’s relevant to your child care services. As such, consider establishing the following social media tools:

• Personal page – To make your business easily accessible to scrolling parents, establish a page for your business on various social media sites, such as Facebook or Instagram. Ensure that every post across each social media site is cohesive and shares a focused brand image through media and messaging.
• Local parent groups – Social media is a place for parents to gather, discuss child care, and share parenting resources—that’s where you come in. Connect with parent groups online to expand your brand and start making connections with parents in need of your services.
• Online ads – With paid social media marketing, banner ads, and sponsored posts, you can bring more eyes to your marketing materials and more clients through your doors. Be sure to keep up with the metrics of your online ads to see which ones are connecting best, and you can begin tailoring your marketing toward what works best for your business.
• Community connections – To get in touch with your neighbors online, you can look to Nextdoor. Built by and for locals, there’s no easier way to start engaging with your neighbors who may be looking for a child care professional they can trust. 

5.  Put your name in print

There’s nothing old-fashioned about print advertising. Despite being a more traditional form of marketing, the classics can still make for a highly successful marketing campaign. In fact, businesses that combine print and digital advertising find that their campaigns are 400% more effective. 

When brainstorming your print campaign, be sure to create clear and clean images that can connect instantly with your audience. Additionally, keep your written text engaging, informative, and simple to ensure those reading can consume valuable information as quickly as possible.

Once you’ve established an idea of what you’re going to say, consider these forms of print advertisements:

• Fliers, posters, and bulletins – Local grocery stores, coffee shops, and community centers offer plenty of opportunities to advertise your child care business. Whether you design a simple flyer or a high gloss poster, posting these print ads around your community can help you reach your target local demographic.
• Local paper – Taking out an ad in your local paper is a tried and true form of babysitting advertisement. Try to condense your business’ brand in as few words as possible and come up with a catchy header to attract the eyes of potential customers. Plus, you’re supporting your community by advertising locally.

Start advertising with your business locally with Nextdoor

With a new bag of marketing tricks and tips, you’re well on your way to bringing your child care business to the next level. Before you start meeting parents, expanding your hours, and preparing for a wave of new kids, do yourself a favor and create a free Business Page on Nextdoor.

A child care business is all about connecting locally and at Nextdoor you can get even closer to your community by connecting with parents through our newsfeed. Plus, nearly 1 in 3 households are on Nextdoor, making it the best way to start meeting new customers through an established business profile. 

Show parents and their children that you’re here for them. Connect through Nextdoor today.