Like any other business, starting a family childcare centre requires a proper strategic model as well as sufficient capital to cover the initial expenses. In addition to this, you also need to advertise your childcare program to reach out to your potential customers and expand your operations.

For this, you must first identify your market niche among young parents who might be looking for your services.

One good way of making the most of your marketing efforts is advertising your childcare program to your target audience and ensuring maximum conversions with minimum financial investment.

While there are countless ways of reaching out to your potential customers, it helps to focus on the more cost-efficient approaches to minimize your expenses in the initial stages.

Here are some of the most cost-effective advertising channels for marketing your childcare program free of charge.

Write articles

One of the best ways of creating an awareness about your childcare program among your target audience is actually educating them about the need for their support in providing better lives to young children.

You can do this by writing down informative articles about subjects associated with the care and education of children that you feel strongly about and getting them published on the online article directories or local newspapers.

Get support from associations

If the Family Day Care Association in your area maintains a referral list you can get it to include information about your program in its database.

Maintain a Blog

Creating and maintaining a blog will help drive more traffic to your official childcare program website.

Use Bulletin Boards

You might want to use your neighbourhood bulletin boards to share details of your childcare program via brochures, flyers and business cards.

Resource and Referral Agencies

You can share information about your childcare program with the local childcare resource and referral agencies to reach out to a larger audience.

Get help from other childcare centres

There are a lot of child care centres that do not accommodate children younger than two years of age. You can ask such providers to refer these families to your daycare.

Create an elevator speech

You must create a compelling elevator speech that describes the key aspects of your business such as what it is, what it does and how it can benefit your listeners.

Network!

It is worthwhile to stay connected with the other childcare service providers in your area. In this way, they can refer any clients to you when they are full and you can do the same for them.

Organise an open house

An open house is a great way to connect with your target audience on a more personal level and make them aware of your services in case they might be in need of them.

Have a press release

You can also get your local newspapers and other media outlets to publish a compelling story about your childcare program by advertising a grand opening, an anniversary celebration, an addition of new services and so on.

Team up with realtors

Real estate agents can prove to be of great help in distributing your brochures, flyers and business cards as they share their packets with their prospective homebuyers in your community.

Get Referrals

You can ask your existing clients to provide referrals for their family and friends who might be needing your services in the near future.

Sift through local schools

The elementary schools in your local area can prove to be of great help in not only providing you information about prospective clients but also in sharing your brochures, flyers and business cards with them.

Go Online

Register your official website across all the major search engines you can think of.

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Use Signature Links

Always include a link to your official website in your email signature to boost your chances of reaching out to the right audience.

Share testimonials

Positive reviews and testimonials from happy clients on your website can do wonders in building your online reputation and influencing your potential parent’s decision to whether or not to enrol their child in your centre.