How to Attract Parents to your Childcare Program
No matter what students you serve, parents’ first impressions are key
You have a crazy-short time frame to make an impression—in some cases, as little as 50 milliseconds.
What.
Crazy, right? That’s one half of one tenth of one second.
It’s crazy.
But it’s what we’ve got.
And although there are a million ways to spread the word about your school, summer camp, daycare, or extracurricular program, there’s one element that everyone has in common, regardless of your location, niche in the childcare world, or the community you serve. All marketing avenues (flyers, posters, Facebook and Instagram ads, emails, hard-copy mailings) lead your prospective families to your website.
So let’s look at how to make a great first impression using your website.
What a parent feels while they’re on your website is going to determine how much time they spend there, how deep they dig, and how their interaction with you proceeds.
Parents need to feel that their children are going to be well-taken care of by your organization, no matter if it’s a daycare for toddlers or a tutoring center for teens. In that first 50 milliseconds, your prospective parent is going to subconsciously ask whether you are trustworthy enough for them to keep reading. The way to make that answer be “yes” is to maintain a clean, clear, and professional website.
Keep it simple
Your initial goal is to make parents feel good about you, your staff, and your space.
Most small businesses don’t need to pour money into a customized web design. Do-it-yourself tools Squarespace, Weebly, and Wix all have templates with drag-and-drop features that make your website design easy to manage.
Choose a template that looks clean and modern. Trust the fonts and styles that are provided within the template—they were designed by professionals.
The content you want to share (words and images) can be easily added into your selected template.
But simply having a website template isn’t enough. If your copy and images are subpar, no one will know who you are or what you’re all about. Once a prospect clicks on your link or types in your address, your content needs to guide them.
Unlike a design template, your copy and images should be unique to you.
Use good photos
Focus on good photography. Steer clear of stock photos. It’s hard to find stock photos of kids that look natural, and subconsciously your reader will know they are stock photos and might think hmm, do they not have any real students? What’s going on here? Eek!
If someone on your staff has an eye for composition, phone photos can do the trick, so you don’t necessarily need to hire a professional photographer.
Take a million photos and don’t worry about deleting the bad ones right then and there. You can go through them later.
You’ll want to get a good mix of:
Candid and posed
Smiley, confused, concentrating, laughing
Standing, sitting
Individuals, groups
Later, delete any photos that:
Are blurry (even a little bit)
Show logos or licensed images prominently
Feature bored faces or kids doing weird things in the background
I used to take photos for my theatre camp (on my Android phone) and so many times I took a fantastic, fun photo—only to realize when I sorted through them later that a student was sneezing in the background. De-lete.
Focus on getting clear images that are free (or nearly free) of logos. Blurry photos are a no-go for your marketing materials! Watch for kids in the background doing weird things (like making a sneezing face). Take a million photos and narrow them down later.
If you find that you don’t have someone on staff who is skilled with their phone camera, it’s a good investment to hire a photographer for an hour or two. It will be worth it when families visiting your website and viewing other marketing materials feel an immediate sense of trust as a result of quality photos.
Always require a media waiver so that you can take photos of the kids while they’re having fun with activities. Of course, if a student can’t have their photo taken due to their religious beliefs, because they’re being cared for by foster parents, or for any other reason, that’s fine! Their guardian should still complete the waiver so you have a filed response.
If you’re just opening your business, host a community playdate in advance so you can take photos. (Remember your media waivers!) Be upfront that the event is to help you get great images for your online and on-paper advertising, and request that anyone in attendance avoid wearing logos or licensed images.
Keep all of your photos in an easily accessible cloud storage program, like Dropbox, so that your team can access them as needed.
Make your copy count
The language on your website, your “copy,” should be conversational and approachable. A visitor should learn not just about the logistics of your program (location, hours, age groups), but should also get a sense of:
The history and philosophies of your business
How current and past clients feel about you (through testimonials)
Who your teachers are and what experience they have
Arguably the most important element of the copy on your website, and certainly the most extensive, should be your blog.
(Yes, you need to have a blog.)
A blog allows you to dig deeper into issues that families might be curious about.
Use your blog to highlight the features of your program that make it a safe and healthy environment for your students: write about the importance of CPR and First Aid Training (and mention that all of your staff is up-to-date). Interview a long-time parent who can talk about their experiences at your camp, music program, preschool, or dance studio. Do a spotlight on a staff member whose unique level of experience you want to show off.
Perhaps most importantly, regularly posting relevant articles to your blog can increase your visibility. By creating content that your target audience is already seeking out online, you encourage them to visit your website and stay awhile. It’s gentler advertising, a reminder that you’re there when they need you. It’s also a kind of advertising that continues working hard for you long after it’s been created. The internet is forever.
Next steps
Writing copy for your website and creating regular content for a blog can be intimidating! Entrepreneur recommends posting once a week if a daily update is out of reach. But if the thought of brainstorming topics, researching data, writing, editing, and proofreading a blog every week seems daunting, you’re not alone.
The great news is that you get to choose how much of this marketing load you take on. The rest, copywriters like me can handle: I can shape your website copy and create consistent content for your blog like it’s my job. (Because it is my job.)
I’m happy to help.