Australia Childcare Marketing Jumpstart Guide

If you are looking for help in getting your childcare centre marketing off to the right start, this article is for you.

In fact, wherever you are in your childcare journey, and whatever kind of marketing assistance you need, you’re in the right place.

Read on to discover more about how to build and jumpstart a marketing plan for your childcare business, and to learn more about running your own childcare business marketing in the right way.

Build a clean and crisp childcare website

No modern business can exist without a great website to back it up. Of course, childcare is no exception, and the best childcare businesses have websites that provide clear and concise information for customers.

The website is not first on your list. First and foremost, you need a physical childcare business premises. This is where you will be delivering your childcare services after all. Assuming this is already set up, building your internet presence should be next on the agenda.

1. Focus on a simple and effective website

But how do you get started with childcare or daycare website design? Keeping it simple is a good rule of thumb here. Being present on the internet is something of a minimum standard for your business, so you do need to make sure that what you are providing goes above and beyond the basics.

Make sure you include all of the relevant information about your childcare centre — your contact details, for example, your accreditations, your opening times, and your customer reviews testimonies. This forms the basis of your website, and you can flesh this out further with great content.

2. Foster direct contact

Where possible, encourage your customers to contact you directly. Remember, you need to foster an atmosphere of trust and reliability, so you need to make sure your website reflects this. Provide content in a clear and concise manner, don’t overstretch yourself with complex designs, and focus on delivering a crisp, simple website that does the job.

3. Get professional assistance

You might not have time to design a childcare business website, especially once hosting and management are factored into the equation. If this is the case, consider working with a childcare or daycare website design service that can take care of this for you.

Learn about your target market and where it can be found

To make sure your business is a success, you need to be targeting the right leads and prospects. This means knowing not just who your target market is but exactly where this target market can be found.

1. Target market example 1: Families in your local Indigenous community

Let’s say you and your team want to provide childcare services to Indigenous families in certain areas of Australia. To be successful, you would need to blend the beliefs and cultural aspects of the local Indigenous community with your childcare services, essentially building this into the identity of what you are all about as a childcare provider.

This is great — you are providing a genuinely useful service to your chosen community — but this is only half of the job. You also need to reach these Indigenous families and deliver messaging that connects with them in the right way.

Some research will be required here. You’ll need to find out if Indigenous parents in your areas prefer to seek out childcare options online or in person. You’ll also need to know if they rely more heavily on recommendations from family members or on web reviews. You will need to understand which social media channels they are using to connect with offers online.

2. Target market example 2: Working mums in financial centres and business districts

Another example could be childcare for working mums in the financial centres of Sydney and Melbourne. You’ll need to conduct research here too, getting to know your target market’s schedule, budget and core aims.

While your own research will certainly help with this kind of customer persona determination, you may decide to go further in an effort to really hone in on your ideal customer and target market.

This is where a marketing expert can make all the difference. Marketing professionals will have the resources and the expertise required to build highly detailed buyer personas and profiles for your customers, as well as to target the right market for your childcare products and solutions.

Always promote business authenticity

It’s highly unlikely that you are the only childcare provider in your region. When your customers seek out childcare in your local area, they are probably met with a great many different options and providers. So, why should they choose yours?

There are many points of differentiation you can choose for your business. Again, put yourself in the shoes of your prospective customers and ask yourself what you want to see from the businesses you work with. This might include

Price points — Offering a competitive price is always likely to attract customers to your business. However, remember the market you are operating in. With childcare, customers may decide to pay a little more to achieve peace of mind.
Convenience — Convenience is always at the heart of any successful childcare organisation. Think about where you are located. Is it easy for your customers to reach you here? Do you provide any remote services where you can come to your customers’ location?
Reliability — As you are working with the children of your customers, these customers want to know that they are choosing the very best provider in the business. This means you need customer testimonies and reviews that tell your customers how reliable you are.
Authenticity — This is one of the most important factors, as it links to everything else you provide during your marketing. Brand authenticity means your customers can believe in you, your company and what you are providing. From here, you’ll be able to foster real trust from your audience, turning one-off customers into long-term clients.

The aspects listed above are fairly general ways to set your business apart from those of your competitors. To gain more detailed insight, you need to refer to your customer personas. Each persona and profile will have its own specific motivations and points of differentiation. A single parent with a full-time job, for example, may value a convenient service that fits around his or her schedule. On the other hand, another customer may prefer in-home childcare delivered at their property.

You need to find out what is important to your audience and then work to deliver what they need. Remember to remain authentic, trustworthy and honest in all of your communications, fostering the kind of trust that is crucial for childcare marketing.

Decide how to promote your childcare business

Once you know all about your customer profiles, and once you have decided on the point of difference that sets you apart from your competitors, you need to start promoting your childcare business.

1. Bringing together traditional and digital marketing

The childcare field is well-suited to hyperlocal marketing. This means combining traditional marketing with an internet market strategy to get the best results. What do we mean by this? Well, consider what childcare is. This is not a service that can be delivered remotely — instead, you need to be present in a specific geographical market so that you can provide what your customers need. You also have to consider how your customers will be finding your business — via internet ads and social media marketing. In other words, both aspects of your strategy are important.

2. Finding your audience

Of course, it’s not good enough to simply launch your internet marketing strategy and hope for the best. You need to know where your target market is found. For example, what social media platforms are they using? Which websites do they visit? What offers do they want to see when they go online? You may also want to tailor your social media advertising campaign to specific geographical regions, such as your local area or your other service areas, to hone your approach.

It might be worth seeking out the advice of a professional digital marketer or marketing agency for this. These professionals are well-versed in achieving marketing success and position childcare centres to meet the needs of their audience. You will have to pay more money up front, but this could turn out to be a shrewd investment that will help you to grow your revenue over time.

3. Call upon the experts and market your childcare business in the right way

To really jumpstart your childcare business marketing efforts and to reach the audience your skills deserve, you need to draw upon expert assistance. With a childcare marketing specialist by your side, you gain the peace of mind that comes from knowing your business is being advertised and promoted in the right way. You will be able to focus on providing the very best levels of care to the kids of your existing clients, retaining this customer base while targeting growth in the future.