Introduction
Childminding and early-years care is a lucrative businesses.
A considerable amount of money is being spent on child minding every month in the capital. Thanks to this, businesses are directing a considerable amount into advertising of these services.
This is true, especially in London where we are based.
There is a big variety in the types of companies that are competing for clients here. They range from small child minding businesses based in people’s homes to large agencies.
If you are running one of these businesses, you need to make sure that you can effectively market yourself. There are ways of doing so both online and offline.
In this article we’re going to discuss 5 of the most effective ways of marketing your childminding business.
Social media advertising
We are living in the age of social media. Having some kind of social media presence is pretty much a necessity for most businesses.
Some types of businesses benefit from maintaining an active profile. This would include a carpenter who regularly posts photographs of his work or a personal trainer who shows off daily work outs and his/her client’s results.
Childminding businesses will have to be more careful about posting. A childminder can’t be posting images of the children they are looking after.
Instead the activity on a childminders social media profiles should, for example, focus on posts about the latest research about child development or learning methods.
Discussing recipes for nutritious food children like or discussing quality books for children.
Ultimately it is good to keep your social media active but there is no need to spend too much time doing so.
How to do social media ads?
What you should be using social media for in the first place is advertising. One of the best things that Facebook, LinkedIN and others allow you to do is to target your ads very well.
You can target your ads directly at busy professionals in specific age ranges and locations. You can focus on groups based on their interests.
You can also tailor each of your ads to the specific groups you are targeting. You can make your ads different when targetting female and male demographics, for example.
If you are going to be spending time and money on social media most of it should be directed at you experimenting with ads. You can spend as little as £20 testing a new ad in a specific part of town.
You can think of it as developing a skill that will allow your business to thrive well into the future.
When you run enough ads over months and years you collect data and experience specific to your child minding niche. This is something that will allow you to always attract new clients when you need to in the future.
Leaflet distribution for child minders
As effective as social media marketing is, it also comes with some drawbacks. It can be challenging to stand out, you can spend a lot of money on ads with no response if you get some elements of the campaign wrong.
There are advertising tools in the offline world that don’t suffer these drawbacks and that can deliver results consistently.
Leaflet distribution is one of the most effective offline marketing tools that a childminding business can use.
One of the biggest advantages of leaflets over any other advertising method is the fact that you can have them delivered to every single household in a selected area.
This means that you don’t miss out on anyone because they don’t use a particular service or visit a particular site. You reach every single household in your selected area.
Developing local mind share with leaflets therefore becomes relatively easy.
This effect can be further enhanced by repeating your deliveries to the same households multiple times. These repeated deliveries can take place leading up to a crucial time of year to intensify the effect of your campaigns when you need it the most.
They can also be spread out over the whole year to keep reactivating your local area every few months.
Targeting
When you are deciding on where you should have your childminding flyers delivered, consider the immediate area around your location first.
Depending on your clientele, you will have a basic idea about how far people are happy to travel for your services.
In general it is best to cover the area immediately surrounding your address first and then branch out into the most lucrative adjacent parts of London from there.
You can see the areas The Private Postman covers on our page dedicated to this topic.
What to include on your flyer
You want your leaflet to include basic information about your childminding services together with details about the CCTV system you use, your accreditations and relevant qualifications.
Don’t spend too much space explaining every detail of what you do. You can include more information on your website or social media.
A leaflet should give people an idea of what you do and either get them to visit your website or call you directly.
Dealing with distributors directly
When you are planning and booking your flyer delivery campaign, you want to make sure that you get to speak to real people in your distribution company.
A good distributor should help you plan your budget, select the areas you should be focusing on and even help print and design your flyers.
Don’t settle for automated systems. Work with a company that gives you the ability to speak to an expert that can help you plan and keep you informed about the progress of your campaign.
Feel free to have a look at how our systems work on our Why Choose Us page.
Search engine marketing
Most people use search engines like Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo to search for the services they need. You can have a look at the most popular search engines here.
Many people in your local area are likely going to be searching for child minders via one of these tools. It would be a mistake to completely overlook them. You can take a number of steps to increase your chance for people to discover you via a search engine.
- Register yourself on Google My Business
and connect your profile with your website. This is a necessity for any local business. - Pay for ads on Google search results.
You can pay for your website to appear high on searches for specific keywords in your area. (For example “child minders near me” or “child minders in West Hampsted” etc…) - Keep a blog on your website and regularly add new content.
This can help search engines in determining whether your website is a useful result to be shown to people searching for childminding.
Networking
Networking can help you in your childminding business in multiple ways. By keeping in touch with other childminders you can create a network of people that can support each other.
You can agree on covering each other’s clients when one of you needs to take a day off.
When one of the people in your childminding network is at full capacity but keeps receiving leads they can pass your details on with a recommendation.
Having a network of people in the childminding business in a specific geographical area supporting each other can be of great value.
You can look to network with other childminders online in facebook groups or in person.
Local publications
Even though most of the periodicals out there nowadays focus largely on digital forms of publishing, local publications and newspapers still print physical copies.
There are magazines being delivered all over the UK and even London that are made to serve and speak to specific areas. If you can find and identify these, advertising with a publication like this can be a great idea.
Try to locate these local papers and magazines in and around the area you are based in. Plugging into the life of a local area like this can bring a great level of awareness of your business and help sustain a stead stream of new clients.
