Daycares are also great opportunities for businesses to make money by providing children’s care services. And daycare leads are crucial to success. However, if you are considering this option for a business or started one already, you must know this industry is quite competitive, which is why you might have a hard time finding kids and parents willing to leave them with you.
Thus, the question when a person dedicates themselves to this niche and business is: How do you generate daycare leads? Well, unlike what you think, there are many ways!
This article will discuss how social media, SEO, and networking referrals can all help you find daycare leads online and offline. Of course, we will be adding more tricks and some tips to help with your marketing strategy for qualified leads.
You Need a Website… ASAP
No matter what you do or who you ask, always focus on building your website for daycare services if you truly want to generate leads. If you don’t, there’s no way to go for those leads.
All your leads will be there, regardless of how you use search engines or social media (which we will review later).
Facebook and other social media platforms are not very long-lasting, and although we get the fact companies decide to use them as websites, they aren’t that well-optimized compared to a well-designed site.
You should consider this: If one of these platforms closes down tomorrow, your leads list will also go away, and all your efforts will be wasted.
A functional, attractive, and optimized website that provides the most important information is the best option, and you will notice the big difference as soon as it goes live.
It’s also where people can land easily and quickly without sweating it and making you lose potential money income.
Now, if you are going to build it, make sure it is focused on high-conversion.
This part comes down to how your site is designed and how visitors can get in touch with and interact with you. Including if they are able to access it using their mobile devices.
You should be able to make their lives easy and allow them to click on the call-to-action, such as filling out a contact form or signing up for an emailing list. Just remember: You usually have to offer in exchange for the info.
Because they fear receiving spam, people are becoming more cautious about signing up for email lists. In exchange for email addresses, you can offer some discounts or play it smart, so people are attracted to the idea of signing.
SEO is the final aspect of optimizing your site. It should be search engine friendly. This means that it can be accessed on mobile devices and web pages that are search engine optimized.
Make Your Content Valuable
Regardless of your perspective, it’s difficult to compete with industry leaders and their reach when they invest so much money and use techniques and strategies that actually work. But this doesn’t mean it is impossible.
It seems that the big brands have all the attention while the smaller brands don’t have the same opportunities. Thus, this makes it hard for any daycare center to stand out and have a chance in the niche.
However, it doesn’t have to be that difficult if your content is valuable to readers, parents, and potential leads.
Do you remember what we said about SEO? You are likely tired of this, but the truth is, content is what brings visitors the most using the organic method since keywords are found in it.
It’s not enough to just stuff your content with keywords (which you shouldn’t); it’s about creating something that will be helpful for future clients.
If you need an idea, just remember that this option is great for sharing tips, tricks, and other information about daycare, learning, and the services you offer.
Make Sure to Show How You’re Different
Most daycare centers and businesses fail to communicate why they are the right place for their children. Thus, parents don’t really trust them that much and keep searching.
This means you truly need to think about communicating your value and demonstrating how much you can offer.
It is not easy to get on the radar of anyone in this information-rich, cluttered world, but with the right story to tell and confidence, we are sure you will make it.
What you need to focus on the most isn’t trying to sell them a service that aims to make their children play. Instead, remember that daycare is an important aspect of early learning, and you have to show your service for this is of high quality.
Service leaders should dedicate a few minutes each week to this. You must be proactive and consciously think about what you can accomplish and show people how you reached this point with more than words, and make sure you show why you are different in a good way.
Host Events to Bring Leads
You might consider hosting an open event if you’re a new service to the area since people need to know you. Parents need to know who you are.
Also, this is a way to let people see your facility and feel like you are there and worry about the kids.
Open houses, barbecues, and art fairs are all possible event ideas. Just think they will come to your home and make events as if you were inviting your family and friends.
You might want to concentrate on events that will help you build your reputation in early education if your service has been established for a while.
This could be a workshop about parenting or a guest speaker who addresses early education aspects that appeal specifically to parents, such as dealing with tantrums and ideas for improving eating habits.
Make sure you have all the necessary materials and give away any brochures or registration forms. You can also use the events to gather emails so you can keep in touch in the future.
Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Contributing to online conversations on social networks is another effective way to market child care services to parents.
It can seem overwhelming, and it isn’t going to get any easier since you have many competitors on the platforms, and managing the profiles will take lots of time and work.
However, social media is extremely powerful, and where most of the parents you need to convert into leads and then clients are spending their time.
For example, a Facebook page is an absolute necessity for early learning services. It is a great way to inform your community about important dates and events, such as when the school year begins or what you add to your daycare center next.
You can also easily be found if one of your clients recommends you. If they “like” your page, they can share it with others, which means free brand awareness for you.
Social media gives you the opportunity to build a brand and voice. This can be communicated through articles that you share or like and how you interact with your page.
It could be a professional and high-minded tone, or it could be warm and caring, or lighthearted and cheery. Your online presence can reveal a lot about your character to your community and generate the daycare leads you need.
Focusing on Facebook like before, we can give you a few ideas so you can use this platform in specific (since it is one of the best resources for daycare centers) to bring clients.
- Make sure to create a Facebook Page.
This page is required to promote your childcare center and ensure people are finding you on the platform.
Suppose you aren’t familiar with those pages. In that case, it is quite simple: Your Facebook Page is a miniature version of your website, and even some daycare centers use it as one (though we don’t really recommend it since both meet different purposes).
Now, parents can use the page to find out more about your business and determine if they should, at least, contact you to know more about the services.
To help build credibility for your business, you will be able to collect reviews from customers using the page as well.
- Find local parent groups.
Facebook is so functional when trying to find someone or many people at the same time to the point of being able to join parent groups by only writing the name of your city and adding the word “parents” afterward or maybe use “mom” or “dad.”
But what is the benefit of finding these groups? That they can help you get a better understanding of the local issues parents are facing with daycare centers and early learning so you can address and satisfy their needs.
Although it can be tempting to place an ad on these forums telling others about your business, please do not unless asked.
Be an active participant in these groups. If you feel you have great knowledge or can offer advice, you should be able to answer questions and share your resources, which will be enough to boost your presence and opportunities.
Although this is a slow process and won’t be a quick success, it will show parents that you are trusted in their area.
Parents will remember you when it is time to enroll their children in daycare or if someone in their circle asks them if they know any.
- Facebook Ads for daycare centers.
If you are willing to spend some money on Facebook ads, you can reach a very targeted audience and encourage them to learn more about you.
Selecting your audience is key since this allows you to get extremely targeted by choosing parents with children in your area who are within a certain age range. Super cool, right?
You can then create your ad creativity. Facebook basic ads will include an image or video along with the text.
You should also consider a variety of options, as you may want to launch multiple ads for your campaign to determine which one performs best.
You can follow the next structure to ensure your ads are a success and you don’t waste your money by asking yourself:
- Who are my target audiences?
- What is my core message?
- Which tone would people prefer? A funny or maybe serious one?
- What is the call-to-action (go to your site, fill out a lead form, etc.) that fits parents the most?
Are you still having a hard time figuring out everything about Facebook Ads? Don’t feel bad about it.
Advertising is never easy, and it requires some practice, time, and experience. This is why we will also leave some tips you can use:
- Use more videos since they are amazing: People prefer videos over pictures or text, so make sure to use this advantage to generate more traffic and then leads.
- It doesn’t mean images don’t work: If you are unable to work with videos, don’t overthink it. Just pick the right pictures for the feed and ensure they attract people’s attention.
- Make sure to show your real personality: The parents should feel that your center reflects your personality. Use this voice to show them who you are. It can be serious, funny, compassionate, or just plain silly.
- Tell the world why your center is so special: Your center’s uniqueness should be highlighted in your ad. It can be anything, from your incredible programming to team members or maybe classroom sets up.
- Keep your ads updated: Facebook is very targeted, so you may see your ad performance decrease over time. It’s normal, so the key is to add fresh versions to avoid people getting tired of them and making you repetitive.
Make Informational Drip Campaigns
We mentioned that choosing child care is not always an easy decision. In fact, it never is.
Parents spend months or even years researching the best options for their children since they want the best, and we get it.
You need to keep in mind that this type of long sales cycle requires marketing strategies that provide ongoing value and periodic touchpoints.
Digital marketing has made the process easier than ever since marketing automation, and social media networks can help you stay in front of even the most methodical decision-makers.
Here, we will make sure to add some extra info about the best options you can use:
- Email marketing.
You want to get an email address from potential clients to sign them up for your newsletter.
This is a great way to keep parents informed about what’s going on at your center and to send occasional promotional material.
To capture email addresses, make sure you have a conversion box set up on your website.
Ask new parents if they would like information via email if you meet them.
Use email marketing software to manage your email lists and automate your email blasts. You can create multiple lists to suit different interests and needs and a list to email existing clients.
It is one of the most effective ways to stay in touch with prospects and convert them.
- Marketing via social media.
Going back to social media for a bit, we wanted to add it here again to make sure the idea is clear but also to remind you other platforms exist and how good this marketing option is to generate daycare leads.
First, it allows you to share information as well as visual content.
You can create pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat and then post regular updates. All of these channels are perfect for highlighting the atmosphere of your center, talking about new activities/curricula, and sharing parenting and early education tips.
Encourage parents to share news about the school and highlight the successes of their children’s school. You can increase brand awareness by sharing events with your network.
Social media marketing provides a lot of ongoing content created by you and by others. This is a great way to keep parents informed as they make decisions about their child care.
- Get to work on your search results.
Once upon a time, a yellow-colored marketing service was printed and delivered to people’s homes.
But today, people left behind that method and instead search for services on Google and search engines.
This is why it is a huge advantage for your business to appear at the top search results, but you need to do things right if you want the expected results to be achieved.
In this case of search results, this can be done in three ways.
Number one involves using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Google Ads is an auction system that allows you to bid on keywords in order to get a place at the top of the page. All top four search results are PPC and where you should aim to be highlighted.
The second is the Google My Business listing.
This listing is free and can be used to link into Google Maps and local search.
Optimize your service listing and description with keywords that parents use to search for daycare services and ensure positive reviews are added since they can also help you rank higher.
The final one is the organic listing of your website, which is due to your search engine optimization (SEO).
To get high rankings, optimize your website for your target keywords and get backlinks to your site.
You can optimize your content for various searches using your blog and include the most common child care questions.
This is a great way for parents to discover your brand and to get them to your marketing funnel.
- Extra: Don’t Miss Retargeting.
Retargeting is an effective strategy in PPC campaigns. This is a technique that places a piece (known as a cookie or pixels) on the browser of a visitor and allows you to display targeted ads to them after they have left your website.
Retargeting can be used as a touchpoint for brands in the long-term sales cycle for daycare.
It Can Be Simple, Not a Nightmare
It’s not easy to generate qualified leads, but it doesn’t have to be more difficult than it actually is if you use the right strategies and follow the previous tips and tricks.
Besides, it is all about patience, perseverance, and hard work until you achieve your desired results and continue from there.
Once you have completed the SEO, gotten reviews, and dealt with any other strategies, you can start to get leads for your daycare center.
Overall, we recommend integrating all the previous strategies at the speed of your availability and how simple it is or if you decide to hire experts since all of them bring many results.
If you truly want this business of yours to work out, you have to remember that time is gold, and although you might see it as a waste of money, hiring someone to lend you a hand with marketing and lead generation can be key for your business’s future.
You already know this information, so we don’t think we need to share it, but we just wanted to make sure you aren’t missing this process’s simple yet essential parts.
Finally, remember that even companies with years of experience can reach a point in which they are not competitive.
They lose their leads and are unable to bring more in regardless of what lead generation tools they use to increase their lead scoring.
In those cases (and if you are a company or daycare center having this problem), you can review each of the lead generation strategies we shared as many times as you need and compare them with your competitors to determine what you should pass or maybe not.
Also, remember to work towards your success in generating qualified leads. Don’t forget to focus on your offline lead generation efforts if your goal is to get high-quality leads through the previous strategies.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Daycare Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Daycare Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Daycare Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.