As we live in a highly digital world, we need to focus on building our online presence, now more than ever. It’s like an online first impression and we shouldn’t overlook its importance.
As the owner or operator of a preschool business, your online presence can boost your credibility. It can also help prospective parents find you as well as help your current customers refer you to their friends and family.
What’s more, there are more and more millennials who use the internet for all kinds of searches and to find diverse information. We rely on and trust it heavily. As more and more Millennials become parents, we continue to build up a huge portion of your target audience.
We’ve prepared this guide to help boost your preschool brand and grow – keep reading to learn more about it. Let’s dig into 9 of the top ways you can boost your brand and grow.
Table of Contents
1. Create your story
The cornerstone of the content you’ll use to build your online presence is your story. This is the first step you need to take. The best way to do that is to designate some time to think and note down some essential things. For example, start by asking yourself what makes your childcare so special. It will help if you tried to look at things from prospective parents’ perspectives since they are ultimately the ones who would be paying for your services.
Here are some other questions you need to consider and then build the answers into your story:
- Why would parents opt for your childcare center over the competition?
- What services do you offer?
- How do people describe your center?
- What is it the parents of children at your center love most about the childcare services you offer?
- What does your center have that others don’t?
If you have nothing special that differentiates you from your competitors, there are still some things you can do to boost your brand. For instance, you can do your research online and find what is it that parents want from a contemporary childcare center.
And then you can consider what changes you can make to stand out from the crowd and offer people what they need. When you have your story, you should then work on materials to support it.
These include video tours, photos, workshops, testimonials, blog articles, and curriculum, among other things. The goal is to be truthful when showcasing your values through these materials and show your audience the value you add beyond anything else on the market.
2. Create a website
Once you have your story figured out and the supporting materials (at least some) ready, you can move to the next step. The next step refers to creating a website if you don’t have it yet.
Your website needs to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. It should be comprehensive and yet not boring and overloaded with tedious details and jargon.
You should display all the essential information on your website. A website is like a window into your business, and for that reason, both the website and the content on it must be top-notch. Having an insightful website is key to establishing and growing your brand. It should contain your contact details, the enrolment process, services, and prices as well as highlights of your business.
People use search engines daily to find the best child care programs and centers. Combined with other essential aspects, your website can appear at the top of the SERP pages if you focus on telling a great story, offer valuable content, and optimize your site for both people and search engines. This leads to more people seeing your website and potentially signing their children up.
3. Create a Google Business profile
Another great marketing trick that can help in boosting your brand is creating a Google Business profile. This is the thing to do in order to be searchable locally. As a preschool, your business will most likely all be coming from local families.
Optimizing your Google Business profile is an easy and effective way to get noticed when people search for preschools in their area. You can do that by creating a Google My Business account.
On your profile, you need to answer some questions about your business – name, description, phone number, working hours as well as location. When you finish creating your account, your business will appear in Google Maps and Google searches. This is what everybody can do, but you shouldn’t stop there.
You should also fill in all the details, link to your website, and add photos in order to stand out from the crowd. Don’t overlook the reviews – they are an important aspect people consider seriously when choosing a preschool.
Ask your family and friends to review and remember to reply to all the reviews, both the good ones and not-so-good ones. A pro marketing tip: use local searches and reviews to learn more about the competition and what they do well.
4. Use local directories
Local directories are yet another way to boost your brand. They are a great tool for generating traffic for you. However, there are some drawbacks.
Directories are often out of date and sometimes fail to include your business. Make sure you target reputable, up-to-date directories that have a knack for showing up in search results.
One such directory is Yelp. It shows local businesses along with customer reviews. Yelp tends to have solid search value and can really give your business a boost by popping up in relevant searches.
Beyond the traditional, general listing sites, you should aim for more niche local directories that feature preschool listings. You can easily keep the directories updated by making a list of all of them. Use the list to add or update the details of your business. on a regular basis to ensure your details are accurate.
The list can also come in handy in the future – you can use it as a reference. You can find local directories in two ways. You can start by searching online in a way a parent would and noting down all the directories that come up. Another way is to find out in which listings your competitors appear.
5. Promote on social media
Social media channels are present in all aspects of our lives. We use them both for private and professional purposes. For those reasons, we mustn’t overlook their importance when it comes to building our online presence and boosting our brand.
Facebook is a great way to start online promotion. It is an excellent tool as it allows you to target your audience easily. Moreover, it also has the benefit of connecting with the local community, which is essential for building your brand. To promote your child care business, you’ll need to create a Facebook business page, as a large percentage of Facebook users fall within your demographic. This page will work as a mini version of your website, so parents can find information there as well.
When you have done that, you need to keep it alive by posting different amusing things and sharing content from your website. You can also join some local parent groups. Additionally, you can go for paid Facebook ads.
Besides Facebook, there are other social media channels that you can use for promotion. These include Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and others. Do your research to determine which channels your target audience hangs out on most. And be sure not to overextend your resources. Be active only on the channels that most directly drive business results.
6. Optimize your website for local searches
A vast majority of parents use Google to find information related to their childcare needs. And almost half of those searches are local. You need the help of local SEO to optimize your website for these searches.
Local SEO will bring plenty of other benefits to your business as well. These include better website visibility, faster delivery, higher Google ranking, and promoting sales, among other things. This optimization is closely connected to the previously mentioned Google Business profile.
7. Start a blog
A blog is an integral part of digital marketing many businesses employ today. It is a page on your website where you publish different posts, explaining or describing something important for your business.
When it comes to a child care center, a blog can serve as a knowledge hub or a how-to guide for parents. Parents look at daycare blogs as a free resource that is rich in engaging content and useful information.
It is an effective way to draw in more business. The blog is a great addition to your website as it establishes you as an expert in the field and it builds trust among parents. It also improves your SEO rankings and increases website traffic.
8. Organize a daycare open house
Organizing a daycare open house is key to attracting new parents. Parents want only the best for their children. They want a safe, healthy, nurturing, and stimulating environment for their child to develop in.
And what better way to show that you are all of that but with an open house event? When it comes to organizing such an event, you should take into consideration the date and pick it carefully. You should make sure that you showcase all of your unique values. And finally, you should make it a memorable experience for parents.
9. Emphasize your unique values
What you should remember is to always emphasize the unique values you’ve established in your story at the beginning. People should recognize these at all times, in all the business aspects. These unique values distinguish you from your competition and you should use them to your advantage.
Regardless of the business you do, the competition is fierce nowadays. We should use everything we have at our disposal to make progress and succeed. In the modern age, changes happen fast and we need to keep up with them constantly to thrive. Once we accept this and learn how to deal with it, it will be easier for us to advance.
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