| One of the biggest challenges I faced when I | | | | for a total of $950. With no results. Not the |
| started my home daycare was marketing. This | | | | direction we wanted to go! |
| came as a really big surprise to me as I never | | | | So, much to our surprise print ads, where not the |
| thought I would need to do any marketing at all. | | | | right path. Not to say that it wouldn't work for |
| After all I was well known in our community, had | | | | you but if you're on a limited budget try |
| a ton of friends with kids, had a nice little house, | | | | something else to promote your daycare. |
| I'm out going, etc. And most importantly I had | | | | Mailers |
| several moms encourage me to start a daycare | | | | Mailer's where marginal. The first concern was |
| with the promise that they would enroll their | | | | having to put together something presentable to |
| children with me. | | | | send the letters on. We chose to be traditional |
| When the dust settled (and I had quit my job), | | | | and printed out letterhead and envelopes. To print |
| got my license in place, organized the house, etc | | | | out a thousand of both was approximately $200 |
| none of them actually enrolled! It dawned on me | | | | total for one color. The next issue was coming up |
| then and there that I would have to get more | | | | with a list to send the letters to. We were able |
| serious about getting the word out. | | | | get a list from the city but it had issues. We only |
| Below is a list of the marketing activities that I | | | | had the actually names of the residents on |
| tried. Some of it was a complete waste of time | | | | roughly half of the addresses on the list. |
| and money; some of them worked beautifully. | | | | What do you normally do with a letter that's |
| Here's what I tried: | | | | entitled "Dear Resident"? I know what I do - |
| · Print ads | | | | round file. The alternative was to buy a list from |
| · Mailers | | | | a list company but that is another $100 that we |
| · Door Hangers | | | | just did not want to spend. |
| · Car Sign | | | | Another negative of the mailers was just the |
| · Chamber of Commerce | | | | amount of time it took to print out, fold and stuff |
| · Mom's Groups | | | | the envelopes. |
| · Internet Referral Network - Called the 3 | | | | As mentioned above, one of the main things we |
| C's | | | | learned in general was to market directly in our |
| · Flyers | | | | neighborhood. And mailers can do just that. Unlike |
| · Website | | | | the print ad that was spread out throughout |
| · Others | | | | Metro Detroit we were able to focus our |
| · Word of Mouth | | | | marketing dollars on our best possible prospects. |
| Print Ads | | | | Basically all our kids lived within 2 miles and most |
| Let me start off with print ads. Print ads were | | | | of them lived within 1 mile from us. So with |
| probably the least effective and the biggest | | | | mailers you're able to control exactly who gets |
| waste of money. It was one of our first | | | | the letter, and keep your costs down. |
| marketing efforts. In Metro Detroit we have a | | | | All in all, this was a mediocre route for me. |
| publication specifically devoted to moms/parents. | | | | Looking back I guess if I could have gotten a list |
| We really thought that it was a no brainer, due to | | | | of homes with families, kids in my age group, and |
| the focus of the publication and that it was | | | | just sent out a mailer to 100 names or so when I |
| centered right in our community. | | | | had a vacancy that would have worked - though |
| I put together a really nice inch by inch classified | | | | I don't know how or if a list like that exists. |
| ad and signed the contract. We receive three calls | | | | Perhaps you could get a list like that from your |
| from the ad but did not sign up one child. We | | | | local elementary school. |
| tried the ad for 5 months for $189 per month, | | | | |