Marketing 101 - Effective Ways To Market Your Daycare Services

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Marketing a daycare business need not be an expensive exercise, if managed effectively. Your marketing budget can be as expensive or as cheap as you wish for it to be. That said, sometimes it does pay to invest a little more in marketing to ensure greater returns. Remember not to fall into the trap of being “penny wise pound foolish”. Here are a number of suggestions to help you market your daycare centre:

1. Marketing collaterals / Direct mailers
Direct mailers are very important marketing tools. They need not be flashy. A simple flyer telling your audience about your centre and what you offer is good enough.

Distribute them wherever possible; put them at community clubs, cafés and restaurants and/or hire temporary help to distribute them at train stations, bus stations, basically any high traffic area in and around your neighborhood.

And if budget permits, a brochure will be a nice addition, especially when someone requests for more details about your centre. However, if you are a new start up and a little low on funds, a flyer will do just fine.

2. Business cards
Carry your business cards wherever you go and give them out.

3. Advertisements and listings
Ensure that you are listed in all the relevant directories such as the yellow pages, community guides, daycare magazines for parents, daycare directories, etc. If budget permits, you should also consider taking up advertisements in those guides and directories as well as your local newspapers.

4. Banners
Nothing attracts more attention than a banner. Print a bright and colorful banner and hang it at the entrance of your daycare centre. It’ll guarantee to attract the attention of passer-bys. Don’t try to recreate your entire brochure or flyer onto the banner. Keep it simple and short. Include basic information such as your logo/name of your centre, your contact number and website, if any. Ensure that the text is legible from a distance.

6. Website
Pick up a new skill. Learn to create your own website. A simple, professionally designed website with some pictures of your centre will do just fine. And don’t forget a map.

7. Car decals and bumper stickers
If budget permits, print car decals and bumper stickers to give to family, friends and customers. It’s free publicity on the move.

8. Posters
Print posters and display them wherever possible. Pin them up on notice boards at shopping malls, eating places or the supermarket. Pass them to your customers, families and friends and have them put it up in their offices.

9. Open houses
Nothing beats a preview of an experience. When a company wants you to sign up for their pricey conference, they will usually conduct an event preview to let you have an insight into what you will be experiencing if you sign up. In the same token, open houses are an excellent marketing tool, allowing parents a hands-on experience at your centre.

There is no need to execute all the above suggestion at one go. Pace them out throughout the year. It’ll be a lot easier on your budget.

Happy marketing!

For more information or resources on starting a daycare, please visit http://www.setupadaycare.com

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Is Buying An Existing Daycare Centre The Best Option?

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Once you’ve decided that daycare is the business for you, you need to decide how you intend to do it. There are a few options which you can adopt to start up your daycare centre.

1. Brand new start up
You can consider setting up your daycare centre from scratch. You’ll need to do a lot of homework and put in a lot of effort and hard work in the preparatory stages such as getting a location, planning the layout of your daycare centre, oversee the renovations, furnish your daycare centre, etc. The process can be very time consuming but if you are a very meticulous, resourceful and organized person, doing this yourself can save you a lot of money. There are a host of websites which can equip you with the essential information and resources to get you started.

2. Buying over an existing daycare centre
You’ll probably save on a lot of time and planning as compared to a brand new start up. However, there are other concerns which you need to take note of. First, you need to ensure that the condition of the existing daycare centre is in good or satisfactory condition; not just the physical outlook but the business operations as well. Take a good look at the condition of the premises (are minor renovations required?), the state of the company assets (is it reusable?), assess the location (is it ideal?), ask to look at the accounts and the lease agreement, etc.

You’ll also need to examine the financial statement of the business to assess the financial health of the business; how is the existing daycare business doing, is enrolment stable or shrinking. That will help you to determine how much you are willing to offer.

Take some time of get to know their customers better. Survey their customers to understand them better. Find out if the parents are happy with the current services that are being provided. What is the reason(s) their children are still enrolled in the present daycare centre?

Gather as much information as possible about their competitors. Find how many daycare facilities are there within a 500 meters from them. Know what are their charges and preferably how many children they are caring for. Are they successful? What sort of value-added services do they provide which you need to take note of.

You’ll also need to ensure that all the legal aspects such as contracts, agreement, licenses, creditors, etc can be easily resolved.

3. Buying a Franchise
Alternatively, you can consider buying a franchise from a daycare franchisor. There numerous benefits which can be gained from purchasing a daycare franchise as opposed to a brand new start up or purchasing an existing business. For example, The chances of success, although not guaranteed, are good as the daycare franchisor would have established a set of proven practices and operations. Training will be provided and as a result of the transfer of management expertise, the learning curve of running a daycare centre will be significantly shorter.

You will also make significant savings on items such as cost of developing a curriculum and marketing which is usually assume by the franchisor and spilt amongst all the franchisees.

However, there can be some disadvantages in purchasing a franchise such as the prohibitive franchise fee, lack of flexibility in operations or lack of support from the franchisor. In addition, there is a possibility that the promotional programs rolled out by the franchisor might not be suitable for your local market.

In conclusion, which option will clearly depend on what you are looking for in the business and the amount of time and resources that you have. If you are short on funds but are willing to put in the hours, a brand new startup is best for you. If you are less of a risk taker, taking over an existing daycare centre or purchasing a daycare franchise will most likely suit you, depending on how much resources you have and how much freedom you are expecting.

For more information or resources on starting a daycare, please visit http://www.setupadaycare.com

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Great Home Based Business: Start a Daycare

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My wife owned and operated her own home based daycare business for many years. This is her post–

Starting a home based daycare business:

I will tell you it is a lot of work, but very worthwhile and gratifying. There are very important things you must know before thinking of starting a home daycare, here are 10 things you should know:

1. Licensing requirements– For a home daycare some states and counties do require licensing, but most don’t. If you live in an area without licensing requirements, but most states require or want you to be at least certified. I was certified. It is rather easy, you just need to find a place that certifies you, lots to choose from, just look online for child care information in your state. Here is a great site http://nrc.uchsc.edu/STATES/states.htm But where I lived in Wisconsin, because I was certified, not licensed, I could only have 3 children at one time, that is including yours.

2. Only take as many children as you can handle realistically. I took part time, full time, short time, everything, and I will tell you, from my experience, do not take part time kids, it only makes it harder, unless you are only going to have 3 or 4 kids. I mean if this is a source of income, it's hard to make up for the few hours you get from them.

3. There are many ways to find children. This is the fun of ruining your own home based business. The number one way for me was to make really catchy, cute fliers, I made lots of copies and took them to grocery stores, post offices, door to door, put them on cars, anywhere you can people to see them. The most popular place that people saw them was at the grocery store.

4. There are lots of things to take into consideration before starting a daycare. As a day care provider you will not only be the manager, but the secretary, bookkeeper, accounts receivable collector, bottle washer (literally!), organizer, planner, referee, teacher, and counselor, to mention just of few of the roles. You must be patient!

5. There are so many forms you need to have ready on hand for when you start to except new clients. For example, you must have forms that parents sign ahead of time, like prescriptions, you can not give prescriptions to kids unless it is on paper signed from the parents. Just think of what you would be in if something happened to the child, they might be allergic, might give the wrong dosage, might have more than one child taking the same medication and give it to the wrong child, things like that. I have a daycare kit that I am selling that has all the information you need to have and know even before starting to think about running a daycare, I also include many forms that parents will need to sign before you can let there child enroll.

6. You need to think about how much you are going to charge and what age groups you are going to take. This is another business descision. I called big daycares and home day cares to check out what they were charging, don’t tell them who you are, just pretend you have a child you want to enroll there. Great way to find out what the rate is.

7. Think about the things you will need and where you can get them. You don’t have to purchase all new items, garage sales or good wills are great, just make sure to clean and sanitize them really well before giving them to the children.

For example:
* child-sized table and chairs
* individual sleeping places
* diapering area
* art materials
* assorted toys and blocks
* children’s books
* games, puzzles, vehicles, dolls
* props for pretend play
* music
* baby furniture
* storage area

8. Another thing to consider, have the parents bring, and supply you with items, like diapers, wipes, food, (unless you want to include this in the price). That’s what I did, so much easier, because you might have different age groups and lots of different wipes and diapers, that can get expensive. As far as the food, its up to you. I had the parents bring there food, they know what they will eat more than we will.

9. Remember if you have children of your own, this would be a great opportunity for you and them, you can be a stay at home parent and have friends for your kids to play with. You will never have to worry about where your children are or what they are doing.

10. Make sure to review everything and make sure you are ready to make the investment. It is really a life changing opportunity, but again worth while. I loved every minute of every day. I would do it all over again…

Here is a great daycare kit, its rated #1 on clickbank. It Includes:

* what is required to start the business

* determining what to chargesetting

* policies and procedures

* attracting clients

* establishing your daily scheduleplanning

* activities for children

* billing and accounting

* managing your cash flowrecord

* keeping your clients happy

* growing your business

* plus much, much more!!!

Kerry Mann is the creator of http://www.MakeMoneyIdeasBlog.com

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Kids and Daycare

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Now a days the only way for some families to make it, is for both the mother and father work and the children go to daycare. The daycares are not only expensive but you don't really know what goes on while your children are there.

My daughter and son-in-law were in the group of working parents. My grandson was put in a childcare while they worked. My grandson wasn't the type to cry and act up when he was dropped off. Then he changed. We all thought it was because he was spoiled and didn't want to leave mommy and daddy. It got to the point that my daughter had to get him interested in a toy and sneak out of the place. This went on for months. Then Grandma showed up and was blessed with babysitting for the day. Let me tell you, what a day. From the time my daughter and son-in-law left for work, and until they came home my grandson did nothing but cry. And I mean really cry. How heartbreaking. He kept saying, I want my mommy, I want my daddy, I really love my mommy, I really love my daddy. It made me cry. This went on for 6 hours steady. He would sit there and play but still cry and repeat I really love my mommy, I really love my daddy, I want my mommy, I want my daddy. Finally I got him down for a nap. He wore himself out from all the crying. My daughter had finally arrived home from work. She couldn't believe him acting like that. Tristan never had a problem staying with me. We couldn't figure out why all of a sudden there was a big change in him.

She had called the daycare to see if there was something going on there. She had explained his actions for the day. The lady she had talked to had said that it was probably because he wasn't use to being around Grandma cause she lives in Georgia and doesn't come often. Wrong. Grandma was there every other week. After she went round for round with the lady, she ended up taking my grandson out of the daycare and put him in another one. My grandson was back to his old self. Laughing and playing, having a good time. Even found himself a girlfriend.

A few weeks later, my daughter was talking to a friend who works in the building next to the daycare. Well, she started talking about my grandson and how he was acting, and that she had to put him in another daycare. It turns out that the friend witnessed one of the workers at the daycare outside on the side of the building sitting in a chair with my grandson sitting on her lap with her arms around his chest and her legs wrapped around his legs and him crying his little heart out. This act of discipline nearly ruined my grandson. If they did that to my grandson, what else were they doing there?

My grandson is no longer in daycare, he is in second grade and his mom is a stay at home mom. He is doing great and a happy little fellow.

So if you need to put your child in a daycare, be sure to check it out before you leave your child. And if you see a difference in your child's attitude or behavior, check it out. There is a reason why.

Continue

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