Welcome back! Today I will like to quickly address a concern among many child care providers – how to scale up enrollment to pre-COVID levels.
Agreed, the COVID-19 pandemic has [drastically] changed every facet of the economy, including the child care industry. Businesses considered successful before the pandemic are most likely struggling at the moment. Now, imagine those that were struggling before the pandemic.
However, things are gradually returning to the ‘new’ normal. That’s good news! But, if you want to keep your child care facility afloat in these trying times, you will have to make conscious and smart efforts to re-sell your services.
With the pandemic came new problems that were not really an issue before now. Therefore, a good place to start is to identify these new issues and tailor your marketing strategy to provide solutions for these new concerns.
Outlined below are some of the new changes in the child care industry that every smart marketer should take note of.
- Parents have new concerns: Although parents have always had concerns when choosing the right child care center for their kid(s), we cannot deny that the stakes just got higher, with more focus on health and safety. Hence, be ready to get new concerns or requests from parents that you may not be conversant with. What is your solution to these new concerns?
- CDC dished out new guidelines: If you have reopened your child care center then I guess you have heard [and implemented] the new operating guidelines stipulated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). This extensive guide is necessary to ensure the health and safety of the children, their families, staff, and providers. Be that as it may, the new guidelines open up a whole new world of responsibilities to both providers and staff.
To beat the race, you have to completely revamp your existing marketing strategy. Your focus should be on addressing the concerns of parents and staff. In this article, we handpicked 5 surefire marketing tips to help you get your enrollment back to pre-COVID levels.
- Rewrite promotional messages
Still using your promotional messages from pre-COVID days? Take a break! At the moment, your promotional messages should rightly address parents’ concerns and fears. Remember they need to know their kids are in a safe place. Be sure to include active procedures you have put in place to mitigate their fears.
- Add a unique selling point in your email
Of course, you are revamping your marketing strategy, however, that in no way says ditch the old marketing channels. Email marketing, SEO and the likes are still relevant. The difference lies in the manner in which you execute the campaign.
With email marketing, experts advise you include a unique selling point (USP) to capture the attention of your reader. Ideally, this should come in the form of a picture as the human brain is designed to quickly spot colors and photos, and patterns before texts. This way, you are sure the reader already knows what is in it for them. Who wouldn’t want to read till the end?!
- Promote contactless operations
With the new CDC guidelines, parents are on the lookout for facilities that already implement these new safety measures. You will be surprised at the amount of traffic you will attract just by promoting the new guidelines. This helps parents to relax a bit, knowing that you are in the know, and already putting things in place to implement them.
- Don’t forget your CTA
As a marketer, I suppose you already know the vital role Call To Action (CTA) phrases play in any marketing strategy. Just a little tweak though. Endeavor to include an offer in your CTA. Considering the ugly impact of the COVID-19 on families, you may want to offer some discount to attract more prospects to your facility.
- Connect with your community online
Let’s face it – the importance of connecting with the local community cannot be overemphasized. However, that is not possible due to social distancing directives. To ensure your facility doesn’t lose out on the benefits of connecting with the community, marketing experts advise Providers to bring the tours and meetups online. Make sure you reach out to parents via social media.
Take away!
Child care reopening may not be what it used to be, but we are happy to know that there are some marketing hacks to give us an edge over our competitors.
Got more tips to share? Let me know in the comment section below. Good luck!
