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How To Get Child Care Enrollment Leads From Social Media…

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If you’ve been waiting for the right time of the year to run social media ads for your child care business, this is it! As most of you know, the beginning of the year is usually a very busy time for child care centers. January can mean a time of change for some families, and other families are planning for changes to come. That means it’s time to get some social media ads out there to engage with the people that will need your services.

My child care clients have been seeing great results this January. Social media ads can get expensive towards the end of the year (November & December), because you are competing with all the other businesses that are running ads over the holidays. (This happens because you usually pay for the ads based on a bidding system.)

How should you take advantage of this time of the year? For many of my clients, I will run offers to potential families for a special to save $300-$1000 off enrollment. I’ll put together targeted Facebook ads that run specifically to families with the right age children within driving distance to the school. A parent will see the ad and click to input their information in order to get the flyer or coupon to save on enrollment. On the coupon will be a number to call to book a tour. If they don’t book a tour right then, it’s ok, now you have their email information and phone number so you can continue to market to them throughout the year. If you are consistent about sending out emails and engaging with your leads, this means even more enrollments down the road.

This January I’ve seen some of the best results from social media ads yet. If you have an offer or special that you’re running in a newspaper or have on a flyer, now is a great time to create an online ad for it. I started a campaign for one of my clients just a couple days ago and they have already gotten 6 leads!

If you try out this strategy, make sure to have a tracking number set up that you use on the coupon, so you know which calls are coming from the ads. The coupon should also state that the touring family should show the coupon to get the savings. The director or person doing the tour can then mark that person in your tracking software as coming from Facebook. This is a complete system that will let you know exactly how many enrollments you get from running the campaign.

If you’ve been waiting to build Facebook ads, now is the right time.

Try it out, and let me know what kind of results you get!

Do you struggle with figuring out what to post on your child care center’s social media pages? Never be stumped again…get the Social Media Content Cheat Sheet, just for child care centers.

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Social Media For Child Care: Better Engagement Means Lower Cost Ads

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There’s one important thing you should understand about engagement on social media. It’s something I call the “Wave Effect” that happens with Facebook and Google search and riding the wave will save you money with ads!

When your audience starts responding to and engaging with a particular post, Facebook recognizes that this is happening, and is more likely to show your next post to more people (or more of your posts, if it is happening a lot). In other words, if you put out a highly engaging post one day, the next post you put out after that is much more likely to reach more people.

Facebook also recognizes when a particular link is getting a lot of click-throughs from your posts and that makes a difference in creating your ads. If you create an ad from a link that is getting a lot of social media attention, then Facebook is much more likely to show your ad to your audience, which will cost you less, since it has been deemed relevant and engaging.

For example: Let’s say you post a link on your Facebook page leading to your blog post called, “10 Questions You Should Ask Every Daycare On A Tour,” and you get a lot of natural engagement. Then, when you turn around and create an ad or a boosted post with that link, you’ll save money because it has already been deemed a high-quality link. This means you’ll reach more people for less money. So, an ad or boosted post can be used to amplify an already engaging post to reach a massive amount of people with a more cost-effective ad.

If we put out a social media post, and it’s engaging, highlights our brand, and supports our marketing, this is generally a good time to at least boost it, because it will be a more cost-effective boost, and we’ll “surf the wave” of engagement, so to speak.

Facebook even takes into account signals from around the web. If you get a lot of website visitors because people search for “child care Dayton, Ohio” and you’re the first one that shows up in search results for those terms, Facebook recognizes you as a high quality site. This means they will more likely show your posts and ads to your website at a lower cost. It all works together!

Hate staring at your computer screen, trying to figure out what to post on social media? Get The Social Media Content Cheat Sheet, Just For Child Care Centers

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My Child Care Client Just Hired 2 Amazing Professionals From Facebook Ads

I opened my email the other day and received the nicest email from a child care client about the social media ad campaigns I just ran to recruit employees for her child care business.

She said,

“I have to say that hiring you was definitely worth every penny! I cannot believe the qualified applicants we have received from your social media campaign!!!! We have hired two amazing professionals and have a dozen or more resumes. Not only did we get great applicants but we also have had more visits to our website and Facebook page in the last month. In addition we have also scheduled a few tours from this campaign. I would strongly recommend anyone who is struggling to find good applicants to hire you. I will no longer waste valuable time or money when I need teachers. I will always look to you in the future for your assistance in searching for great professionals in the Early Childhood Field!! Thank you for your help. Of course you can use this as a testimony!!! I look forward to working with you in the near future.”

Facebook ads can be an effective way to get leads for new enrollments at your child care business but did you know you can also use Facebook ads to find staff?!

I know finding qualified staff for your child care is one of the biggest issues child care owners are facing today. If you’re struggling, it might be worth it to try out a Facebook ad campaign. I helped another client set up an ad campaign a couple weeks ago and her director just hired on 3 new people that applied after the campaign!

There are a couple ways to go about hiring from Facebook. The simplest way is to just boost a post out to your Facebook fans and their friends. Another option when boosting a post is to choose people to target. You can target people that live in your area that have interests that are related to early childhood education, preschool, pre-k, child development, etc. Try this out and see what kind of results you get. Targeting when boosting a post though is EXTREMELY limited so it can be worth it to try out Facebook Ads Manager.

Once you get into Facebook Ads Manager you can get even more targeted. In Facebook Ads Manager you can run ads to people that live in your area with certain degrees, that have gone to certain schools, that have particular job titles such as preschool director, child care provider, child care assistant, etc. You can run ads to people that have just moved to the area (so may be job hunting) or even people that work for other child care businesses! Explore around the demographics options and you will find endless options to find potential staff that might be right for your center. I have compiled entire lists of demographics and interests options that are working really well for hiring!

In the ad/post make sure to explain why your child care would be such a great place to work! Video of your employees having fun or talking about why they like to work in child care and at your business works really well. If you don’t have video, images of your happy staff and testimonials also works.

Just as with posting the job anywhere else, don’t post boring job descriptions that state pay and hours! Give people reasons to want to work for you, people choose jobs for many reasons beyond pay and hours. You’ll want to write your ad so that you find people that are a good fit.

Good luck, I can’t wait to hear your results!

Get The Social Media Content Cheat Sheet, Just For Child Care Centers

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How Do You Get Child Care Leads From A Blog?

Do you have a blog for your child care business? Even though most child care centers don’t, setting aside time to consistently create valuable content will set you apart from the competition and give you a ton of opportunities to communicate with potential families, drive traffic to your website, and get leads!

How do you get leads from a blog? With my own clients I’ll craft content with lead generation in mind. If you’re posting your blog on social media (which you should!) think about what would make someone that is actually searching for child care to click over. Sure, a craft how-to post or recipe is great from time to time, but is it enticing for leads searching for child care? More appropriate for this goal would be a child care search checklist, what makes a child care safe, a post on what makes your educational style different than other child care centers, “How To Tell If (insert your child care name) Is Right For Your Child”, an interview with the owner, “The Ultimate Resource For Transitioning Into Child Care” etc.

So now you have a topic, the blog is written, then what? Post the blog on Facebook, then create an ad with the post targeting families with children ages 0-5 (or whatever is appropriate for parents of the blog post you are writing and the age group you want to fill at the center). You will need to do this in Ads Manager, but this will give you the opportunity to show your Facebook post to your prime target market (while also getting your page more likes as an added benefit).

I’ve been sending my clients hundreds of website visits per blog post doing this. But what about the leads? Sure, I send them a click, but then what?

Make sure to end every blog with your phone number and/or a button to your inquiry form. Here’s an example of what I end every blog post with:

Does this sound like it might be a perfect place for your child to thrive? Give us a call at [preferably a tracking number so you can measure success] to book a tour and come see for yourself what a [your school] education is like!

Or for more info about our programs click the button below and we’ll send you an email!

Then we’ll end the blog with a button like this, sending people to the online inquiry form:

That way you are leveraging your blog posts into a lead generation machine!

The next step is to create Facebook ads to people that have visited your blog post (this is called REMARKETING) but that is a whole other article! For now, think about how you can leverage your blog for lead generation. Stay tuned for future tips on how to write a good blog!

Never Be Stumped About What To Post On Social Media Again…Click To Get The Social Media Content Cheat Sheet, Just For Child Care Centers

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Child Care Owners: Do You Have Facebook Reviews? Now Is The Time.

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Facebook is testing out a new service similar to Yelp that could impact your child care business. It is a search engine of local Facebook business pages based on reviews.

So therefore, a potential client can go in and search for child care services near them and see all the top reviewed child care businesses. You can check it out for yourself here.

A search for “child care” in my area turns up results like this:


You probably already know how important reviews are for your child care business and Facebook is one hot spot where you should be collecting them, alongside the others. But this new service is all the more reason to start doing it NOW.

While Facebook is still testing and perfecting this service (there were some non-related search results in there for my area) it is definitely something to keep an eye on. It’s yet another area where parents (potential clients) will be able to find you, judge credibility, and do their information gathering on their enrollment decision.

If you don’t see any way for people to give you reviews on your Facebook business page you need to make sure your page is categorized as a “local business.” Only local businesses can receive reviews. You can change your category in the “About & Info” section of your business page.

How to collect reviews? Just ask. Send out a link to your email list. When you send out a link to the reviews section of your Facebook page people will automatically have the option to leave their own review at the top if they are signed in to Facebook (which most are). Offer an incentive for leaving a review such as a drawing for a gift card. Getting these reviews is not only great for where you show up in the Facebook Services listing but also where your Facebook page shows up all around the internet (Google, Yahoo, etc.).

Now go out there and get some reviews for your business!

Want more tips on how to do social media for your child care? Click here.

 

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Using Pinterest To Market Your Preschool

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Have you heard of Pinterest? If you love visual marketing and creative ways of interacting with your child care clients, then you’ll want to check out this social media platform!

Pinterest is a fun and easy social networking site that connects people around the world through common interests. It is allows users to visually share ideas, beautifully curate their own image boards, and browse what other users have pinned to discover new interests. Because you can quickly and easily share images with over 100 million users, Pinterest is now considered to be one of the most effective ways to promote a business online.

To help get you started, I’ve put together some simple and effective tips for putting Pinterest to work in marketing your preschool…

START A PINTEREST ACCOUNT FOR YOUR PRESCHOOL

Make sure your profile clearly states what your preschool is about, what makes you stand out above the rest, and how you can help your clients. Always link back to your website.

Set up a Pinterest button on your own website for parents to easily find you. By integrating Pinterest share buttons into your other social media platforms (such as Facebook & Twitter) you can greatly increase your audience and interaction. Your school newsletter is also a great place to include a link to your Pinterest account.

CREATE A ‘TOUR YOUR CENTER’ BOARD

Take advantage of Pinterest’s visual real estate and create a TOUR YOUR PRESCHOOL board. Create pins by adding photos of your classrooms, outdoor spaces and activity centers. Be sure to include the things that make your school unique.

A ‘MEET THE TEACHER’ board is a great way for your staff to say hello and introduce themselves to the parents by including a picture & short bio.

Now you can direct potential clients to your preschool Pinterest page so they can tour your center online!

ADD NEW BOARDS + PROMOTE YOUR PRESENCE

Start by researching what your potential clients are pinning and create your own boards based on their interests. Some of the most popular kid & family friendly Pinterest trends that people search for are:

– Easy DIY activities for kids

– Children’s books

– Lunch + snack ideas

– Art + crafts

– Kids science experiments

– Sensory play

– Nature activities

– Parenting hacks

– Quotes + Humor

– Inspirational + Motivational

Always carefully select the most striking images for your board covers to keep your profile page looking the most attractive. Once you create a range of boards that are relevant to your preschool it’s time to start pinning and promoting your presence. Find new people, follow top influencers, pin, repin, comment on & like pins, repeat. Get some interaction going and find yourself getting new followers.

Seasonal and Holiday themed boards are often a big hit and can aide in getting you noticed. Choose something fun or engaging that you’ve pinned that fits a current season, holiday or trend, and cross-promote it on your other social media platforms.

CREATE PINNABLE CONTENT + BEAUTIFUL IMAGERY

If your preschool has a blog always use bold, eye-catching, clear high quality images. Keep in mind that light images are repinned 20 times more often than dark, and simple images have a greater impact.

Have a pinnable image on every blog post you publish, always post it to Pinterest, and include relevant links back to your website or blog. You have two opportunities with each pin to add your link: one in the description and one in the source for the pin. Create your own fresh content!

OPTIMIZATION + CALL TO ACTION

It’s one thing to create a fantastic pin, but it’s a whole other game to get it seen and shared. No one is going to find your pin if you don’t optimize it for engagement. Use hashtags, add descriptive accompanying text, and if you’re pinning someone else’s content always give credit where credit is due. A ‘call-to-action’ will significantly increase the engagement of your pins- up to 80% more. In your pin’s description, ask a relevant question or add a little something like:

“Repin to your own inspiration board.”

ALWAYS USE KEYWORDS

Since users can search for pins, boards, and pinners by keywords, you need to put keywords everywhere you can. Include them in the descriptions on your pins, your boards, and even your profile. Keywords are just as important on Pinterest as they are on Google.

POST FREQUENTLY

Aim for 5-20 new pins daily, and make sure you are spreading your pinning throughout the day to gain the most followers and get the best engagement.

TIP: Creating a ‘Secret Board’ can save you tons of time! Load up your pins a couple times a week and keep them on your secret board. Throughout each day, return to the board and grab the pins you want to pin on your other live boards.

MOST POPULAR BOARDS FIRST

Over time, you’ll be able to see which boards are more popular and get the most engagement. Put your best foot forward and move these boards to the top of your page so when users come over, they will see your best material first.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Connect with parents, families, and potential clients in your area by using local keywords in your searches and by including them in your hashtags. You may not be able to search FOR specific users by their location, but you can search for pins that include these keywords in their descriptions. Try searching your town, city, state etc to engage on local posts, and add place names in your hashtags to get discovered.

…AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, ENGAGE…

FOLLOW other pinners and their boards. Take time to COMMENT on the pins of other users. You can also LIKE a pin, but making a comment takes it one step further and gets more attention. Doing both is even better! SHARE if you like something and appreciate it, by repinning to your own board. ADD CONTRIBUTORS to your boards. You can let other parents join the fun on your page, as it will create an image of approachable, fun company to follow and more people will want to get involved. This can be a fantastic way to gain insight into your audience’s tastes and preferences and create a sense of community around your preschool Pinterest page.

Get the content guide cheat sheet to help your childcare grow their social media network.

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Boosted Posts vs. Dark Posts in Facebook

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If you are new to advertising your business on Facebook it’s important to understand the difference between boosted posts vs. “dark posts”.

In short, a boosted post is published from the News Feed on your Facebook business page. A dark post is created and published with Facebook Ads Manager or Power Editor. A dark post DOES NOT show up on your Facebook business page, although it shows up in the News Feeds of other people (that you choose through targeting) as coming from that business page.

Think of your Facebook business page as a “store front,” “community center,” or “brand center” where you can create messaging that supports and engages your audience so you can build a relationship with people that are already interested in what your business has to offer. Now think of dark posting as a function of “Ads Manager” which is more the back-end advertising machine of your business.

Dark posting allows you to run multiple ad posts with different messaging to as many different target groups that you need. You can run ads to people that have visited your website, ads to different demographic audiences you create, lookalike audiences, etc. And it doesn’t all show up as an advertising mess on your Facebook business page. It is all organized in Facebook Ads Manager.

You can also split test. You can switch out images if one isn’t working for a particular audience or test different copy or offer ideas. You constantly want to be split testing your ads for improvement and using dark posts allows you to do this.

Hopefully this clarifies a little better on what it means to advertise on Facebook. Happy marketing!

For more tips and tricks, get the social media content guide cheat sheet, just for childcare centers. 

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Should You Create A Landing Page For Your Facebook Ad?

Something to consider when marketing your childcare business on Facebook is WHERE you are sending new potential customers to. If you just send them to your child care website then you probably aren’t capturing their information. Why do you want to capture their information? Studies show that you need to have at least 7 connection points with a potential customer before doing business. This is ESPECIALLY true in child care, an industry heavily based on trust, with a lot of time and consideration put into the decision making process. If you capture their email and telephone number, you then have endless opportunities to follow up with them and create a RELATIONSHIP with them via email, text, a follow up call, etc.

A landing page is a spot where the potential customer can sign up for more information/events/giveaways, coupons etc. This is the key way to collect important data and contact information from your potential customer. Landing pages are a great way to utilize Facebook ads to capture the information of families in your area.

First, its important to understand that a landing page is a standalone web page distant from your main website that has been designed for a single objective. The main reason for this is so not to distract your visitor from the intended goal, such as joining your email list. You can use websites such as www.leadpages.net to aid you in creating beautifully designed landing pages. They have tutorials and templates which make the whole process easy to handle.

The main type of landing page for a child care center to focus on is Lead Generation. A Lead Generation landing page is used to capture visitor data such as name, email address and telephone number. A lead page will have a form to enter details and a description on what the visitor will gain in return for submitting personal data. For example, you could be offering a coupon if they book a tour of you childcare center and for a visitor to be able to book an appointment they would need to hand over their contact details.

Below are some tips to get the most out of your landing page to drive your business…

1. The best way to get your visitors to sign up is to keep the data required to the bear minimum, people don’t like giving over personal details at the best of times so keep it as streamlined as possible.

2. Make your call to action (CTA) big and prominent and above the fold (able for people to see without scrolling down too much) so viewers can’t miss it.

3. A landing page should have a single purpose and thus have only one single focused message!

4. Make sure you show your service or product being used in context, pictures of cute kids works well. Imagery is key here.

5. Use testimonials if you have them. Viewers are more likely to sign up if they read positive feedback on the service you are offering!

6. Experiment with A/B testing, testing different imagery or copy and letting your viewers decide.

7. Make sure you include contact details and social media links so viewers can read up on your childcare services, you’ll look more trustworthy and viewers are more likely to sign up!

That is all for now, I hope this information helps and guides you to creating a successful landing page to further your childcare business and get the most out of your social media ads!

Want more tips on how to do social media for your child care? Click here.

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8 Top Tips On Using Video In Your Social Media

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Ever thought about creating video ads to drive traffic, sales and awareness? Or just not sure if your video ads are ticking all the boxes? I’ve noted some helpful hints and tips to help you get on your way and start converting those viewers to successful new enrollments at your child care.

Videos get three times as much engagement than any other content but unfortunately it’s largely underutilized. Facebook has reported that video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the U.S. Now you see how video is becoming more and more important, use the steps below to create awesome video ads to drive traffic to your childcare business today.

1. Think About The First 3 Seconds

Have you ever noticed that videos on desktop and mobile news feeds play automatic when you’re scrolling through? So you probably have around 3 seconds to grab that viewers attention before they scroll on past. You need to get your viewers invested immediately with engaging content, minimal text and optional background music.

2. Offer It Up

Don’t do an advertisement unless you have a compelling offer for your call to action. End the video with a call to action….maybe a coupon with a discount or even an invitation to an an event like a family fun day or open house at the end of the video.

3. Get Personal

Videos are a great platform to show off your personality. If you record yourself, speak directly at the camera and make the viewer feel like your connecting with them. Make sure you sound excited about your business and show off what you have to get people to convert. Never forget that people make connections with people not businesses.

4. Captions Galore

Be sure to add captions to your video so they can still be watched and understood with the sound off.

5. Curiosity Got The Headline

Make sure your headline is eye grabbing and compelling, you want your viewers to be instantly interested. It’s also a great idea to start doing some split testing here, change your headlines and see what’s getting the most attention and conversion.

6. Don’t Forget The Text

Adding text to a video is an awesome way to help the viewer get the information without watching the whole video. Use iMovie or Movie Maker to do this and only state important points.

7. Be Descriptive Please

Make sure your description is detailed and informative, say what you need to say to support your video content.

8. Always Analyze

Facebook provides deep insights and allows you to understand your audience like never before. Having this knowledge will prepare you to deliver content attracting more of that audience. Metrics to note are: your demographics, avg view duration, 10 second views, sound on, sound off, and clicked annotations.

Want more tips on how to do social media for your child care? Click here.

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Social Media Basics: One Simple and Free Way To Organically Grow Your Business Page

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This is a really simple tip that can organically increase relevant traffic to your Facebook business page.

Check out the video to learn how:

Login to Facebook and then choose the option to use Facebook as your business page. (The video below will give you instructions.)

You will then see a separate news feed that is the news feed of your “business page.” From here you can search for and like pages and also comment on and like other business page posts. This can give you a boost of organic traffic and also give you ideas for content to post on your own business page.

Want more tips and tricks on growing your social media following, just for childcare centers?

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