How Do You Advertise?

[originalkat]

My Best quality and most easily "sold" clients are ALWAYS word of mouth. I also use Craigslist (which is not very useful, but it's free and I occasionally get a call from it), my website got me my most recent client, and signs I put out on the corners which brings in calls but the quality of families is iffy.

[DaisyMamma]

I love all the tips. Thanks everyone. And I just got listed on daycare.com yesterday!

I voted craigslist.

[Crazy8]

That's pretty harsh. You actually have not been listed for a year yet. Daycare.com gets a lot of direct navigation and internal searches. We've seen areas that get great results from the internet depending on how internet savvy a region is. Obviously if more people in an area use the internet, more will contact through it. I always tell providers to offer some kind of discount if a client mentions Daycare.com. We found on PalmSprings.com that most bookings did not mention that they came through our site until the advertisers offered a 10% discount if they mentioned PalmSprings.com. That made all the difference. People will mention where they found a discount even if its for a dollar off!

Many internet users think the internet is Google, Yahoo or Aol. Many times they are not sure how they get were they ended up.

Marketing is not easy. Keep changing your content and advertising strategies until something works. We have had paying providers since 2003 that are still with us. KinderCare pays us every year to list all of their facilities (1700) and they KNOW were their money is coming from. They renew yearly.

I am very sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or this site. I love it here! lovethis But I was stating a fact that no one contacting me has ever mentioned daycare.com and I always ask where they got my info. I don't get many calls lately (see my other thread about that) but when I do they usually say "I just googled and found your website". It is not a dig at daycare.com at all - it is simply the way it comes up in a search and most people will use a search engine when looking for something like daycare - daycare.com does come up on page 2 or 3 and because I do have a website, a daycare facebook page and am listed on other sources it just never ends up that they make it that far before they've already found me. Also, I have been listed here for MANY years - my old daycare name was in the listings and I haven't used that name for at least 5 years so I am sure I listed it long ago. Again, I didn't mean to sound harsh, I'm sorry you took it that way.

[Wanda]

I was so glad to find your site by chance after dealing with Care.com for the past 2 days. Care.com does NOT recognize licensed home child care. When I mentioned on my profile that I was licensed, they denied my profile and said I would need to register as a business. The only category in the business section *is for childcare centers. *In the regular section there is only "babsitter" or "nanny". *Very frustrating. So good to see a site that recognizes the professional licensed childcare homes! Do you advertize on TV? How do potential clients hear of your site?

[Michael]

Thank you. Please consider registering. Daycare.com has been on the internet since 1997 and we are listed #1 when parents
search for "Daycare" on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

[MarinaVanessa]

I get most of my inquiries through the internet. I have a facebook, and list my daycare in the google places/business directories (have to list the address) which all have links to my website. I have also listed on CL with a link to my website however I get more hits through google places. People type in daycare in [my city name] and I pop up on the first google maps page and second page of the google search listings. It helps that I update my website regularly and submitted my website URL manually to all the search engines, that's one of the reasons that I get high placements. It's all free btw. I only pay a small yearly fee for my website because I wanted unlimited pages but I did very well with ther free version too (get 8 free pages). I now average about 3-4 calls amd 1 email a week from this. I got 3 calls just from today that I have to return and turn down happyface.