I Need Promotion Ideas

[permanentvacation]

My town has a ... kind of like a fair.... coming up. They have a good variety of local companies that set up a booth to promote their businesses. I have been there each year just walking through with the rest of the crowd checking everything out. This year, I have decided to participate and bought a space to advertise my daycare. Can you guys help me come up with ideas of how to promote my daycare there? We can pretty much do anything we want that will be free for the crowd. We can't sell anything.

Some ideas I have are the typical business cards, brochures, and coloring pages. But I want something that really will draw the kids to my booth. I am not creative and definitely can not face paint or anything like that. I am a broke single mother, so I have to watch the costs. I have about 6 weeks to get things together. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[jenboo]

I vote for music and some easy cheap games!
You could use buckets for like a bean bag toss game (you can make them out of socks and beans) or maybe find something to make a track that cars or balls can go down...?

[mskaykay]

One year we made lots of homemade playdough and put it in plastic baggies and attached a business card to each baggie. I have also ordered lots of tiny bottles of bubbles (like the kind they pass out as wedding favors) and handed those in a baggie with a business card. One year I set up a booth and on one side I had sensory bins for the kids to explore and on the other spin art and I talked to the parents in the front while the kids did projects. I once saw a group that just set a table of crayons and coloring pages out at their booth or a table with legos. Things that would make the parents hang out and chat for a few minutes. I liked the projects though because then the kids didn't stay endlessly... they finished up and left and I only had to chit chat for a few minutes.

[Mom2TLE]

You can find some cheap carnival games through oriental trading, then hand out a business card or brochure in a baggie with a coloring page and a couple crayons. Or a Frisbee with a sticker with your info on it. Or a drawing get of some kind maybe a toy for the kids and date night daycare for parents. Balloons will always draw kids but not sure you want to be the daycare handing out choking hazards. Snow cones, or ****ers and a business card.

[permanentvacation]

These are great ideas! Thank you!

[NoMoreJuice!]

My favorite small gift I've seen attached to a business card/brochure was a little snack-size baggie with a graham cracker, marshmallow, and wrapped miniature hershey bar. The note said "We're looking for S'more kiddos!"

I wanted to steal immediately. Too bad I'm stuffed full of kids and don't need to advertise.

[Second Home]

Buy a bubble machine , I got one for under $20 ( and it can be a tax write off) . Mine is battery operated .

[permanentvacation]

Nomorejuice,

That is so cute!! I might just do that! Thanks!

[MarinaVanessa]

double post. That's what I get for trying to type with a 1yo in my lap

[MarinaVanessa]

We have a yearly festival at a park where businesses and the city promote their services. We've gone 4 years in a row. Hands down the funnest and most crowded booths were from our resource and referral agency. All they did was make some sensory tubs out of cement mixing pans and PVC piping from a home improvement store.

They had a
sand table: play sand, little scoops and some play animals.
water table: water, measuring cups, turkey basters, little floating boats.
bean table: spoons, containers of different sizes.
soil: little shovels, containers of different sizes.



They had a banquet table set up with a waterproof tablecloth in bright yellow and a blue canopy for some shade. On the table they had business cards set up, and brochures (they print themselves, black/white). They also had pump soap, paper towels and a water cooler on top of the table near the edge filled with water. They used it for kids to wash their hands with before and after.

You can do something like that and I doubt you'll spend a whole lot in supplies. The pic above shows a clear storage bin but I prefer the cement mixing pans from like Lowe's or Home Depot because they are sturdier and cost less (but have no lids).
$6.00


You can get play sand and soil from a home improvement store also but be careful to check the bags and use clean sand and soil that has no chemicals in it. Play with it first to make sure you don't get chemical burns. You can even get 5 gallon containers with water at most Lowe's and Home Depots. Beans or rice you can get at the grocery store and the other stuff you can get from the dollar store.

If you wanted to really get creative and had a large child-size table and chairs you could set up an art area with watercolor paints, paper, brushes and cups of water (for rinsing brushes).

You can also make gift bags with stuff from Oriental Trading like
small coloring books (72 for $10)
crayons (48 boxes with 5 crayons for $9)
and maybe throw in some stickers (or not) and wrap them in clear bags with some balloon ribbon bows and curl the ends. I would make labels with my daycare info and phone number on it and stick it to the crayon box or coloring book and add a business card inside.

I would also have 2 or 3 complete parent packets for people to look through with my contract, handbook, rate sheet, holiday calendar etc. I'd have a clip board with a form for people to fill out if they wanted more info so that they could leave their name, phone number and email address.

Maybe even have some free bottles of water. Lots of ideas, just depends on how much you want to spend. You can do a lot of this for cheap if you get creative and have some of these items already on hand

[Learning Daycare]

Table idea

I love the table idea! I know you said you're a single mother on a budget so, the Dollar Tree has dish washing bins for $1. It would be much more cost effective than spending $8 on one. I'm hoping you come up with great ideas! Where in MD are you? I'm in PG county.

[permanentvacation]

I'm in Middle River in Baltimore County.

[permanentvacation]

Thanks guys! I've been taking notes and have already been doing some research on some of your ideas!

[MarinaVanessa]

I just though of something else ... what if you had a table with supplies for making gak? Back to school sales are starting so you can probably get a lot glue for cheap (I still have some from last year, I guess I went overboard when I bought glue during B to S sales ) and then all you need is water and borax ... food coloring if they want to color it (with a parent's help). You can get plastic sandwich size zip bags from the dollar store and stick a label with your DC info on it and they can take it home with them.

When I make it and follow the typical recipe I split it and enough for 4 kids to take some home and they have more than enough to play with. Just a thought.

Just thinking about activities that would be fun for the kids to do, impressing to the parents and were related to your DC.

I love the table idea! I know you said you're a single mother on a budget so, the Dollar Tree has dish washing bins for $1. It would be much more cost effective than spending $8 on one. I'm hoping you come up with great ideas! Where in MD are you? I'm in PG county.

The only thing about these is that it's better to just put these on a table than to put them in a stand. They don't hold much weight otherwise (I've tried a variety of different bins) and I wouldn't just put them on the floor, it looks more professional and is better for the kiddos to have them at their height instead of having to stoop during play.

You also don't have to make 4 of them, you can have only 1. The $6 pans are pretty big (just as big or bigger than the one in the photo) and 2 or 3 kids can play with it at a time. If you do only 1 sensory table I would choose water. ALL kids LOVE to play with water, you just have to haul the water to your booth .

[Josiegirl]

Cloud dough is popular too, as a sensory tub filler. Or what about making a bunch of sensory type bottles for kids to explore? Someone mentioned having stuff available to make tracks for balls and cars. They had something similar at a school play day type of event and it was very popular. If you could find a source for ultra strong cardboard tubes and have somebody cut them for you. Maybe you could beg recyclable materials from dcps and save some money that way.