Marketing for child care can be
simple in some ways and tricky in others.
Driving around town (I live in a very small town on the border between
Washington and Idaho) I see various child care signs. Some of them are simple….ABC Childcare
123…..or a cute name with a picture on the sign.
When I was looking for child care
for my children I knew all of the resources to use. I was well versed with the local child care
resource and referral agency (R&R) – not only because I understand
R&R’s and know what they do….but also because the local phone directory accidentally
listed my business as an R&R…that took a few months to fix! Yikes! The number of calls I received was
huge.
But, beyond calling the R&R
and asking the typical things, like ages served, hours of operation, etc., I wanted to know which programs had good
local reputations. I asked my friends, I
read the signs (and crossed those with misspellings in their signs off my list)
and called the providers so I could take a tour and meet them. I also asked for their references (former
parents from their program who would be willing to talk to me).
Another thing I did was contact
our local elementary school. I spoke to
the Kindergarten teacher and asked her which preschool/child care program were
the most Kindergarten-ready children coming from. She told me that she had never been asked
that question, but she readily had an answer.
Since Kindergarten-readiness was my top criteria, I enrolled my children
in that program.
If you don’t know the local
Kindergarten teachers, you might just want to go introduce yourself and find
out if they think your students are Kindergarten ready!
Mindy
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