The topic of how to find new customers has been talked about in the past, so I thought it may be good to have a quick round-up of what methods you have tried, which worked and which didn't. This will with luck help all of us involved in marketing childcare services to families.
The main source of enquiries I get are generated from my Babysitting website . Many visitors find my childcare service having searched on either Google or MSN for 'babysitting'. However, not many of these visitors convert to becoming customers, unsure as to why, though I expect it is to do with the very loose keyword they have used to find my website. 'babysitting' is too loose a keyword, it could be used by anyone, anywhere. It could be used by someone looking for work, as well as parents looking for childcare.
The problem: I don't know what phrases parents will type into a search engine, when they are looking for childcare. Has anyone found a soluition to that?
School PTA newsletter - This year, I am advertising in one school PTA newsletter. It is published one a term, and so far there was been one edition containing my advert. It generated one enquiry, who did not respond at all to email sent to them, and their phone number went constantly to answer-phone and despite leaving several messages, they didn't call me back. So far, results are very poor for this type of marketing.
What have you tried... what worked, what failed?