Help!!!!! need sum advertising tips!!!!!!!!

[KiddieCare]

Hey im a registered childminder in islington, and need sum tips on advertising, i really need to get sum lil mindees.

What sort of help do you need? Do you need help writing an ad or making a Poster for advertising, or do you want to know how and where, etc....!

My sister found hers after they dropped a leaflet through her door. They told her later that they found three others that way

LMG's came up with a brill idea, get some balloons printed with your logo and contact details, and hand them out at the nearest school/preschool/christmas fair/church,

I have done soon posters and am gettin round to puttin them up, and ive put business cards thru peoples doors, ive posted on a few websites also, but most websites i use dont seem to have muc activity or there jus seems to be no interest,any website ideas? when i started out doing this i fort living in islington (de beauvior area) would be an advantage and there wud be no shortage of work, but im beginnin to feel a bit disheartend. I have only been advertising since beginnin of oct, in any1 experience how long has it taken to fill a vacancy?

A good tip is to find out where oyur local childminders meet up, we have a support group thing every week here. If you start to netwoirk then other childminders will pass on enquirys etc.

Just bumped this advertising tips thread for you

KC, are you willing to let us see what you put in your advertising material?

Maybe we could tweak it here or there and you could do a second campaign. Where is the de beauvoir area in Islington?

2sugars yh thats fine jus give me a sec to write it up lol, i live on Southgate Road!

I am a registered childminder living on the Islington/hackney border, on Southgate Road, I have 3 vacancies available.
I have just finished the unit 1 in childminding practice, and will continue from there to achieve the diploma in home-based childcare. I am also a qualified first aider.
I hold a NCFE level 2 qualification in teacher assistant, Child protection certificate, and a level 2 qualification in numeracy and literacy.
Most importantly I hold a current crb, and so do members of my household, also I am an NCMA (national chilminding ass) member with full public liability insurance.

I take children to local parks and children's centre's,swimming, museums, stay and play, libraries and jungle gyms, we do a variety of activities in- doors also, including cooking, arts and crafts and making play doh (sample time sheet available).

I offer a high standard of childcare to parents and the children in my care, my fees are inclusive of food, drinks, outings etc.
My hours are 8am-6pm, mon-fri,(slightly earlier start/finish negotiable).

I look forward to hearing from parents wishing to use my childcare service.
Contact Lyn on 02073544979
07882711527
or via email on [email protected]

Looney thanks for that i have advertised on most as i seen your tread before, i also have an electronic business card that is SUPPOSE to go out with my emails but i can only be used on outlook express and not hotmail, any ideas how to get it onto hotmail?

Keep trying to up your place on the DirectGov/ChildcareLink list - you last updated 5/11/07... making you in position 13. If it were a Google page, that would be position 3 on page 2. Get CIS to bump your listing as often as possible... I'd say aim to bump up ever 2 weeks - so as it's been over 14 days since last update, it's time to bump it up.

The amount of information on your ChildcareLink listing is small... add as much as CIS will permit. Example, currently you are listing as UNKNOWN for Provider Area. Tell CIS what you want to appear in that field - such as what your local neighbourhood is called. If you are in central islington, then get CIS to put Islington, rather than leaving it as UNKNOWN.

Get CIS to add to the Vacancies Details field. The more information the better. Also consider listing how much you charge.

Also add details of which schools you can collect from - currently your record is not showing any details for that.

From looking at Islington Childminder listings on DirectGov, it seems as though Islington CIS don't put much info online. Therefore make the most of what they will publish, and also enquire as to why they are not publishing more of the info.

Windsor & Maidenhead CIS publish the following fields, which do Islington seem not to publish:
Special diet:
Special diet details:
Cultural provision:
Other information:
Facilities:

Of these, Other Information and Facilities can contain what you like, so add as much info as possible. Islington CIS may refuse - but if they do, then get them to publish what they will, and complain that they won't list other information which other CIS around England do list.

I wouldn't bother with an electronic business card. Instead, have a SIGNATURE, which contains about 4 lines (of up to say 60 characters per line) of information.

In Hotmail, compose a new message. Click on Options, then click on More Options.
Then click on Personal E-Mail Signature
Type in your information, then click SAVE.
That info will then be added to the bottom of every e-mail you send out via Hotmail.

Am I allowed to point out typos? Might put some parents off.

I am a registered childminder living on the Islington/hackney border, on Southgate Road, I have 3 vacancies available.
I have just finished the unit 1 in childminding practice, and will continue from there to achieve the diploma in home-based childcare. I am also a qualified first aider.
I hold a NCFE level 2 qualification 'in' (as a) teacher assistant, Child protection certificate, and a level 2 qualification in numeracy and literacy.
Most importantly I hold a current crb, and so do members of my household, also I am an NCMA (national chilminding *ass**) member with full public liability insurance.

I take children to local parks and children's centre's,swimming, museums, stay and play, libraries and jungle gyms, we do a variety of activities in- doors also, including cooking, arts and crafts and making play doh (sample time sheet available).

I offer a high standard of childcare to parents and the children in my care, my fees are inclusive of food, drinks, outings etc (etc doesn't look professional).
My hours are 8am-6pm, mon-fri,(slightly earlier start/finish negotiable).

I look forward to hearing from parents wishing to use my childcare service.

Hope that makes sense, it's mainly capital letters with a couple of other problems (I don't think you should have ass!!). It would put me off - but I used to be a teacher!

Thanks alot for that nannynick, wasnt sure if they wud keep bumping it up, will call them 2moro.
also does anyone no how the whole after school pick works, im confused to why a cm wud give a vacancy space to a parent only requiring a few hour each evening rather than takin on a child mor full time, or do cm jus take pic ups when business is slow?

Hi CranberryMartini, thanks for pointing them out, you are totally right, i'll amend it str8 away.

Cool - hate pointing out other people's mistakes - if you're not sure what I mean by some of them let me know!

And good luck.

Thank you again x

After schoolers - those aged over 5 who come after school and in holidays, you can give 3 of these spaces away. Obviously all over 5's are at school all day so there is no-one to give an all day space to for that age group.

Then you have 3 under 5 spaces where you can have full timers.

LoveMyGirls- i am registered to look after 3 children under 8, i am worried that if i take an after schooler say from 3:15, then if sum1 comes to me lookin for all day care i will not be able to as i have taken on a after schooler, do u no wat i mean?

So you have 3 of your own children? How old are your children?

You don't have to give away an after school space but if you have 1 of your own under 5 adn 2 over 5 you may as well give 1 A/s space away as you won't be able to care for 4 under 5 anyway.

no no i am able to look after no more than 3 children at one time. i have a 5 year old lil boy who is at school full time. i am hoping to look after 3 all day, but if i only had two all day and one after schooler, and then i got an inquiry for a third child all day, i would have to either say no or not have the after schooler anymor? do things like this often happen? im worried about lettin parents down if an opportunity of mor work came to me.

Wait, if it says no more than 3 in total all day that means the most you can have is 2 full time in which case i would stick with trying to get full timers or perhaps one part timer (say they did 8am til 2.30pm) then an after schooler (from 3ish to 6ish)

Really I'd wait and see what you can get calls for an assess the situation at the time, if the first one you take on is only pt you can warn the parents that if a ft'er comes along for financial reasons you may have to give notice 9then they may nmot choose you but at least you have been up front) It could take you a year or more to get 2 ft'ers so to take pt in the meantime is more experience for you.

I started 18mths ago and have cared for quite a few children in that time. I started with a pt'er who did 15hrs then got a ft'er the two only over lapped by 2 weeks and then i just had 1 ft'er for ages eventually i kept the ft'er for 10mths in total and managed to get 2 ft'er who shared a space (7 til 2 then the other did 3 til 6) then my ft'er left and i got a child who did 4 days then one pt'er left ....I could go on forever, the fact is you can't pick and choose and you can sit forever and say what you would like/ not like but really you take what you can get and sometimes you let people down because you can't please everyone all the time esp with you limited numbers.

One tip I will give you is that if you have a pt'er who is adorable, parents are nice and they pay on time be very wary of giving that up even if someone wants a ft space because they may not be as reliable and may only stay a few weeks whereas the pt one would have stayed for a lot longer iyswim?

YH they say 3 all day, but they said my son was not included in the ratio as he was 5, so id be able to have 3 all day? i really didnt no how hard it wud be to get started in childminding, i think ive been quite naive to think work wud come flooding in. Also can i have your opinion on fees, i live in n1 islington