Where should I advertise our pre-school?

[Eddas]

Hi, i'm the administrator of our local pre-school and am going to start a small advertising campain. I will take a few A4 and A5 posters to places and ask them to put them up for us. We don't want to pay to advertise as we're charity run.

So where are good places? I have already thought of local doctor, library, HV clinic, school(s)

We have a website which we get a few enquiries from as we're one of the few small pre-schools with a site. We're lucky as our manager's dh is a web designer.

I will also ask the local paper to include as as part of their 'local section'.

TIA

oh and i've put an advert on netmums

Do you have a local "Families" magazine? It might be worth advertising there and thus being included in a Nursery Round Up edition (ours has one of those annually).

Where do your leaders go on to? If it's schools with nurseries smaller than reception, can you (plus satisfied parent) find the right person in the school (the one who would tell prospective parents that the nursery was full) that the other nice nurseries they know include (your name)

Word of mouth matters - can you reach any toddler groups? Poster where they meet, plus the vital word of mouth.

Who is your target audience - do you do full days (8ish until 6ish) or sessions, or what? These settings will appeal to different families, and make factors such as location/commutability have different importance.

"leaders" damned predictive keyboard "leavers"!

hi onimolap, we're just a little local type pre-school, doing mornings only. a lot of our children go onto one particular school and that's where i'll put up an ad.

We do get alot of children through recommendation already

I'm just a bit worried as we only have 40 children on our register and half leave in July for school. Although this is my first year in the job so probably will sort itself out nearer to Sept but i'm thinking advertising would be a good idea.

Not sure there's much point in doing a magazine, more local advertising that's needed. I suppose advert in a local mag might be ab idea, but i'd think they'd charge us for that and we can't afford to pay anything to advertise(we're a charity)

I'll look into toddler groups. Good idea.

I might ask parents how they found us but I suspect majority where recommendation.

I'm going to suggest we buy an 'A' type advertising board to put outside our preschool and so that we can take it to the local fete we attend each summer. I know that'll cost money but it should last for years.

Local fete sounds good. Also think about what fundraisers you could do and assess each one for publicity value. A "sponsored toddle" with local newspaper coverage will help get your name known, as would sending pix of visits (fire stations or whatever) to the local rag with a text they can plagiarise (assuming you have a local still).

Soft play centres
Family friendly cafes
Childrens centres

What age do you start from? If you take babies or toddlers then contact the NCT and maybe give out flyers at their next nearly new sale.

Might also be worth printing some flyers and giving a few to the parents of your current children to pass on to their friends.

hi! where is your nursery? i am looking for anything within 15 free hours for my 4 year old..pleas help:)
annie

hi! where is your nursery?i am looking anything within 15 free hrs for my 4 year old.. please help??
annie

Have you thought of trying to get in the local press as a story? It's free and great publicity. I work in a private day nursery and we are always ringing the local paper and inviting the photograper in to take pictures of events, such as open days, dress up days, fundraising days etc. It's a great way of raising your profile.
We don't advertise at all, it's all word of mouth and being part of the community.

Word of mouth

Word of mouth

Word of mouth

Have I made myself clear - don't spend too much on advertising, I have been involved in pre-schools for years and 90% comes from personal recommendation. Ask your existing parents to recommend you to their friends, give them printed cards they can hand out, offer a complimentary 'trial sesion' (parent stays with child) - open mornings etc.

Pre-school learning alliance and your local council should give you some ideas as well (most councils have an on-line listing of all pre-schools).

Are you in a village/small town - you can usually get free coverage by doing a write up in the village/Parish magazine.

Good luck.

Family information service

Local community centre

Definitely the local schools

Make sure your website is linked from other info sites too - Tourist information, council, any other sites that people may use when researching preschools.

wow! I go off for a minute to get dressed and there's loads of replies!

Our pre-school is 2-school age, and most of our children are via recommendation.

I will look into getting our website linkind locally.

I will look at whether we are on CFIS website, we used to be but not sure since it's changed.

Ragwort, no definately don't want to spend money on advertising, it was more a question of where to put up our poster.

The trouble with press stories at the moment is our hall is under threat of throwing us out it is a church hall and they are going to sell it. TO cut a long story short the ladies runing the church thought they could sell it for redevelopment but it's a listed building and the council have said they will not get change of use. So although it is up in the air whether we will need to relocate it is looking hopeful that the parish council will try to buy the hall. so at the moment, with that in mind I don't think we can use a local story to advertise.But it is an idea for the future

Once we know if we have our hall I will ask for a piece in the local paper, we can be one of 'those' pre-schools all stood outside cheering because we are staying, or with sad faces coz they're making us relocate

Make sure your web listings are good as pp said.

Local area websites, council etc. When I moved areas I did most of my searching online for a pre-school. But then just do a good job and that's all the advertising you will need

I know it sounds potty but put some flyers in take-aways. In the early days of having a new baby, some of us are guilty of having gone to take-aways more than we would have done (to feed ourselves) -

also if there is a space for it, the train station - or if you have one the train station cafe. Cafes definitely.

good luck

thanks for the suggestions, Train station is one to think about but our local station is rarely used.

Also, cafes are good

I need to think about where mums go with their children

But I do think that most people look online, I know I did so I need that to be linked everywhere.

I checked our local CFIS and we are on there but with out of date details so that's on my list to find out how to get it changes asap.

Then I think i'll get onto the parish council and get us linked to them and I think we have a village website, so need to be linked to that.

I've been busy googling pre-schools to see if we come up! I have found we're not listed in BT phone book so I've emailed them to be added, have emailed CFIS to see how I can get that changed.

I'm also going to make a list of where we're advertised online so that when details change they can be easily updated.

I've also thought most of our children come from 3 different areas nearby so i'll concentrate on those for adverts in shops.

I'm also going to try and find local toddler groups but i'm sure when I looked there weren't any that are local, which is a gap in the market really isn't it! I really don't have time or energy to help with that though

I have just been looking for pre-schools for my DD and my first point of call was the local council's website - on their pages about education there's a list of pre-schools. So make sure your entry is as up to date and detailed as possible. Do you have a website you could then link to?

Also: children's centres.

Make sure you send stories about the nursery to all the local Parish magazines as well (especially as you're in a threatened Church Hall.

The readership might not be exactly your target audience, but it will help root you in the neighbourhood consciousness (IYSWIM). And it's normally free. Even the very elaborate ones (that double as village magazines) are dirt cheap if you have to stick in the odd advert as well.

wigeon, i'm working on updating our council listing as it is out of date, and we do have a website which isn't listed on there which isn't good.

onimolop, I'll look into the local parish mags. I know our village doesn't have one, the nearest thing to one is the church newsletter and i'm not sure they'd put us in there, as they're chucking us out

Local neighbourhood or local mums facebook groups. Quite effective and most groups will let you do a one off promotion. And it is free and right to target. I have seen it in our local groups in Richmond, and it really raises awareness on local options