The childcare sector has never known such growth, and with that unprecedented growth has come greater competition. Now more than ever, settings need to sharpen up their marking techniques if they are to keep ahead of the competition.
Marketing is about finding ways to inform potential customers about:
* the services that you offer
* how good you are at what you do.
To achieve this:
* highlight your commitment to and skills in educating and caring for children
* emphasise what makes your setting special.
Let's face it, no matter how good your club, nursery, pre-school or childminding business is, if you don't let people know about it, then you will be unlikely to thrive, far less be sustainable.
Without doubt, the best - and cheapest - kind of marketing is done for us when one parent recommends our services to another. However, there are marketing opportunities galore available to settings.
Quality assurance schemes
The better the quality of your provision, the easier it will be to market.
An excellent way to demonstrate your commitment to quality, improve how effectively your business is run and gain publicity thereafter, is to embark on a quality assurance scheme. Details of endorsed schemes appear on the Sure Start Unit website (www.surestart.gov.
uk/ensuringquality/investorsinchildren/endorsedqualityassuranceschemes/).
An alternative scheme and another excellent way to gain publicity is to embark on becoming an Investor in People (IiP).
Entering for awards - whether business awards or those given for excellence in early years - is also a fun way of showing off your business and can result, if successful, in masses of free publicity.
Staff
Your employees are walking marketers. If they are well trained and happy in their jobs, they will 'sell' your setting with every word they say. This, of course, begins with answering the telephone. A happy 'Good morning', the name of your setting and a welcoming 'How may I help you?' immediately suggests a professional approach.
Respond quickly to enquiries for a brochure and enclose a handwritten compliments slip, saying in a friendly fashion that you would be happy to arrange a visit for the parents, children and even the grandparents (who often help out with children's fees).
Building
Next, take a good look at your building. Does it reflect the good practice within? Regular decorating and attention to the outdoor area speak volumes about your commitment to the business.
An innovative sign giving details of your setting can create the first spark of interest from a prospective customer.
In my own school, I realised I hadn't quite got the signage right when a passing motorist enquired if he could have a room for the night!
Innovative signage can still be something simple. We have a ten-foot high metal boy and girl (taken from our logo) attached to a gable end of the nursery. With every season we put different hats on them - bobble hats for winter and sun hats for the summer. This always brings a smile to passers-by and keeps us in the public mind.
Branding
Branding should be an important aspect of your marketing strategy.
Everything that leaves the building - brochures, compliments slips, headed letters, franked envelopes, posters, child and staff uniforms, school bags, nursery mugs - should all bear your logo.
Brochure
Your brochure is a major marketing tool. When I first began thinking of opening up a nursery, I sent for brochures from many other settings and took some of the better ideas to add to my own. Then I approached Business Link which subsidised the printing of all my materials. In fact, Business Link and its Scottish equivalents, Scottish Enterprise and Local Enterprise Councils (LECs), are great allies in getting your business on the road.
If at all possible, use some of your marketing budget to buy in the services of a graphic artist to help you produce this all-important document.
Answering machine message
Many parents are simply too busy to call up during working hours for a brochure and are more likely to call out of hours. Therefore, a well thought out message on your answer machine offering callers the opportunity to leave their number for a return call or their address to receive a brochure can mean the prospect of filling another place.
Website
Busy parents may also very well use the internet in the evening or at weekends. A website, showing your setting at its best, can be the start of a whole group of clients contacting you.
In addition, your website allows you to tell the whole world (literally) about your resources, staffing facilities and what makes you different from others. Hence you may very well find, that with families locating from overseas to your area, you become a first choice.
At my school we have four websites: www.montessoriandmore.co.uk includes a virtual tour of the site, while the Monty Minders (after-school club) website www's Skatepark (www.montys-skatepark. co.uk) gives in cartoon fashion an introduction to 'ollying' and 'kickflipping' alongside more information. The fourth is for the school's teaching training centre (www.iceye.co.uk).
Children's Information Service
Marketing for free comes from your local Children's Information Service.
Ensure you are on this Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership's database, which will provide parents enquiring about settings in the area with your details.
Media attention? The more traditional approach to marketing, that is, putting advertisements in newspapers, has limited use. It is far better to negotiate a price for some advertorial or to get a mention in an early years feature which may be running in your local press. People reading newspapers tend to skim over advertisements whereas a 'good story' with a picture will often be given a prominent place. Seeking publicity in this way should be developed as a vital part of your policy.
Encourage staff to suggest ideas about what might make good reading. Try to bring humour into what you write. When Comic Relief had its slogan 'Say pants to poverty', we coaxed York Theatre Royal into lending us its famous pantomime dame Berwick Keller's bloomers. We hung these on a washing line suspended between our flagpoles and subsequently graced the front page of every newspaper in the area.
Good ideas should abound within your staff - we award a bottle of wine every month for the best marketing idea. One such idea, to create a Montessori classroom within the window of a department store in York, resulted in a greater awareness of the school and its ethos, and masses of publicity.
Another way to draw attention to your setting is by using your expertise.
For example, offer yourself as an 'expert' to your local radio station or suggest you run a question-and-answer column in the local (free) newspaper, and you can make mention of your setting in every programme or newspaper column.
Ultimately, marketing is at its best when it highlights what makes you stand out from the rest. It may be the commitment to training - hence your well-qualified staff; it could be your high child:staff ratio; perhaps you have gone organic with the children's meals or you may have a home-from-home feel to your setting. Whatever it is underline it, put it in neon lights and then get out there and tell everyone about it. If you don't, no one else will.
Rosie Pressland owns the award- winning Pocklington Montessori School in York, and is a director of online training company I-C-EYE
Key points
* Publicise your efforts to improve the quality of your business through, for example, management awards.
* Ensure staff are well trained and know how to deal effectively with customer calls.
* Make your building look attractive to potential customers.
* Organise your setting's branding.
* Produce a high-quality brochure.
* Leave a welcoming and clear message on an answering machine.
* Have a website.
* Make sure your details are included in your local Children's Information Service database.
* Find innovative and fun ways to attract publicity for your setting in local newspapers or radio.
* Marketing alone won't 'sell' poor quality provision.
