You may be ready for the kids to come rushing in through your home daycare doors, but that doesn’t mean they will. There are a lot of home daycares today and the competition can get pretty fierce, so you’ll have to show that your daycare is better.

How?

With a little help of inexpensive home daycare marketing and promotion.

These tactics range from completely free to up to $100, and we’re showing you 5 that you can start using right away!

1) Promote your home daycare by showing you’re a child care expert

Cost: Free

When it comes to marketing your family child care business, the best thing you can do is show that you’re a pro.

Sure, running a daycare can get busy, but you probably have a lot of opinions at the end of the day.

Why not use that to educate your customers, and bring in some extra search engine traffic?

If you already have a daycare website set up, make a special section for the blog.

You can write about topics such as:

• Child care trends
• Best practices you’re using in your home daycare
• Local issues that are bothering families in your area
• Advice on developmental issues, family entertainment, etc.

You can also consider guest-blogging on child care blogs popular with your customers.

This will differentiate you from the very start. And since it’ll be obvious you’re an expert, your customers won’t be able to resist enrolling their kids into your home daycare.

2) Home daycare marketing and promotion with special discounts

Cost: Varies

A good way to get your foot in the door is to offer a discount or a special perk to a part of your community.

For example, you can offer earlier drop-off times for parents who have to be at work earlier than others. Offer a 5% discount for the first monthly home daycare tuition to parents who own small businesses.

Show that you want to engage with your community, and that you understand that their needs might be different. After all, your home daycare isn’t in a bubble, and you can make that work to your advantage.

Another way to use promotions and discounts is to offer a home daycare group discount.

If two families come together and want to enroll their kids into your daycare, offer them a monetary discount for the first month. You’ll be getting (at least) two new kids, and they’ll be reducing their expenses. It’s a win-win.

3) Invest in home daycare merchandise

Cost: Kid’s T-shirts start at $6

Merchandise is no longer reserved for bands, and you’re a rock star anyway, so why not get some recognizable merchandise for your home daycare?

This is a great option for home daycare marketing and promotion, especially if you go on field trips with the kids.

Make your T-shirts fun, add your logo and your daycare’s name to them, and watch as new kids roll in. You can also get hats or anything else that kids in your daycare tend to like.

In fact, you can even include the kiddos in the process of designing and choosing the merchandise. Parents will love that their kids get a vote, and you’ll get very affordable promotion.

4) Promote your customer reviews on social media

Cost: Free or up to $20

Chances are, you have a lot of happy customers, and you can use their testimonials to generate even more enrollments.

The best channels you can use for this are social networks.

If you really want to increase the success of this home daycare marketing tactic, you can also boost the post on Facebook (paid advertising) or on Instagram (paid advertising). Try setting a budget of at least $20, as that’s the minimal budget for seeing actual home daycare marketing and promotion results.

Make sure you use location features wherever you can to reach the families in your area!

5) Offer free workshops

Cost: Free or minimal expenses for snacks & refreshments

Just like with blogging, one of your marketing goals should be establishing yourself as an authority on child care.

A great way to do it is by organizing free workshops or lectures about parenting and child care in your home daycare. You can promote it as a separate event sponsored by your daycare.

And once parents see how much time (and money) you invest in providing superb child care, it’ll be very hard for them to say no to your daycare.

Covering home daycare marketing expenses

Good home daycare marketing and promotion tactics will get you very far, but sometimes the budget isn’t big enough or there are more important things.

That’s why you can use Hopping In, a drop-in child care app, to fill your daycare’s empty spots and earn extra revenue. It’s also a good way to market your daycare.

After all, it’s all about helping the parents find a pleasant place for their kid to have fun while they’re at work.

Hopping In can help you do it, and so can good daycare marketing.