Nursery management means nursery marketing too

Early years providers aren't usually known for their hard-hitting marketing campaigns, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do any advertising at all. On the contrary, you can reap benefits from taking simple steps to get your setting's name out there, and get those enquiries flowing in.

Together with our friends at Childcare Marketing, we're launching the marketing investment calculator to get a quick overview of what you need to spend to improve your occupancy at your early years setting. You can use this calculator to understand:

• The total enquiries from prospective parents and carers you need to reach your company goals
• Your cost of acquiring a new customer
• The total value of each new parent who joins your setting
• Your recommended daily advertising budget
• How much you should invest in marketing activity to promote your setting and the likely return on investment from that marketing effort
• How much revenue you'll generate from your efforts (and the money you've paid)

The outcome? You'll get a better handle on your marketing budget and properly understand how increasing your spend can increase your revenue.

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How to download this childcare business marketing calculator:

1. Click on the link to open up the spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
2. To stay in Google Sheets, click on File > Make a copy
3. To use the spreadsheet in Excel, click on File > Download > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)

Where to start with early years and childcare marketing

Here's how to use and get the most out of your marketing strategy calculator:

1. Enter your Full Time Equivalency goal in Row 3.
   This is how many 'Full Time Equivalent' children you need to add on roll to meet your goal.
   
2. Add the number of days in which you'd like to meet these results in Row 4.
   Remember to be realistic here. Marketing is a great way of connecting with your community of potential customers, but it might not work overnight.
   
3. We calculate Row 5
   Essentially it's the number of days you've just entered but in months.
   
4. Add in the average monetary amount you get from a parent per year.
   If you don't yet have this information, now is a great time to find out. Knowing your average customer value is just one way you can stay on top of your key business figures.
   
5. Enter in how often your enquiries turn into registrations, as a percentage
   Again, if this is something you haven't previously looked into, take the time to do so now. If you have hundreds of enquiries but none of them convert to customers, you absolutely need to research why that is.
   
6. Finally, put in the average time a parent stays with you, in years.
   

And that's it! Everything else is either predefined or calculated based on the 6 entries you make above.

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Want to get more out of your enquiries?

So your marketing is working like a dream and you have enquiries from families pouring in on a regular basis. So how do you keep track of them all?

With Famly, enquiry management is truly simple.

You can build a customised registration form for your website, child information is uploaded immediately, and you can manage the enquiry status in seconds. You can then filter based on where the customers are in your enquiry flow from whether they've been to events like open days to attending a show-around.

Even better, when the relevant space becomes available, you can import their information straight into a child profile on Famly. Get your free demo today.

Keen to check out more smart tools to handle enquiries? Check our our Enquiry Management Spreadsheet which lets you get an even better overview of the enquiries right away.

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