6 Tried and True Preschool Marketing Strategies – with Kris Murray

You know you need to fill your preschool, but what are some tried and true preschool marketing strategies? How do you “attract, retain, and enroll students into your preschool”? In this post, Kris Murray Founder and President of The Child Care Success Company, shares some awesome preschool marketing strategies.

What Not To Say When You Get That Phone Call

When a mom calls to inquire about your preschool, location and price are not very high on her list of things she wants to know about you. She does want to know those things, obviously, but what she really wants to know is what your preschool offers. Why should she place her child into your classes for their preschool education?

The 8 Benefits You Need to Focus On When Marketing Your Preschool

Kris says: “Benefits are the things that make your preschool stand out, the things that make the parent say I want my child in THAT preschool. When you receive a call inquiring about your preschool program, here are the 8 benefits you need to focus on:

• Differentiation
• Value
• Trust
• Follow Up
• Great Communication
• Relationship Building
• Personalization

These 8 areas will attract parents to your program. Asking for and remembering to use their child’s name throughout your conversation will make the experience seem personal to them. Show a genuine interest in serving them for their preschool needs.”

What Is A Market Analysis And Why Do You Need One For Preschool?

When setting up your preschool or when looking to improve your marketing efforts, do some market research of the other preschools in your area. Call them and ask about their programs. What benefits do they offer, what incentives are they currently offering, what are the benefits of choosing their preschool over the others.

Once you have all this information, use it to make your preschool even better. What value can you add to your preschool program that will make you stand out 10X more than the other choices?

Here are some ideas Kris shared for adding value to your preschool:

• “Offer easy to use technology in the form of a parent app that mom or dad can use to track their child’s whereabouts at any given moment. Parents value the ability to participate in their child’s life when he or she is away from them.
• “Have a high standard of safety and cleanliness regarding Covid-19 protocols. Parents want to know that their child will be attending a preschool with excellent health and safety practices.
• “Offer a Kindergarten readiness program that also includes a unique focus like small class sizes, social-emotional training, or a heightened level of individual attention.
• “Details on how you assess their child’s readiness for Kindergarten.
• “The kinds of enrichment activities you offer. Yoga, Language immersion, STEM activities, etc.
• “An Eco healthy school program.”

The Lifetime Value Of A Customer

Kris says: “Know the lifetime value of a customer in your preschool. How much did it cost in advertising fees to acquire that customer? Do they have younger siblings that may also attend your preschool? Knowing this information can help you determine how much money you can effectively invest in marketing campaigns.”

3 Incentives You Can Offer To Market Your Preschool

• “One of the most cost-effective preschool marketing strategies is to offer incentives or rewards to families who enroll in your preschool. You can use the information about offers and incentives that you gained in your marketing analysis to determine what your competitors are doing and then design your own offers. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• “Save $500 off tuition over 5 months—The reason you offer this over a five-month period is to help retain your families. They will receive $100 off each month every month for five months. After staying with you for that amount of time, they are more likely to finish the school year, and most likely enroll for next year as well.

• “Premiums—A premium is a gift for signing up with your preschool like a Chromebook or an iPad. The offer would be something like, “Receive a free iPad when you register in the month of March.”

• “Gift Packages—Just like the premiums, a gift package will attract a lot of attention and possibly even become viral with people sharing the offer with their friends and family. Make the gift package good. Offer something like a Super Bowl promotion with a flat screen TV and a gift card to a local store for drinks and snacks, or a Valentine’s Day experience with dinner for two, a bottle of champagne, roses for her, and a spa treatment.

Always have a deadline or limited number on these kinds of promotions. Say things like:

• When you sign up this week only
• When you register in the month of January
• The first 50 registrations

These deadlines will create a sense of scarcity and urgency to get people to register for you preschool now instead of later.

Offering values and incentives are tried and true preschool marketing strategies that will fill your preschool classes and help you to keep those customers as long as they, or their siblings, are preschool aged.

Additional Resources:

• Follow Kris Murray and enroll in her training at The Child Care Success Company
• Head over to Apple Podcasts to hear the full interview. While you’re there, please leave us a rating and a review. (We hope we’ve earned your 5 stars!)
• Start my FREE “7 Students in 7 Days” Challenge”
• Get my FREE “Start Your Preschool” Book (+$7.95 s&h)