Blogs

One common way people search for unfamiliar daycare is through map applications, particularly Google Maps but also Bing Maps, Yahoo Local and Mapquest. For instance if they want a Daycare Child Care Center in Oconomowoc, WI  they’ll go to google  and put in “Daycare” and see what comes up.

One of our first oDaycare customers First Step Childcare in Watertown, MA is already celebrating it's first anniversary! They grow up so fast! In fact they're doing so well that we just heard today that they're planning on expanding their location soon (they are taking over the store front that is next door). This would be a good point for us to go pester them for a testimonial we think! We're always happy when our customers do well, and especially when we see them growing, particularly in overall tough economic times.

One of the most important things we need to do is prove the value of our products. If you don't see the value in something you won't pay for it. People don't blink at spending $400 for an iPhone but hesitate to spend 99 cents on an App for it. They see the value of the phone itself, but not necessarily that of the App. People judge value constantly when they consume products and services, and a lower price doesn't necessarily sell someone. However people are very good at looking at at similar item and seeing the differences in value.

When a new daycare or preschool is looking to construct a website, they have a number of questions to ask themselves, and choices to make. Unfortunately, they often ask the wrong questions and make the wrong choices.

A website has purpose, or at least it should. A website without purpose, will sit there and do nothing. A website needs purpose in order to accomplish anything. One mistake many people make when putting together a website for their daycare or preschool, is to ignore these purposes. They focus on looking good, or on showing off some credential, which are not un-important, but they're not purposes. Having people call you. That's a purpose. Having parents sign up their children; That's another purpose. It's what you want to do on the website.

Do you have a Facebook page for your daycare or preschool? You should. It's a great way to both get information to parents, as well as get new parents to find your center, and fill your roster with future students. oDaycare can help you get on Facebook, and leverage it to help your business.

If your not putting videos on your childcare center website, why not?   Keep your videos short, peoples attention span is not long.  Think of the possibilities for video, its endless and helpful to your parents and expecting parents.   Here is a good first video out.  Put up a very short video of your newest equipment, use one of your teachers to demonstrate the equipment.  The video helps in many ways:

If a daycare owner new to the internet and using it for their center, asks us what kinds of things they can do, one of the things we tell them to do is to post on twitter, and to use it regularly. Twitter if you don't really get it, is a place where anyone can sign up and get an account. You can post a short message or status of 140 characters (ie 140 letters, numbers, spaces, etc). Anyone can see these, anyone can search for them. They're a great way to do a number of things for your daycare, from informational, to customer service.

We're rebooting the OrcaPack newsletter so it's time to get on board. Our newsletter will contain a number of things that might interest you, whether you're a current customer of an OrcaPack product like oDaycare, or whether you're thinking about it, or even if you're just interested in industry news and opinion.

Click here to sign up for our Email Newsletter