• Don’t try and put in what you are literally doing. “We’re serving Pizza for lunch.” Put in something interesting that caught your eye. “Some children have a pavlovian response to the word Pizza.”
• You should be blogging as well, and when you blog you should post a link to it on twitter, but don’t just post the link. Describe what the blog is about. “Sherry has a new blog post about using natural cleaning products in our daycare.”
• Ask people questions. Especially if you can get some of your parents and friends to follow your twitter feed, it’s a great way to get feedback and opinions. “What do people think about a Zoo fieldtrip?”
• Search for topics that interest you in twitter, and find people who post interesting things about those subjects. You can then rewteet those items to your followers, or you can tweet about what they’re talking about as well. Even if it’s not specifically about your location specifically, it shows that you guys are not just some inhuman marketing machine, which is important. People want to feel comfortable with you, so your tweets need to feel like you’re real.
• Give advice. Do you guys have any tricks you use there for the kids? How to wrangle them, or how to clean certain weird messes, or ideas for art projects? Suggest them.
• It’s important on twitter to show a human side of your daycare. it needs to feel to the parents just like they’re standing there at dropoff talking to you, but instead they get it during the day on their phones while they’re avoiding a meeting. It ties them to you.  Show pictures. Talk about yourselves. It’s social media. Be social.
• Don’t be cocky and constantly toot your own horn. Be modest in your tweets. Humility goes alot further online than bragdocico.
• If you have any partners, say the business that leases the space out to your daycare or a big company across the street, promote them as well. If you promote companies in your area, they might see you and promote you as well to their employees.

Just some basic ideas of what to tweet about. The main thing is to relax. These aren’t novels. they’re short succinct thoughts and ideas and stuff to share. Look at the list above and try and tweet regularly. The more you do, the more it’ll help you.

• The video informs your current parents about the equipment (you buy new stuff!)
• it show potential clients, hey we keep our center up to date and we improve it all the time
• potential clients  see you keep equipment up to date 
• your teachers become more approachable leading to more sales
• another way for search engines (google, bing) to find your childcare center

Here is a quick guide to the technical aspects, the why and the what of putting video on your website?  

Technically not to difficult:

• Video from your phone is high enough quality, or your camera, or your handheld video camera
• Taking video off these devices is generally one step to youtube, flickr or picasa (google), if not they have easy upload options available.
• embedding from youtube is not complex, copy the code and paste it into your page
• keep it short 30 seconds to 1 minute
• if possible have another person shoot the video if you are narrating

What videos should I shoot?

• show snippets from one of your classrooms (if kids are going to be in the video, shoot the video from behind the children and don’t show faces.  Otherwise you will need permission from the parents of the involved children)
• short videos of your new toys, cribs, swings, walkers, equipment or architecture changes
• video any of your community involvement work
• a walking tour is nice – with minimal sound generally people know what they are looking at inside of a daycare – you could point out multiple bathrooms and changing areas
• which equipment do people ask about the most.  make a demonstration video of this equipment in use at the center (for everyone who asks there are two who will not ask but still want to know how to use the baby rocker is used at the center)
• make a video of your special guests, yoga, music man etc.
• take video of the outside play area, if kids are involved shoot from far away.
• make a video testimonial staring parents that come to the center.

Why?

• show parents and potential clients what your classes are like
• show off your teachers and staff
• people are unsure about asking questions, videos can answer many questions about your daycare center
• get new clients.
• show up in different search results
• become an expert, someone in the community who can be asked questions about childcare centers.

The more video you shoot the better you will get.  Don’t get discouraged, my first video was awful, but people say they still find it useful.  If you keep your videos short just do a second or third take to get it right.  My first video took 10 takes.  

Note: If you want to edit your video Windows Movie Maker (included with windows) and iMovie (included on Apple computers) should give you the functionality you need.  You can also cut down your videos with the new YouTube editor. 

People who live near your center might not even be aware you exist, and seeing a friend or neighbor follow your Facebook page will help spread the word about your daycare. 68% of Facebook users are more likely to use a product or service if it’s recommended by one of their friends online. New parents know other new parents, and they’re on all Facebook these days. A great way to spread the word for your center and fill your ranks.

In addition, it’s a great tool to use with your parents. You can send out important information “Don’t forget, today is our field trip! Bring a heavy coat!” or any other news of the center to keep your parents informed. In the old days you could just tape a sign to your door, but people many times doen’t even read those, as they’re in a rush. When they check Facebook they’ll have time to kill (or not but they’re killing time anyway ) and they’ll read your information, and perhaps if it’s interesting, pass it on!

Setting your own Facebook page up is easy, but to do it well, such as incorporating more than just the built in Facebook wall page is a bit more complicated. oDaycare can help you set up your Facebook page for you, if you don’t already have one (if you do you can just make us an admin so we can help you out immediately) and get you going. We can help set up more pages, including making sure you’re doing what’s necessary to get those Facebook users off social media and onto your website where you can convert them.

Half a Billion people are on Facebook and in the U.S. and Canada. Over 90% of parents under the age of 35 are on Facebook now in the U.S. and it’s the second most visited site in the world.  it’s not just for college kids anymore. You should be leveraging Social Media like Facebook and oDaycare can help you do it.

Do you want to get new parents to sign up for a tour of the facility? That’s a purpose. Do you want to get customer emails so you can send out a newsletter? That’s a purpose.

Without a purpose there is no way to gauge how successfull your website is at doing what you want it to do, because you’re not asking it to do anything.

To get people to do anything you have to present them with something called a ‘Call to Action’. This can be as simple as a link saying contact oDaycare to get started or a graphic, a banner ad, a form, lots of things. They’re ways to get people to DO something. They are a call to action. It’s a way for the site to say “Do you want to do X? Here’s how.” One of the tricks of good website usability is in presenting effective calls to action. If people can’t figure out what they want to do, or how to do it, they’ll leave your site. If they want to come in to check out your daycare, but they see no way to contact someone for a tour, they might just leave, and you’ve lost a new customer signup. You’ve lost a sale.

Many basic cheap template sites will not tell you this, and certainly won’t help you with figuring out what to do, and how to do it. oDaycare however will help you figure out what purposes you can use your website for, we already know a few, and we’ll show you how to create your own calls to action, and to practice them yourself in order to have an effective and productive website. Our goal is to get a website to work for you, and presenting your users with effecitve Calls to Action is one very basic way to get that to happen, and it’s one that oDaycare can help you with.

One of the first bad questions is “Do we need a website?”. Of course, I’m biased in this matter, but with reason. I have the facts on my side. Yes you need a website. Over 90% of your potential customers look for goods and services online as their primary method. To not have a website, and expect to get customers is a bit of a stretch these days. It was different 10 years ago, but today? Things have changed. Even if you hope for drive-by’s to see your center, one of the first things those people will do is look for your website. If you don’t have a website you’ll be seen as illegitimate. What sort of company doesn’t have a website? If someone asked you to consider their product or service, and you asked them what their web address was, and they said they don’t have one, and they were using a yahoo.com email address, would you give them the time of day? Especially when we’re talking about your kids?

Yes, you need a website. Yes, you need a domain of your own. Yes, you need an email with that domain name on the end of your email.

After that comes another bad question: “Why do we have to spend any money? Get a $5 site from Godaddy.” Again, I’m biased by the facts, but think about it yourself. Someone is looking for a daycare for their child, they have a website address and everything. They look at it and it’s a plain page, with a phone number on it. Maybe a home page on a generic template, no logo, no real content, an about us page, and a contact page. Maybe a poorly placed photograph that’s completely unrelated to what you thought the business was, or some stock photo of children playing….Are you going to join it? Most people won’t. They’ll bounce, ie they’ll leave your site as soon as they got there.

The bounce rate of a website should as close to 20% as you can. You MIGHT get lower, but you can’t expect to. 20% is about the base of people going somehwere they didn’t want to go. If you’re looking at a 40% bounce rate on people coming to your site, that means 1 in 5 people might actually have come to you for legiitimate reasons, but left immediately. Why? One of the main reasons is design. People see the website, think it looks bad, or unprofessional, or illegitimate, or confusing, and they’re gone.

And even after people don’t bounce, a bad web design can harm you. Often people need to be convinced to buy something, and a poor website is no way to convince people. If you have a choice to join something and it’s a vibrant, well designed, active website and community, that offers parents services like online webcams, photo calenders, ical plugins for your phone, newsletters, etc,  are you more likely to join that, than one that’s 3 pages of static content: home, about us, contact us? If you’re the only daycare in a 30 square mile area then maybe it doesn’t matter, but most daycares have competition. Alot of competition. Your potential customers need incentive, and a poor website will incentivize them to keep their money in their pockets or give it to someone else.

High quality web design is very important. The design has to be appropriate to your daycare or preschool, your character, who you are, and be visually pleasing, and designed with usability studies in mind, so that you keep your bounce rate low, and have a better chance at capturing new customers. On top of that it needs to continue to be good, and to grab the user, so that they see your daycare or preschool as looking good, professional, high quality.

A low quality looking site says you’re low quality. A high quality looking site says you’re high quality. (A non-existant site says you don’t exist)

A cheap template design, on a low functioning website is essentially asking to lose half your prospects within minutes of seeing your site. 20% or more will bounce immedately, with the same, or double to bounce within minutes, never to return.

oDaycare offers each of our clients a custom high quality web design made specifically for their daycare or preschool (check out our portfolio). One that keeps usability and conversions in mind, to help make your business successfull, and to not send people away as soon as they come in your doors.

Does your daycare need a website? Yes. Does it need to be high quality? Yes. How do we get that for a reasonable cost? oDaycare.

Get started with oDaycare today.

Take a daycare. Say you have a high end daycare/preschool. You have a great teacher student ratio, it’s well lit, clean, with lots of toys and arts and crafts, a computer lab with kids keyboards, an outside play area that’s massive with tons of playground toys and castles and the like, plus a full featured preschool which gets all the kids reading and doing basic math before Kindergarten. It’s in a secure facility, and you can monitor your kids via  webcam online while you’re at work, as well as see pictures in private photo galleries, hook into the school website with your calendar to know what the provided lunch is that day, or when the school pictures or a field trip is. Someone comes in and tours and finds out that it costs $1000 a month and they say “Why on earth would I buy this? it’s $1000 a month! Someone who lives a few blocks from me takes care of kids in her basement for $100 a month. They even have a TV down there and watch movies all day and has a ton of kids in there and she seems fine.”

The person focused on price is missing the value that the more expensive daycare brings. The difference is a questionable environment in a basement, with a clean modern facility well equipped and with trained personnel and security. The more expensive daycares add value over the cheaper ones, far making up for the price difference. Cheap is rarely good. Good is rarely cheap.

It’s the same thing with our products. “Why should I pay you guys $250 a month, when I can go to X and get a website for $25?” The answer is that we provide a much higher value and level of service than you would for the $25. The websites we provide people are far more than 10 times superior to a $25 website, in many ways.

We offer custom high quality design, based on your business, not a generic template. This is important because it helps set you apart from your competition visually. People search for services online and often pick the best looking 3 they find. Ours helps you be one of the best looking over the cheaper sites.

In addition we provide a tremendous amount of additional functionality specifically targeted to your business, from being able to change your content yourself whenever you want without having to wait for someone to respond to your phone call or email. You automatically get a high level of security on your website and tons of features standard, from blogs, and forums, to social media features and tie ins, as well as for a modest additional fee your own online store, secure, and within your own site you can easily control and modify. All this gives you a much bigger ROI than by getting a site that does nothing, from a company that provides you no specific guidance.

Also we provide personal support. We are there to guide you every step of the way by phone and email (and sometimes even in person) to help you make the most of your website. It’s in our interest for you to not only quickly see the value of the website, but realize that it’s actually a steal for you. We want you to feel that the money you spend with us on your website is the best money you can spend.

If you’re still not sure exactly how we can help your business, or what it’ll mean for your bottom line, we urge you to email or call us at 877-649-6025. We’d love to talk with you.

So if you’re not listed on those map applications you’re essentially doing the modern day equivalent of saying “no no, we don’t want to be in the yellow pages. Our customers know us and love us and know we’re here. We don’t care if you offer us a free listing, please make our business unlisted.”

Not only can you list your business on those sites though, but to varying degrees you can edit the information it presents. You can add photos on some, you can change your hours, add age levels, fill in a description of your center, link to other media and more.

Seriously it’s the modern equivalent of a free yellow pages listing.

So how do you do it? Well check out the maps and search for your business, or what people might be searching for. “Child Care” or “Daycare” or “Preschool” whatever it is your daycare is about. If you find yourself on the maps, you can sign in and claim that location and edit it and add information.

If you search and DON’T find yourself (and yes this does happen alot, particularly to newer law firms) then you’ll need to add your listing. Here are the links you’ll need to do that.

Add your listing to Google Maps
Add your listing to Bing Local
Add your listing to Mapquest
Add you listing to Yahoo Local

And if all that is intimidating, don’t worry. That’s just another part of our service if you’re an oDaycare customer. We’ll help you get listed, and help your listings on the Map sites work for you. If you’re interested in learning more about this, or in finding out how we can help you do it, contact us today!

It’s one of our goals with oDaycare, to help fill up the spots in the centers, and provide a return on the investment in the product for our customers, so it’s really exciting when we see it in action.

If you need childcare in Waltham, MA you should give them a call, though it sounds like they’re currently full, and I’m not sure when the new second location will open, but you can always contact them and get on a waiting list!