How to Create a Marketing Calendar

Promoting your family child care business is a year-round activity. Don't try to squeeze all of your efforts into a few months. Instead, maintain a steady stream of activities each month. The cumulative effect of your marketing will grow over time.

To help you keep track of your marketing activities, create an annual marketing calendar. Here's a sample six month marketing calendar.

August

Anticipate how many openings you will have for the fall and tell your local Child Care Resource and Referral agency.

At a local family child care association meeting, ask other providers if they have waiting lists. Talk to them about why they are successful.

Record a new greeting on your answering machine.

September

Tell parents you will be raising your rates (or taking an extra paid vacation day) as of January so parents have adequate notice.

Locate at least three provider Web sites on the Internet. Write down three marketing ideas you pick up from these sites.

Contact local real estate agents and moving companies and ask them to pass out flyers about your business to new homeowners in your area.

October

Update your contract with parents.

Throw a Halloween party and invite the neighborhood children. Distribute your business cards to trick-or-treaters.

Distribute 50 business flyers at local businesses in your neighborhood.

Hold a garage sale with your neighbors and put up signs (or pass out flyers) about openings in your business.

November

Conduct a clean-up project for the outside of your home.

Run a classified ad on an on-line referral site (www.care.com, www.daycare.com).

Call your Child Care Resource and Referral agency to update your listing and talk to a referral counselor about parent demand.

December

Create a business name for your program and register your business name with your state's secretary of state office.

Start a photo album showing off the benefits of your program. Caption the photos to explain your benefits more clearly ("Children learning responsibility by picking up after themselves").

Hold a holiday get-together for your current and past customers.

January

If you are offering school-age care and your local school or child care center does not, ask them if you can post a flyer about your program on their bulletin board.

Attend a workshop on child development. Join your local Chamber of Commerce.

Place an online ad on Craigslist.

Feel free to make changes in your calendar as the year progresses.

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com

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For more information about marketing, see my Family Child Care Marketing Guide (2nd edition, 2012)