Molly Hichens is a second-generation, multi-site owner of Bright Beginnings Preschools in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is an experienced speaker and trainer in early childhood education. She specializes marketing, parent engagement and enrollment.
She shares her tips for attracting new families to your preschools and for growing your revenue in a Procare Solutions webinar that’s available on-demand!
One strategy she uses is an enrollment funnel. Read on to learn how Molly breaks down each part of the funnel for success.
1. Awareness
Make sure you understand your unique selling points, also known as USPs, says Molly. These are what set your child care center a part from others. It’s a way to create your brand narrative to attract your ideal customer.
Your website is key too. And don’t forget to blog, Molly says! Keep your social media pages fresh as well. Digital advertising can help you boost enrollment as well. Look into how to use Google Ads and consider buying Facebook and Instagram ads.
Thinking about what marketing materials you’ll need? Molly suggests tour books, swag, yard signs and advertising materials with QR codes to landing pages.
Building community goodwill is important as well, which you can do through local sponsorships. Think about parent-teacher organizations. Look for local cross-promotion opportunities and take advantage of any website community hubs. Attend child community events on weekends and make sure you’re plugged into closed mom Facebook groups.
2. Inquiry
Sales strategies drive conversion. Molly says to be first, be fast!
Track metrics, from inquiry to tour, and inquiry to enrollment. This is where Procare’s Lead Insights can help. It’s a dashboard that shows how effective your center is at converting prospective customers into clients. Simply put, it applies software metrics tailored to measure the effectiveness and health of how your child care center is managing those leads. And it gives you the results in a concise, easy-to-read format.
Beat out competition with urgency and remember, there’s no such thing as a “cold lead.” Establish yourself as expert. You can do this by repurposing blogs and highlighting local events, including your own that are relevant even as children age out.
3. Conversion
Every tour is your Super Bowl, says Molly! When doing a tour, listen carefully to the needs of each child and each parent and form a solution for them.
Make sure your staff know what’s happening with tour. Inform them 24 hours ahead of all tours, if you can, and let them know during your morning messages to them.
Her other tips, which she discusses in more detail during her guest appearance on the Child Care Business podcast, include:
Molly advocates for “smiling through the phone” to make prospective families feel welcomed before they even step inside your child care center.
- Setting specific days and times to give tours
- Make the tour posh (her centers bake cookies and offer Perrier water!)
- Ensure the person giving the tour knows current waitlist numbers and move-up dates for children in the room
- Highlight what makes your center special, such as a great curriculum
Have any closed classrooms? Turn them into intentional new space for children. Make sure you include stops on your tour, as well as biographies of teachers in tour packets and posted by classrooms.
Highlight your USPs, Molly said. And don’t forget to mention family calendars.
4. Engagement
Create a community at your school to retain families. Molly suggests using progress reports as well as daily notes through the Procare child care mobile app. Use the app to send real-time updates, photos, and videos of their children’s daily activities to keep parents engaged and informed in a convenient, personalized way. Parents will appreciate weekly progress reports that highlight their child’s achievements, activities and development milestones.
Organize family-teacher workshops and events, or “open classroom” days in which parents can learn about your curriculum, participate in activities with their child and engage directly with your teachers.
Distribute visually appealing newsletters that share upcoming events, classroom highlights, educational tips. and opportunities for parent involvement. This creates a sense of community and transparency.
Offer opportunities for parents to volunteer during special events, field trips or classroom activities to make them feel more connected and valued as part of the preschool experience.
Molly also suggests creating school traditions! She shares the following ideas: birthday fairy, book mobile, tea with mom, donuts with dad, holiday cookbook, Thanksgiving feast and a pumpkin patch.
5. Advocacy
Once you’ve created a preschool that parents love, let them help you spread the word about the great things happening in your center, says Molly.
Implement a referral rewards program that offers discounts, gifts or special privileges to families who successfully refer new enrollments to incentivize parents to recommend your preschool.
Encourage satisfied parents to share positive experiences through testimonials and online reviews on platforms like Google and Facebook. This will build trust among prospective families.
Host exclusive family appreciation events such as picnics or parent-child activity days to show your gratitude to current families. And highlight parent and child stories or experiences on your preschool’s social media platforms and ask families to share posts with their own networks.
Regularly gather feedback from parents to improve your services and make them feel heard. When parents see that their input leads to positive changes, they are more likely to become advocates. says Molly.
Learn More From Molly About Enrollment!
In her Procare Solutions webinar, Molly goes even deeper and walks us through the following:
- Exploring effective lead tracking systems to streamline your admissions pipeline and demonstrating user-friendly tools that simplify the enrollment experience for parents.
- Empowering your staff to become enthusiastic enrollment ambassadors and leverage their engagement for better results.
- Understanding the unique needs of millennial parents and how to attract them through targeted marketing and community-building activities.
- Automating and personalizing follow-up strategies to ensure no prospective family is left behind.
View the free, on-demand “Innovate and Enroll: Attract New Families to Grow Your Preschool and Maximize Revenue” webinar from Procare Solutions today!
