4 Great Ideas for Promoting Your Child Care Program during the Holiday Season

The winter holiday season is a GREAT time to promote your child care program.  Here are four easy ways to tie into the holidays, and get some great publicity for your center.  The key thing to remember is, it’s all about your community.  Learn about what’s going on in your community, and tie into existing events…or create brand new events that really get your name out there!

1)      Research all the child-related events in your local area, and choose one or two to tie into.  It helps if you can partner with a large non-profit in your town, like the Rotary Club or Jaycees, because the local media is more likely to pick up on your story if you are raising money for a good cause.

     For example, in our town, I just helped my child care center partner with the Rotary Club during its annual Santa on the Green event.  We held a raffle that raised $520 towards the Rotary Foundation, and a staff member dressed up as “Elf” handed out cookies to all kids waiting in line.  The cookies were given in cute bags with our logo on them.  We received 3 mentions in the local paper and one photo.

2)      Hold a canned food drive, a toy drive, or a clothing drive (i.e. used winter coats and boots).  Do a press release letting everyone know about the drive, where to bring the items, and who it’s benefitting.

3)      Host a party featuring Santa, at your facility.  Invite the community to come, provide refreshments, photos with Santa, etc. for anyone in the community.

4)      Give away a complimentary Holiday Gift, such as a children’s book or educational toy.  You can get cute postcard-sized glossy cards printed very inexpensively (I use VistaPrint), and hand out the promotional cards to local retailers’ for their counters.  We placed cards at our local bookstore, the children’s hair salon, Gymboree, and children’s consignment shops.

With a little creativity, you can find some really fun ways to promote your program and get a big boost in name recognition, leading to more enrollments in the long run.

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