7 essential tips for marketing a childcare centre

Running a full centre takes more than opening the doors. Enrolment Boost has worked with more than 200 childcare centres, and these are the seven areas we check first when a centre's occupancy is lower than it should be. If you want help with any of them, see our childcare marketing service.

Start with the parents you want to reach. What drives their decision? When do they start looking? Where do they look? Most families start well before they need care, and most of that searching happens online and on a phone. Your marketing has to be in front of them across that whole window, not just the week they call.

1. Use social media to answer parents' questions

Social media is more than a photo feed. Targeted Facebook and Instagram ads reach parents in your area at the point they start comparing centres. Judge them by tours booked and children enrolled, not likes. Our guide to childcare ads that lead to enrolments shows how to measure that.

What to do:

• Plan a content calendar: Balance learning, people and family moments. For example, Monday could show learning activities, Wednesday a staff spotlight and Friday a family event.
• Post things parents reply to: Share children's achievements only with the family's written consent and in line with your service's photo policy (see our guide to childcare photos and AI). Ask parents about their real childcare worries. Questions like these usually get more replies than routine updates.
• Run targeted ads: Use Facebook and Instagram location targeting to reach parents within a sensible drive of your centre, and write each ad for one type of parent, such as a mum returning to work or a family new to the suburb.
• Build community with current families: A private Facebook group for enrolled families keeps them connected. Prospective parents won't see it, but connected families are the ones who recommend you to friends.

Tip: Answer the questions parents ask on tours, about your program, your educators and the daily routine, before they ever walk in.

2. Show what makes your centre different

Parents comparing three centres in the same suburb need a reason to pick yours. Whether it's sustainable practices, a STEM focus or a connection to nature, name it and show it. Test every claim with one question: could the centre down the road say exactly the same thing? If yes, add a number, a role or a suburb.

What to cover:

• Your educational approach: Explain your approach to early learning, whether that is Reggio Emilia, Montessori or a blend, and give concrete examples of what it looks like in a normal day.
• Programs and inclusions: Highlight programs that set you apart, such as language, sport, music or cultural activities, and explain how they fit into the day.
• Your team: Share your educators' qualifications, ongoing training and areas of expertise. Parents want to know their child is in capable, experienced hands.
• Community connections: Show how your centre connects children with their community, through local schools, community events or regular excursions.

3. Make tours and open days count

Tours and open days are where most enrolment decisions get made. The aim is simple: help a family picture their child happy in your rooms. Our childcare tour guide covers how to run one well.

What to include:

• Hands-on experiences: Set up activity stations that show a typical day. Let children play while parents watch your educators at work.
• Educators on the floor: Have key educators available to answer questions. A personal connection with an educator often settles a hesitant parent.
• A short information session: Cover your curriculum and routines in a few minutes, and answer the common worries directly.
• A take-home pack: Include your philosophy, sample menus, daily routines, enrolment information and an estimate of the gap fee for the days they want, using a CCS gap fee calculator.

4. Build local referral partners

A good referral partner keeps sending families to you without any ad spend. Consider:

• Local primary schools: Build relationships with nearby schools, arrange visits for your kinder or preschool room, join school events and create transition programs that help children get ready for school.
• Family health services: Connect with maternal and child health nurses, GPs and family services. These professionals are often asked about local childcare. Give them a short information pack made for them.
• Community groups: Get involved with local playgroups and parent groups. Offer your space for meetings and turn up to local events.
• Local businesses: Partner with family-friendly businesses nearby. This might mean priority enrolment for their staff, joint events or cross-promotion.

5. Turn happy families into advocates

Happy families are your best marketers. A simple, structured referral program helps them recommend you. What works:

• Referral rewards: Reward both the referring family and the new family, for example with a fee credit or an extra session. Keep this separate from review requests. Google's review policy does not allow incentives for reviews.
• Parent testimonials: Collect real family stories regularly. Short videos of real parents often feel more believable than written quotes. Always show the parent's face, with their permission, so other families can see a real person behind the words. For handling the harder reviews, read turning negative reviews into positive opportunities.
• Parent ambassadors: Look after your most engaged families. They are often the ones talking about you at playgroup and the school gate.

6. Target your local promotion

Most families search online now, but well-targeted local promotion still works. Focus on:

• Letterbox drops: Design a clear flyer with one main benefit and one clear next step. Target the streets where families with young children live.
• School newsletters: Advertise in local school newsletters, especially for vacation care or kinder and preschool programs.
• Local publications: Send regular articles or updates to local papers and community magazines, such as child development tips or news about your centre's community work.
• Local business partners: Display their information at your centre while they promote yours to their customers.

7. Make the online enquiry path work on a phone

Most parents will find you, check you and enquire on a phone, often at night. Every step from the Google search to the signed enrolment form needs to work there.

• A fast, mobile-friendly website: Make sure your website loads quickly and is easy to use on a phone.
• Follow-up emails: Set up automated emails that take parents from first enquiry to a booked tour. Each one should answer a common question and give one clear next step.
• Online tour booking: Let parents book a tour online at any hour, from their phone.
• Fast replies: Reply to every enquiry within a business day. Our enquiry follow-up service covers this part of the process.
• Virtual tours: Give time-poor families a first look at your rooms before they visit.
• Google Business Profile: Keep it current, with recent photos, regular posts and prompt replies to reviews. It is often a parent's first impression of your centre. Our local SEO guide has more.

Tip: Map every step a parent takes with your centre, from Google search to enrolment confirmation, and fix the slowest one first.

Track where every enquiry comes from, and follow it all the way to an enrolment. That shows you which channels deserve your budget. Set up simple systems to:

• Track enquiry sources
• Count tours booked and attended
• Count enrolments and the days they fill
• Gather feedback from touring families
• Watch occupancy by room each fortnight

When this is in place, the results are easy to see. In one Melbourne long day care centre, 28 enquiries over four months led to 20 booked tours, and reported occupancy moved from 71% to 84% with consistent follow-up and tours alongside the ads.

Steady occupancy is not luck. It comes from reaching the right families at the right time and making it easy for them to say yes. Every centre has different strengths, and the work is showing them clearly to your community.

To see where your centre is losing families, take the free Occupancy Health Audit.

What is the best way to market a childcare centre?

Combine online and local marketing. Make sure parents can find you on Google and Facebook, give them a clear reason to choose you over nearby centres, and make booking a tour easy on a phone. Then follow up every enquiry within a business day and run tours that answer each family's real questions.

How can a childcare centre get more enrolments?

Fix the steps between enquiry and enrolment first. Reply quickly, book tours online, run personal tours and follow up families who are still deciding. More advertising only helps once those steps work, because extra enquiries otherwise leak out at the same point.

Should a childcare centre advertise on Google or Facebook?

Both, because they do different jobs. Google Ads reach parents who are already searching for childcare in your suburb. Facebook and Instagram ads reach parents before they start searching. Judge both by tours booked and children enrolled, not clicks.

How do you measure whether childcare marketing is working?

Track every enquiry from its source to a booked tour, an attended tour and an enrolment, then check which rooms and days were filled. Platform figures such as clicks and lead events are useful signals, but your own enquiry and enrolment records show what actually worked.