Prepare your 2027 childcare enrolments now. Find occupancy gaps, follow up enquiries and book tours before the end-of-year rush.
If you get to the end of the year, look at your occupancy for January or February and suddenly think, “We need more enrolments”, the honest answer is that you probably should have taken action earlier.
That doesn’t mean it’s too late.
But the first thing I wouldn’t do is panic, throw another ad together and start shouting “2027 enrolments now open”.
You need to know what you’re actually trying to fix.
Which rooms have places?
Which days?
How many enquiries are already sitting there?
How many tours have been booked?
How many actually turned up?
How many families toured and then disappeared?
Where is the leak?
Because if you know where the leak is, you know what you should be marketing towards.
And if you don’t, you can easily spend the last eight weeks of the year generating more enquiries and still arrive in January with the exact same problem.
Don’t market for 2027. Get 2027 families moving now.
There is a big difference.
Of course the campaign is about care for 2027.
But I don’t want the family thinking:
“I’ll deal with that next year.”
I want them thinking:
“I may as well get this sorted now.”
That is the opportunity at the end of the year.
There is already enough going on once December arrives. Christmas. Holidays. Work finishing up. Family commitments. Then January comes around and suddenly everyone is trying to organise everything at once.
So give families a reason not to wait.
The message can be simple:
Looking for care in 2027? Come and see us now.
Book the tour.
Ask the questions.
Find out whether the days you need are available.
Get the decision out of the way before the end-of-year rush.
That is much stronger than simply advertising “2027 enrolments open”.
Use genuine availability and tour dates. Don’t invent a deadline or suggest places are nearly gone when they aren’t.
One creates awareness.
The other asks the family to actually do something.
Start with the places you need filled
One thing I keep coming back to with childcare marketing is knowing your numbers.
Saying “we need more enrolments next year” doesn’t tell me enough.
Maybe your nursery is looking fine but you have toddler vacancies on Mondays and Fridays.
Maybe kindergarten is full but you’re going to lose a group of children to school and already know February will open up places.
Maybe you have 60 people on a waitlist and assume everything is fine.
That number can give you false confidence.
Families can sit on multiple childcare waitlists and may remain on them after finding care somewhere else. The Productivity Commission discussed this problem in its 2023 draft inquiry into early childhood education and care. This is a longstanding limitation of waitlist numbers, rather than a new measure of demand for 2027. Read the Commission’s analysis, pages 339–340.
That is why I’d rather know:
Who still needs care?
When do they want to start?
How old will the child be?
Which days do they need?
Have they already toured?
Have we actually spoken to them recently?
We already wrote about this in our 2027 waitlist review, because a long list does not automatically mean you have the right families for the places you need to fill.
The same principle applies to your year-end marketing.
Don’t advertise a vague need.
Advertise the actual gap.
Your existing families should be part of the campaign
Year-end enrolment activity doesn’t all have to come from Facebook or Google.
Look inside the centre too.
You already have families who know you.
They’ve met the educators.
Their child attends.
They know whether they trust you.
So ask yourself:
Are you talking about next year’s availability with them?
Do they know you have places?
Are you asking families for reviews?
Are you collecting testimonials?
Do they have friends looking for care?
Do any of your families work for local businesses or organisations you could build a relationship with?
Are there siblings who will need care next year?
This is the stuff people forget about because launching another ad feels like “marketing”.
But marketing isn’t just an ad.
Some of the best opportunities can already be sitting inside the building.
Keep requests for reviews separate from referral offers. Ask for honest feedback without rewards or filtering out unhappy families. Google’s review policy rules out incentives and selectively asking for positive reviews.
More enquiries won’t fix a broken process
This is the bit I’d fix before putting a lot more money into the final eight weeks.
If enquiries are already coming in and nobody is progressing them, why would I buy more enquiries?
Look at what’s happening now.
A family enquires.
How quickly does somebody respond?
Can they book a tour without going backwards and forwards over email?
Do they get reminders?
If they don’t show up, does anybody contact them?
If they tour and say they’re still deciding, what happens next?
Or do we just say:
“Thanks for coming. Let us know.”
Then wait?
If you are going to create urgency in your advertising, the experience after the enquiry needs to match it.
There is no point telling families to “get in before the rush” and then taking two days to answer them.
Our childcare enquiry follow-up support covers that part of the process.
Make the tour happen before Christmas
I think this is one of the biggest differences between a good 2027 campaign and a lazy one.
The goal shouldn’t just be:
Get a lead for next year.
The goal should be:
Move that family as far through the decision as you reasonably can now.
If they are genuinely interested, get them through the doors.
Let them meet the team.
Let them see the room.
Find out why they need care.
What does Mum or Dad’s return to work look like?
Have they used childcare before?
Was it a good experience?
What are they worried about?
What are they hoping childcare will do for their child?
Then run the tour around those answers.
A great tour feels like it was meant to be.
Use our childcare tour guide to help your team prepare.
That is much more powerful than having their email address sitting in a CRM until somebody remembers to call them in January.
A campaign example: early interest in 2027 care
We recently ran a pre-opening campaign for an early learning centre targeting families planning care for 2027.
Between 2 September and 1 October 2026, Meta reported 23 website lead events from A$468.03 in advertising spend.
I want to be really clear about what that does and doesn’t prove.
Those are Meta-reported website lead events. They have not been reconciled with CRM records or enrolments. They are not a verified count of 23 unique enquiries, tours or enrolled children.
The campaign shows an advertising response to an offer about 2027 care months before the year began. It does not establish how many families went on to choose the centre. Read the Sunnybank Hills campaign case study.
That is the opportunity.
You don’t need to wait until January to find the families who will need you in January.
The final 8–12 weeks should look something like this
I wouldn’t overcomplicate it.
First, work out exactly what you expect to have available next year. Rooms, days and likely start dates.
Then check what you already have. Existing enquiries, tours, waitlists, sibling opportunities and current family referrals.
Fix obvious leaks before increasing the budget.
Then get the campaign live.
But don’t just tell people that 2027 enrolments are open.
Give them a reason to act now.
Come in before Christmas.
See the centre.
Meet the educators.
Ask the questions.
Understand your options.
Get it sorted before January becomes another thing on the list.
And keep going.
One of the biggest mistakes centres make with occupancy is stopping all marketing when things feel comfortable, then switching everything back on when the numbers start falling.
I don’t like feast or famine.
You want a steady flow.
January shouldn’t be when the work starts
January should be when you start seeing the result of work you’ve already done.
Some families will still appear at the last minute. Of course they will.
Some vacancies will change.
Families will change their days.
People will move.
Plans will fall over.
You can’t control all of that.
But you can avoid walking into a new year with no idea where your vacancies are, an old waitlist you haven’t spoken to and a marketing campaign you launched because somebody panicked in the first week back.
If 2027 occupancy matters, start working on 2027 before everyone else decides it matters too.
Get the family in.
Get the tour booked.
Get the conversation happening.
Don’t wait for the rush.
Questions about preparing 2027 enrolments
When should a childcare centre start marketing for 2027?
Start as soon as you can explain your likely vacancies, age groups, days and start dates accurately. In the final 8–12 weeks of 2026, focus on contacting existing enquiries, booking tours and helping interested families make informed decisions before the holidays.
What should a year-end childcare campaign ask families to do?
Give them a clear next step now, such as booking a tour or asking about the days they need. A January start date does not mean the conversation has to wait until January.
How should a centre measure whether its campaign is working?
Track enquiries, booked tours, attended tours, enrolments and occupied days separately. Check the rooms and days being filled. Advertising platforms’ lead events are useful signals, but reconcile them with your own records before calling them unique enquiries or enrolments.
Work out what needs attention first
If you need help finding the gap, start with our Occupancy Health Audit or read about our childcare marketing support.
For the wider plan, see Childcare Marketing Tips for 2027.
