Be found
Show up where local families search and scroll, with accurate details and a clear sense of who your centre suits.
- Local search presence
- Targeted advertising
- Accurate centre information
Childcare marketing
Childcare marketing built around the places you need to fill.
More enquiries only help if they fill the right rooms and days. We work alongside your team as your occupancy partner, connecting local visibility, a clear reason to choose you and follow-up that turns interest into enrolments.
Rather talk to someone? Call 1300 853 704
In short
What childcare marketing should actually do.
Childcare marketing helps local families find your centre, understand why it suits them and take the next step. For an owner or approved provider, it only earns its keep when that interest becomes tours, enrolments and children starting in the rooms that need them.
That is why we plan from your vacancies outward. A centre with a quiet nursery on Mondays and Fridays needs a different message, audience and budget from a centre that needs to fill a new preschool room. We work with one centre per suburb, with availability and coverage agreed before we begin.
This work is led by Martin Niedenfuhr, who has more than 15 years of sector experience growing childcare centres. About Martin
Where to focus first
Find the stage where families drop out.
Most centres do not need everything at once. The pattern in your figures usually tells you where to begin.
| What you are seeing | What it usually means | Focus first on |
|---|---|---|
| Few enquiries | Families are not finding you, or what they find does not give them a reason to get in touch. | Visibility and message: local search presence, advertising reach, and how clearly your centre explains what makes it a good fit. |
| Enquiries, but few tours | Interest arrives, then stalls between first contact and a booked visit. | Response and booking: how fast and how personally enquiries are answered, and how easy it is to book a tour. |
| Tours, but few enrolments | Families visit, then choose somewhere else or go quiet. | Tour experience, fit and follow-up: what families see and hear on the day, and what happens in the days after. |
| Uneven rooms or days | Overall occupancy looks fine, but some rooms or days stay empty. | A targeted vacancy plan: messages and audiences built around specific age groups and days, not the whole centre. |
The family journey
Be found. Be chosen. Follow through.
Be chosen
Give families enough real information to feel confident enquiring: your rooms, approach, team, hours and what a tour looks like.
- Clear centre story
- Genuine photos and reviews
- Easy enquiry on mobile
Follow through
Help your team respond consistently, so interest turns into a booked tour, a decision and a confirmed start.
- Prompt, personal response
- Tour bookings and reminders
- Post-tour next steps
What the work covers
The parts that need to work together.
Occupancy plan
We start with the places you need to fill: which rooms, which days, and which families are most likely to need them. That sets the budget, message and channels, rather than the other way around.
Advertising
Search ads for families already looking for care, and Facebook and Instagram campaigns to reach families earlier, each pointed at a clear next step.
More on Google and Meta advertising.
Being found locally
Your Google Business Profile, centre pages and helpful content, so families searching nearby can find accurate information and understand what you offer.
More on childcare SEO and local search.
Your website
Pages that answer the questions families actually ask, work well on a phone and make it easy to enquire or book a tour.
More on childcare website design.
Enquiry and tour follow-up
A dependable process for responding, booking tours, recovering no-shows and agreeing the next step after a visit.
More on enquiry and tour follow-up.
Different centres, different starting points
New, established or part of a group.
New and pre-opening centres
The job is awareness and early interest. Families do not know you exist yet, so we focus on the catchment, a clear story about the centre and a way to capture and look after interested families well before opening day.
Established centres
You already have a reputation and some enquiry flow. The gains usually come from fixing a specific leak: slow responses, tours that do not convert, or rooms that stay quiet on particular days.
Multi-centre operators
Each centre gets a plan built on its own vacancies and local market, with shared reporting so you can see which services need attention and why, without every centre running the same campaign.
What we measure
Each stage counted on its own.
Enrolments and starts are different moments, and a start this month may come from an enquiry months ago. Keeping each stage separate shows where to act next.
Enquiries
Genuine family contacts, counted once per family, by source where you can record it.
Booked tours
Enquiries that reach a scheduled visit.
Attended tours
Visits that actually happen. The gap from booked tours shows where reminders matter.
Enrolments
Families who confirm a place, usually through your enrolment form or system.
Starts
Children who actually begin attendance. This can be weeks or months after enrolment, so it is tracked separately.
Occupancy by room and day
Where places are still available, which is what the next round of work should focus on.
What your team brings
A partnership, not a handover.
- Current vacancies by room and day, updated as they change
- Access to your ad accounts, Google Business Profile and website, or permission to set them up
- Genuine photos and centre information you are happy to share publicly
- Someone who owns enquiries and can tell us how they progressed
Common questions
Questions centres ask us.
What does childcare marketing include?
It covers the work that helps local families discover, understand and choose your centre: local search, advertising, your website, reviews, and how enquiries and tours are handled. For a centre owner the useful question is not which tactics to run but which part of that journey is losing families, then fixing that first.
Where should we start if we are not sure what is wrong?
Look at where families drop out. If you know roughly how many enquiries, tours and enrolments you had last quarter, the decision table above will usually point to the first area. If you do not have those figures yet, the Occupancy Health Audit is a quick way to organise what you know.
Do you work with centres that have not opened yet?
Yes. Pre-opening work focuses on building awareness in the catchment, collecting interested families early and having a clear process to keep them warm until opening. The measures are different too: expressions of interest and tours booked before opening, rather than occupancy.
Do you work with groups of centres?
Yes. For multi-centre operators we plan each service around its own vacancies and local market, while keeping reporting consistent so you can compare centres fairly. One centre per suburb still applies, with coverage agreed before we begin.
Do you guarantee an occupancy result?
No. Local demand, competition, fees, your team and the tour experience all affect outcomes. What we commit to is a clear plan, honest reporting at each stage and practical changes based on what the figures show.
How is advertising spend handled?
Our fees and your advertising budget are always shown separately, so you can see exactly what goes to the platforms and what goes to the work.
Talk through your vacancies with us.
Tell us which rooms and days need attention and we will tell you honestly where we would start.
Rather talk to someone? Call 1300 853 704
Related services
Other ways we help.
Not sure where families are dropping out?
The free Occupancy Health Audit is a short questionnaire about your centre. It scores six areas from your answers and shows your results straight away. If you like, Martin will then record a personal video review within 1–2 business days.
Instant results. Optional personal video. No obligation.
Free Occupancy Health Audit
Find out where your centre is losing enrolment opportunities.
Answer a short questionnaire about your centre and see your results instantly.
- See your results straight away, no contact details needed
- Optional personal video review from Martin within 1–2 business days
- Free, with no obligation
Rather talk to someone? Call 1300 853 704