Email is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools a daycare can use to connect with parents. Almost 90% of Americans check their email once a day. Imagine how effective it would be if one of the emails waiting in their inbox was from your center.
Before you can begin engaging parents with email marketing, you need to capture their email addresses. There are lots of ways to build an email list from scratch, but chances are you won’t be starting with nothing. Think about the different ways you may have gathered email addresses over the last 12 months. If someone submitted an email address to your website’s contact form, during a tour, via referral or at a special event and did not end up at your center, add them to your email list!
You should constantly be adding enough parents to your list that it grows, despite current subscribers opting out. To continue building an email marketing list, capture email addresses from a variety of platforms.
3 Places to Grow Your Email List
1. Your Website
Your website is the most logical place to start growing an email marketing list. The people who spend time on your website are already interested in your center. Use calls to action to encourage them to stay in touch via email. You can ask parents to sign up for emails from your center using a:
- Contact Form
- Popup Form
- Tour Signup
- Event Signup
- Special Download (like our Free Marketing Guide)
2. Social Media Accounts
There are a variety of ways to encourage parents to sign up for emails from your center on social media. You can update the button on the top of your Facebook page to “Sign Up,” which is located under the “Contact you” options. Post a link to an email signup page on your website every few months on the social media channels you use to communicate with families.
If you create YouTube videos, add CTAs that include directions on how to subscribe to your daycare’s emails. Videos also give you great content to include in your emails to new parents!
Once you begin sending emails, you can continue to grow your list by encouraging subscribers to forward to a friend.
3. In-Person Events
Your relationship with an email contact doesn’t need to begin online. Ask for email addresses at in-person events where you’re interacting with parents who are interested in learning more about your center. This may be a:
- Community Event
- Raffle
- Center Open House
- Speaking Engagement
