Generate More Family Leads with Facebook Marketing

1) Use a Facebook Business Page Not a Personal Profile

Create a true Facebook Business Page. Often, childcare providers and marketers make the mistake of setting up a personal profile, so they miss out on key insights. When considering digital marketing for childcare providers, only a Facebook Business Page provides content creation tools, paid promotions for targeted reach, and helpful analytics.

In addition, a personal profile requires you to add each prospective parent as a friend before you engage. You want to make it easy for parents to contact you about your childcare programs. Eliminate that extra step and create a clear communication path for families with a Facebook Business Page. 

3) Establish Clear Page Roles

Everyone has either made a mistake on social media or knows someone who has. Imagine a team member accidentally posts about a program or class that your center no longer offers. Suddenly, your inbox is flooded with questions.

Assign Facebook Business Page roles to key childcare directors and staff who run your social media. Avoid having ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’. Ensure these individuals are up to date on what’s going on in your centers and are strong brand ambassadors for your business.

5) Use a Call-to-Action (CTA) Button 

A CTA button guides parents toward your conversion goal. Whether you want them to schedule a tour, sign up for center events, join your waitlist, or simply learn more about your programs, parents will have clear action and direction for the next steps you want them to take.

Facebook offers a ton of CTA buttons to choose from. 👉

Determine How Facebook Will Impact Your Enrollment Journey

Now's the time to establish Facebook goals for your childcare business. Consider the process every parent goes through while searching for childcare (the parent enrollment journey) to create a content strategy that’s tailored to your parent’s needs. 

For example, if you need more parents scheduling tours at your centers, host a Facebook Live to discuss what to expect during a tour and how to easily schedule a tour.  

Share Content That Attracts New Leads

Use attention-grabbing Facebook posts to find new parent leads. New families enjoy learning about what your center offers through unique content. Tell your brand’s story and showcase how you're different from competitors.

Take a look at these content examples:  

1. Blog posts are a great way to provide value to your audience. Share exciting curriculum updates, center celebrations, class availability changes, or an educational article.  
2. News updates and center events. Share updates with parents that help them get to know you and your brand. Inform your audience about upcoming parent events at your center.  
3. Polls and surveys. Ask your followers to participate in a Facebook poll, share their own stories on parenting, or take part in a survey. 
4. Photos. Include images of your centers, teachers, events, and of the children in your classrooms (if you have written parent permission). 
5. Videos make up 82% of internet traffic and receive higher Facebook engagement than other types of content. Because videos capture viewers’ attention longer than text or images can, they perform well on Facebook. But keep in mind that 1-3 minute videos with natural lighting are ideal.  

Tips for Creating Facebook Content to Market Your Centers

The best childcare marketing strategy on Facebook is consistent and scheduled in advance. Here are some tips to help you form a content plan to meet all your goals: 

1. Choose to schedule posts ahead of time.  
2. Post 1-2 Facebook videos or Live sessions per week.  
3. Schedule enrollment or promotion-focused content, but focus on unique photos, infographics, and personal posts. 
4. Write creative copy. Use puns, jokes, and wordplay where they fit in, assuming it fits your brand guidelines. Doing so helps break up dense information and humors your prospective families. Parents want to get to know who will be caring for their children.
5. Share your content plan with your team and tweak the deadlines based on their feedback. 

1) Keep Facebook Inquiries Organized

When you have messages and information from prospective parents coming in from multiple places, it can be difficult to access them quickly. Stay organized by using lead management software that integrates with Facebook. Automatically collect and organize parent information from ads so you can respond faster. 

3) Create Personalized Parent Follow-Up

Automated messaging saves time and quickly personalizes responses. Aside from automating inquiries on Facebook Messenger, you can also collect parent information from Lead Ads and begin nurturing families using automated emails and texts.  

Facebook Lead Ads contain a simple form for parents to fill out. The parent’s name and contact details are automatically entered into childcare experience software, enabling you to personalize future follow-up communications. Use variable tags like [First Name], [Center Name], and [Director Name] to ensure they have a personalized experience. 

Use Facebook to Design Childcare Ads That Convert

Facebook ads increase engagement more than organic posts. They allow you to re-engage prospective parents who’ve interacted with your content but weren’t previously ready to enroll. Plus, Facebook ads provide robust analytics. They also give you the ability to scale your enrollment promotion and create custom CTAs (for example, change ‘book now’ to ‘enroll now.’) Use these Facebook best practices to create the right childcare ads for your centers. 

1) Consider Your Childcare Ad Format in the Design Process

The human brain processes an image 60,000 times faster than text. Use videos and infographics to easily display information about your centers appealingly to ensure your childcare business remains top of mind for inquiring families.

On average, prospective leads have time to read 28% of the words on your landing page, website, or social media post. Base the ad design on your target audience, which ad type reaches more parents (lead, image, video, etc.), and converts leads at high rates. Include marketing elements that reflect your childcare brand to tell parents who you are. 

5) Use a Simple Form to Collect Information from Facebook Lead Ads

Focus on the quality of your leads rather than the quantity. By comparison, Lead Ads reduce Facebook campaign costs by 50% more than less targeted ad campaigns. Parents can share their name, email address, phone number, and more by filling out a simple form. You can occasionally include custom questions, but it’s best to keep these forms minimal. Use 3-5 form fields to increase your Facebook engagement rate.  

6) Post When Parents Are Online to Increase Engagement

High-traffic times refer to the ideal days and times to post on social media and catch prospective families’ attention.

For Facebook, it’s recommended that you post on Wednesdays, Mondays, and Fridays between 10 am and 11 am or on Wednesdays between 1 pm to 2 pm. It’s suggested that you avoid posting on weekends and after 5pm on weekdays as fewer people are on Facebook at those times. 

Track Your Facebook Performance

Monitoring ad performance is a crucial part of refining any childcare marketing strategy. These insights provide helpful information about what content and ads resonate with parents the most. Facebook has three in-platform ways to access important data: Facebook Business Suite, Creator Studio, and Facebook Insights. 

Prioritize Facebook Business Suite

Facebook Business Suite is an alternative to what was formerly known as Facebook Analytics. Facebook Business Suite is a solution that includes your Facebook Business Manager and access to engagement data (reach, impressions, interactions). You’ll also find data on the demographics of your followers and audience. 

Generate More Leads with Facebook Integrations

The final way to optimize Facebook as a lead-generating tool is to integrate Facebook with childcare lead management or childcare experience software.  

How Facebook Integrations Work

A Facebook integration is the connection between Facebook and external software. LineLeader's Facebook integration makes it easy to capture leads from Facebook Messenger and Facebook Lead Ads all in one place. Parent name or contact information flows directly into LineLeader, so you can automate follow-up. With a childcare experience platform and Facebook integration, you can: 

1. Capture parent names or contact information as a pending lead in LineLeader.
2. Easily integrate multiple Facebook business accounts to capture Facebook leads for each center location.
3. Understand how effective Facebook leads are by tracking Facebook as a lead source.
4. Respond to Facebook Messenger chats directly from your LineLeader inbox or from the family record. 

Maximize Your Lead Follow-Up with LineLeader

Build professional campaigns at scale and save center directors, staff, and enrollment teams more than 40 hours of work every month by automating follow-up and marketing for Facebook leads. Plus, see how effective your Facebook marketing efforts are by using LineLeader's reporting tools to track how many parent leads came from Facebook and where they are in the journey to enrollment. 

Use LineLeader to boost enrollment and scale your childcare business. For more marketing tips to expand your childcare centers, see the resource below.