How to Build Text Marketing Campaigns with Less Work
The Essential Childcare Guide to Implementing Text Marketing Campaigns that Nurture Families, with Less Work
.png?width=1050&height=525&name=2023%20Website%20Graphics%20(20).png)
Table of contents
- What Is Text Message Marketing?
- Why Should I Use Text Message Marketing?
- How to Get Started with Text Marketing
- Benefits of Using Text Marketing
- 4 Text Message Marketing Best Practices
- Easily Create and Automate the Best Text Marketing Campaigns
- Essential Text Marketing Features to Effortlessly Design and Send Your Campaigns
- LineLeader Helps You Build Engaging Text Campaigns with Less Work
What Is Text Message Marketing (for daycare centers)?
Text message marketing is a cost-friendly way to advertise exciting news, deals, and promotions for your business by sending texts to the mobile devices of your customers and prospects. It’s also a more personal method of building brand awareness.
In childcare, text marketing can help you promote center events, open seats, programs, and enrollment offers. Typically, customers must ‘opt-in’ or subscribe to start receiving messages so make sure to advertise your subscription options on your website.
Text messages have open rates as high as 98%, and on average it only takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text.
Why Should I Use Text Message Marketing?
You’re already targeting inquiring parents with your email campaigns, but texting allows you to segment a little deeper and meet parents where they’re at – on their phones. In fact, 21% of a Millennial’s day is spent on their mobile phone.
With texting, you can develop meaningful connections and gain high-quality family leads earlier in the journey to enrollment – leading to greater conversion and retention rates!
Keep in mind, texts are easy to send and almost always read by your audience. But they should flow with the tone and messaging of your other marketing communications.
How to Get Started with Text Marketing
Here’s how you can get started:
1) Pick an easy-to-use texting platform.
The best tools offer two-way communication features so you can text back and forth with prospective families. With the right solution, you can build drip campaigns that will allow you to text with families based on their level of engagement and interest, ensuring you always stay top of mind without being overbearing. Plus, you can segment your family leads into lists (based on start dates, which locations or programs they’re interested in, etc.) and easily review campaign results.
Need an in-depth overview of how to get started? Check out our blog that details proven text marketing best practices.
2) Choose a designated phone number.
With the right childcare solution, you can get a unique phone number that allows you to send and receive text messages in one place, ensuring no family’s message falls through the cracks.
3) Let your prospective families opt-in to accept messages from your center.
Families can text a keyword such as “Yes” or “I’m in” to consent to receive messages. In some cases, more formal consent (professional consent) is needed – such as a check box via a website form, written documentation, and others. If you choose the right text solution, the software should help to handle the legal requirements on your behalf.
*Double Opt-in – Typically, a single opt-in is legally required. Specific enrollment campaigns may make parents reply with a second confirmation message. However, your GDPR and opt-in requirements will vary by state. Check out these data compliancy laws to know exactly what type of data consent you need from parents, depending on your location.
Want to know more about childcare marketing? ChildcareCRM provides a range of marketing resources and built-in features to automate all campaigns, so you can attract new families to your center with ease. Find out how these features work to simplify your workload, in real-time.
Benefits of Using Text Marketing at Your Centers
There are a wide range of benefits to text message marketing. First, you’re meeting parents where they’re at by offering convenient communication channels. Next, you and your staff save time for what really matters – providing quality childcare and making connections with families. Plus, you’re able to...
- Boost enrollments: Use text message marketing to share promotions, discounts, and limited-time enrollment offers that boost conversions and grow revenue. Nearly 80% of consumers surveyed in 2022 shared that they like receiving offers via text.
- Build relationships: Provide better communication and guide parents through your enrollment journey with ease.
- Engage your families: Quickly share important waitlist updates, send encouraging content to parents, or simply keep the conversation going with families who are looking for care.
- Collect and nurture leads: Allow potential families to sign-up for texts or send them one-off questions and follow up quickly.
Download the guide to stay up to date on the latest industry news, trends and best practices for growing and managing your childcare business.
4 Text Message Marketing Best Practices
1) Build Urgency with Limited Time Offers
It’s likely that your childcare campaigns change depending on the time of year. Maybe you have a one-day-only back-to-school karaoke night that you want to advertise to all new and returning parents. On the other hand, the fall months are all about garnering attention for your limited-time winter camps. For more information, check out the power of text marketing and how to get started in 3 simple steps.
Either way, let parents know the date and time. Choose at least one ‘alert’ word to make your message sound urgent. Take a look at a few eye-catching options you can use...
- Limited time
- Now
- Today
- Deadline
- One day only
2) Send Your Texts at the Right Time
The most popular time to send texts is at noon, but you should always be responding to new inquiries within 15 minutes or less – unless it’s late at night or very early in the evening as texts can be disruptive at this time. With software that automates these texts for you, you can practically market in your sleep and ensure that texts are only sent within reasonable waking hours.
3) Keep Your Texts Brief and to the Point
Texting should be straightforward, clear, and concise. Try to sum up your message within 160 characters or less to keep it engaging for families. Also, consider using simpler words wherever possible. This is known as the Hemingway Method and ensures your marketing communications use words with only 1-2 syllables. Since most American adults read at an eighth-grade level, this will help increase your readership and engagement levels.
4) Segment Your Lists for Greater Personalization
Today’s parents expect personalized experiences. Segmentation allows childcare marketing and enrollment teams to create content for specific parent groups, while personalization means looking more in-depth into each parent within an individual segment.
For instance, you split your list of new parent inquiries into groups based on their initial responses based on the child’s age, desired start date, location, and more. If one family wants their child to join your toddler program and the other parent needs a spot in one of your infant classes – they'll go into different groups. Sending unique text messages to each group is vital because their needs aren’t the same. You may want to share potty training tips to nurture the family that’s shown interest in your toddler program. On the other hand, you might send ‘12 Simple Developmental Activities for Your Baby’ to engage the family with the infant.
The right marketing automation tool ensures you can accomplish all this without having to lift a finger! Get to know more about LineLeader by ChildcareCRM’s marketing automation features.
Easily Create and Automate the Best Text Marketing Campaigns
Nothing beats simplicity.
You know texting is a quick, targeted way to make communication easy and delight your prospective parents. But how do you keep track of multiple campaigns at the same time? And how do you text with families at scale? Here are some essential tactics for your business...
Form a Strong Message
Every marketing communication – across campaigns – should align with your overall childcare goals. If your mission statement is, “Building relationships, developing minds – ABC Learning is the best place to spend your time,” then your text campaigns should keep that messaging and tone.
Ensure your text marketing campaigns are crafted to...
-
Reach a business (or center) goal (ex: filling waitlist spots)
-
Spread your childcare brand’s reach, while maintaining its voice
-
Resonate with your target audience
Target the Right Audience with the Right Information
You’ve probably picked up on the fact that you’re mainly going to target Millennial parents with your marketing content. Because remember – 80% of parents to children under the age of 12.
To better target these modern families, research their work habits, day-to-day routines, behavior, wants, and needs – so you can craft text messages that provide value and help to solve their problems. For example, Millennial parents prefer self-service options. So by texting families a link to your online tour scheduler, you’re giving parents the convenience and flexibility they need.
Fortunately, there’s valuable software out there to painlessly build relationships, assign you a designated phone number, automate text marketing campaigns, two-way text parents, and so much more – all for you in one easy-to-use platform.
ChildcareCRM is your one-stop shop for marketing automation, including crafting compelling text message marketing campaigns – practically hands-free. Create lifelong relationships with families using supportive communication software.
Use a Childcare Experience Platform to Craft the Best Text Message Marketing Campaigns
65% of businesses with over 100 employees are in the process of creating a digital transformation plan. More and more industries are reviewing outdated, paper-based processes and looking for ways to save staff time and cut down on manual work with streamlined, digital processes.
The Childcare industry is at the start of its digital transformation journey. Centers that choose to keep up with this progress and innovate in their businesses are going to be years ahead of their competitors.
A Childcare Experience Platform empowers childcare professionals with robust customer relationship management (CRM) software, a dedicated parent engagement app, and childcare management software (CMS) - all together in one solution. The childcare industry’s first and only Childcare Experience Platform (CXP), LineLeader by ChildcareCRM, equips childcare businesses with everything they need to simplify the family and staff experience. Learn how to automate text marketing campaigns in-depth.
Essential Text Marketing Features to Effortlessly Design and Send Your Campaigns
1) Start off on the Right Foot with Stored Text Templates
Once you implement a childcare CRM, you’ll get a unique phone number to text from. Then you can start to...
-
Engage parents with personalized messages.
-
Spend less time writing texts.
-
Automatically send stored text templates with your childcare branding elements.
-
Use dynamic content to engage families with personalized text communications.
2) Follow-Up Faster and Respond in Real-Time
Eliminate the need for staff to give out their personal contact information. View all of your inbound and outbound text messages in one place to respond faster.
3) Improve Communication by Reporting on Performance
Identify which locations are responding to texts in a timely manner and track what messaging is performing best. View delivery rates, open rates, and more to enhance your text message marketing strategy and boost enrollment.
How do you currently track campaign performance? Knowing the results of your childcare marketing efforts positively impacts your revenue and overall business success.
Download the guide to stay up to date on the latest industry news, trends and best practices for growing and managing your childcare business.
