Whether it’s to make a living or just a few extra spending dollars, babysitting is a great way to earn money and provide a much-needed service to the community. There are currently over 48,000 babysitters currently employed in the United States, which means there’s some serious competition if you want to get more clients. Here are five tips to promote your babysitting services in your community.
Hang flyers around town
It might be the digital age, but some of the old-school marketing methods can still do one thing better than any internet-based marketing: localization.
Digital marketing reaches a global audience, but what good does that do your babysitting business? You don’t want to travel too far for a job because it’ll eat into your earnings. Flyers, on the other hand, are extremely localized. Only the people in your area can see them, meaning you can control the range of your marketing efforts to only the areas you’re willing to commute.
Think of areas around town where people needing babysitting services spend their time and fill them with plenty of flyers. Consider places like schools, activity centers, or even workplaces. And make sure your flyers are eye-catching enough to draw people in to learn more.
Since you’re busy taking care of kids, you might not have time to design eye-catching flyers from scratch. Luckily, there are hundreds of free templates for babysitting flyers available online from websites like PosterMyWall.
Find the template that best fits your business, customize the information using the easy drag-and-drop editor, and you’re ready to print! It’s the best way to get professional-level flyers without needing professional design skills.
Start a referral program
Some of your best marketing tools are your current clients. If someone has kids, there’s a good chance they know other people with kids who might need some babysitting services. And since your clients obviously already think you’re the best babysitter around, a referral program can give them the push they need to really promote your services to their friend group.
For example, tell your existing clients that they can get 10% off next time they hire your services if they bring you a new client. They’ll run out to tell their friends about your amazing services for the discount, and you’ll get a bunch of new local clients!
Build a website
Babysitting is a serious job. You’re taking care of someone’s kids! And that means any potential clients will really want to know everything about you, your services, and your qualifications before they hire you. Give them a place to find all the information they need with a well-designed website.
Think of a website like the home base for all your marketing. Every promotion you run, from your flyers to social media ads, should send people to your website. It’s where people can learn everything about your services and get a feel for what you can provide.
If you don’t have the funds (or time) to build a website, a social media page can suffice. Especially on platforms like Facebook that allow you to include plenty of information about your services, these social media pages can act as your online marketing home base and give you an easy way to share your page with other users.
Create a profile on babysitting databases
Parents today are too busy to scour the internet looking for babysitters, and many choose to use dedicated online platforms to find qualified childcare options. These platforms put all the qualified babysitting professionals in a list, allowing parents to quickly scan, vet, and hire childcare professionals.
Make sure your name shows up when they search by creating profiles on various babysitting databases. Some of the most popular babysitting databases include:
- com
- Sittercity
- Urbansitter
- com
The more databases you show up on, the more potential clients who will see your information!
Offer discounts
Nobody can resist a good deal. If you want to bring in more clients or even increase business during an off time, try offering discounts on your babysitting services.
For example, you could offer a first-time sitting discount that gives clients a percentage off your regular fee for the first time they hire your services. Once they see how good you are, they’ll want to hire you again and again.
You could also use discounts to get more business during off times. For instance, if you typically have trouble finding work on Wednesday nights, offer a special “date night discount” to encourage parents to want to go out and hire a babysitter for a day of the week they typically wouldn’t think about.
Grow your babysitting business with local marketing
Even parents need to get away sometimes. And when they need someone to watch their kids, make sure you’re the first person they call by hanging plenty of flyers around town, starting a referral program, building a website, creating profiles on babysitting databases, and offering a few discounts.
When all your marketing efforts work together, it won’t be long before you’re the most popular babysitter in town!