As a daycare business, you want to bridge the gap between providers and parents to increase retention, engagement, and customer satisfaction.
A daycare newsletter is an easy, cost-effective tool to keep parents engaged and connected with your community.
Let’s look at the benefits of daycare newsletters and guidelines for creating one that gets you noticed.
What’s the purpose of a daycare newsletter?
One of the biggest challenges in the childcare industry is the communication gap between parents and caregivers.
Most parents wish to be more involved in their child’s care, but without regular updates, information, and help, they feel increasingly disconnected and uninformed.
A daycare newsletter bridges this communication gap. It serves as a platform to share important announcements, upcoming events, and helpful resources with parents, allowing them to be more involved in their child’s upbringing.
For example, Seaforth Childcare has a monthly newsletter that shares different types of content with parents.
These newsletters keep parents informed and encourage their involvement.
Benefits of daycare newsletters
90% of customers prefer to receive business updates via newsletters compared to other platforms. This might be because newsletters feel more personalized and targeted, coming directly into parent inboxes.
In addition to reaching out to parents in a way that most prefer, a daycare newsletter has three additional benefits.
1. Strengthens parent-provider relationship
Regular communication through newsletters builds trust and rapport between daycare facilities and parents.
When parents feel involved, valued, and well-informed, they are more likely to view your center positively. This enhances client retention and helps you get word-of-mouth marketing.
2. Provides a wealth of resources
Daycare newsletters can offer a wealth of resources, quick tips, and information tailored to the unique needs and challenges of parenthood.
They can cover vital topics such as behavior management, healthy eating habits, fostering early literacy, and developmental milestones.
Your daycare newsletter can become a go-to resource for parents seeking guidance and support by including expert advice, resources, or recommended books.
Check out this child care newsletter emailed to parents by Seaforth:
It includes helpful tips on teaching children about boundaries and personal safety.
3. Invokes parental involvement
Daycare newsletters are an important communication channel between staff and parents. When parents are dropping off or picking up their kids from your facility, they may not always have time to stop and chat about how their child is doing.
An engaging newsletter invokes parental involvement in childcare, helping parents feel more in touch with their children even when they’re away.
For instance, photographs of children playing and learning give parents a sense of comfort and connection, knowing their children are safe and happy while they work.
Your newsletter can also be an opportunity to invite parents for further involvement, such as visiting days or joint parent-child activities, events, and dinners.
For example, the above childcare newsletter invites parents to visit, sing, play, and help out at the facility.
How to create an engaging daycare newsletter
Ready to create an engaging daycare newsletter? Here are five steps to making one your community will love.
1. Choose an email marketing platform
There are lots of email newsletter software choices out there. You want one designed to meet the needs of specific businesses like daycare centers. That’s where GetResponse comes in. Unlike other tools on the market, GetResponse offers a wide range of tools at an affordable price.
You get an email marketing suite with built-in newsletter support, autoresponder, website builder, and landing page builder. You also get communication tools like SMS marketing, live chat, and web push notifications to help you better engage with parents.
Here are three unique GetResponse email marketing features that will support your daycare facility:
- An AI email generator to help you beat writer’s block
- A drag-and-drop email builder with two million stock images and GIFs to help you bring your design to life easily
- Over 200 predesigned email templates to customize and save time
What’s more, we guarantee a 99% deliverability rate for 160+ countries, so you don’t have to worry about improving email deliverability with GetResponse. Your newsletters will always reach the parents’ inboxes.
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2. Plan the format
The next step is to create a newsletter format. The good news is that if you’re using the best email newsletter software, you’ll have a good selection of templates to guide you through this process.
Still, here are five basic steps to formatting childcare newsletters:
- List your must-have content
- Design specific sections for items that will always be included (such as promotions or calls-to-action)
- Write your content and add graphics
- Have a team or an audience proofread the newsletter and adjust as needed
- Keep the newsletter brief—ideally under three pages
For design, keep these guidelines in mind:
- Keep your design clean and uncluttered—try to leave white space so your taglines and important information do not get overshadowed
- Keep recurring content in the same spot of the newsletter (such as the end of the first page or top right corner for contact details)
- Use color psychology and add bold, colorful graphics and photos to break up walls of text and bring life to the newsletter.
- Use colored texts, bullet points, headlines, lists, and shorter paragraphs instead of lengthy sentences.
- Leave out the fluff—keep the necessary information short and to the point
- Match your tone, layout, content, and design elements to your brand’s colors, themes, and vision
Also, make sure to consider how the newsletter will be read. Many people read emails on their phones today, so you want to use responsive email designs, something GetResponse provides out of the box.
We’ve also created this comprehensive guide on email marketing if you want to get more professional tips on creating your daycare newsletter.
3. Create content for your newsletter
Once you’ve created a format, you must create engaging content to fill in the gaps. Here are some top content ideas to include in your daycare newsletter:
- A calendar with important dates, upcoming events, birthdays, etc
- Explanation sections that inform parents of daycare rules and serve as policy reminders
- Spotlights with news from staff or accomplishments from students
- Daycare menu with snacks, meal breakdowns, and nutrition tips
- Parent feature where you allow parents or staff to contribute an ad or article
- Showcase section with photos, classroom artwork, or daycare projects
- A learning goals section highlighting what students have learned or planned for the month
- Promotions such as upcoming open houses, incentives for referrals, or deals for new admissions
- A welcome section for new parents and pupils
- Review sections with ratings and interviews with parents
- Links to your website, social media, or payment channels
Some of these content ideas can be combined and shared in a single newsletter.
The above is an example of how you can incorporate multiple content elements neatly into a single email.
However, certain content types will need to be shared separately. For example, welcome content for onboarding new parents should be shared in a separate newsletter for daycare.
4. Schedule your emails
Decide on a particular day of the week or month, and ensure the newsletter reaches your subscriber’s inbox every time that day rolls around.
A consistent schedule lets parents know when to expect a new issue, increasing your readership and engagement.
Sticking to a schedule also makes it easier to plan and ensure that each newsletter has interesting, useful information.
Remember not to flood your customers with a barrage of information and promotions. One newsletter every two weeks or so should be enough. A higher frequency will waste time and resources and might make parents feel like they’re being spammed.
You can learn more about the right newsletter frequency here.
5. Analyze Performance
The last step is to measure the effectiveness of your daycare monthly newsletter. This is another area where GetResponse comes in handy. We offer real-time email analytics you can access on the go. You get to track:
- Open rates
- Click-through rates
- Bounce rates
- Unsubscribe rates
- Device and email domain tendencies
You also get insights on the most popular subscription methods (so you can optimize your sign-up form) and average monthly subscription rates. In addition, click maps track user clicks throughout the email to spot which areas of your newsletter are doing the best.
You can use this information to A/B test your subject lines, video and text content, and calls to action to continuously improve your newsletter.
Build your daycare newsletter with GetResponse
Constant communication with customers is essential for every business. In the context of daycare, where parents need consistent information about their children’s daily environment, communication is more crucial than ever.
That’s where daycare newsletters for parents come in—they’re an effective way to keep families engaged and connected and build trust and loyalty in your brand.
If you’re ready to use the power of email marketing for your monthly newsletters, let GetResponse help you with its comprehensive set of tools. Sign up for free today.