When you start a day care you should plan to hold this event just prior to, or shortly after opening. The purpose of the event is to allow prospective clients to come and view your facility, ask questions and generally discover your amazing day care service. . My big day was particularly fabulous and impressive (I’m very modest) so I figured what better way to give you some tips than to detail exactly what I did to create the perfect Start a Day Care Open Day.

- Prior to the event, I contacted my local radio station and arranged to run some advertising for a couple of weeks. I arranged to have the ads run during drive time when I knew my potential clients would be traveling to and from work. - As part of the deal the station provided their fleet of novelty cars to attend the event with staff on hand to give out freebie promotional materials. That really provided the X factor!

- I had promotional flyers printed and paid a few kids to distribute them locally.

My intention was to entice people in by providing a fun, family day out and to that end I arranged;

- A bouncy castle.

- Face painting.

- Story telling.

- Clowns.

- Snacks for everyone.

- Local politician to do the official opening ceremony (so all the local newspapers came to take pictures and do a feature - free!).

I opened my day care for tours so people could see first hand what I had to offer;

- Polished presentation is very important when showcasing your day care. I carefully arranged the layout of all equipment in every room in order to show the day care to best effect.

- Staff were positioned in all the rooms ready to talk, answer questions and hand out business cards.

- As the day care owner you should be around to welcome people and answer questions.

- We also arranged a raffle and asked people to provide their contact details (nice little database thank you) with the prize being a voucher for the day care.

The results of that wonderful day are still felt today as many of my enquiries remembered attending the event or hearing about it. Word of mouth advertising resulting from this event was also phenomenal. Word spread like wildfire as people who attended told friends and relatives. . A well organized, properly planned open day will be fun and memorable and people will talk about it. Impressed people will return or will spread the word to those they know to be seeking childcare. So, when opening a day care put your events hat on and utilize the best day care marketing tool out there.

Find out about childcare from Fiona Lohrenz who has run her own day care for the past 10 years. She incorporates all that knowledge into her website and her 'Start a Day Care Business' DVD guide: How To Start A Daycare Find her at her Day Care focused website.