Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/step-up-to-more-referrals/5006811/
Referrals don't just walk in the door of a child care center like an occasional drop-in visitor. Although word-of-mouth referrals are by far the most frequent-and most cost efficient-inquiry generator, there never seem to be enough of them. Knowing how to reach out to those referral sources is a marketing skill that yields more inquiries about your child care services and thus more opportunities to covert those inquiries into enrollments.Who are your referral sources? A referral source may be one of your parents, a former customer, or a person whom I call an opinion influencer. An opinion influencer is a person who may never become your center's customer, but who has significant influence on parents who may become your customers. A typical opinion influencer might be a pediatrician, child care advocate, licensing agent, grandparent, minister or counselor, or anyone who could advise parents on where to look for quality child care.
Before people will refer you, they must go through a four step process to learn and remember who you are and what you stand for. Then, when they are asked for a reference to a good child care provider, your name is at the top ...