Conducting Market Research
Prime candidates who need full-time child care are parents with infants to 5-year-olds. Parents with children over 5 are good prospects for after-school care programs. The market segments most likely to use child-care services are dual-income families and single-parent households in most income brackets.
A number of government programs help low-income families pay for child care so the adults can stay in the work force.
Within this very broad market is the narrower group of clients you’ll serve. Use market research to figure out who these people are and how you can best attract them to your center. Lois M. says the primary market at four of her six locations is parents who are upper-income working professionals; the other two centers serve a number of middle-income families as well as those being subsidised by public funds.
Janet H. says about half her clientele consists of dual-income families, and the other half is single mothers who receive government assistance as they work through programs designed to get them off welfare.
The goal of market research is to identify your market, find out where it is, and develop a strategy to communicate with prospective customers in a way that will convince them to bring their children to you.
When Lois M. opened her first centre, her demographic research revealed that there were 9,000 children from infant to 5 years old within a 5-mile radius of the site; half the pre-school children in the area were in day care of some sort because their mothers (or both parents) worked; and the number of households in the area was expected to double within a decade. Contained in that 5-km radius were six child-care centres serving approximately 800 children.
Brenda B.’s research wasn’t as sophisticated. Living in a small town, she knows just about everyone and is well aware of the lack of child-care services.
“There’s such a need for day care,” she says. “I go through periods where I’ll get as many as five calls a week from parents needing care, and I don’t have room for them. I’ve had families on my waiting list for up to two years.”