What sources have you gotten your clients from?

I just opened my home daycare in September, and I still only have 1 dck. I was just wondering where you have gotten most of your daycare kids from? Kijiji? Daycare Bear? Word of mouth? Unfortunately, since I just opened, I have no word of mouth yet, and I've heard that's how you get most of your clients. What has your experience been?

I had a hard time getting started too. I advertised in April 2010 and had a really hard time even getting calls or any signs of interest. Then half way through August I had 3 families contact me within 48 hours and they all signed. You just never know how the timing works out.

I found my first clients through daycarebear.

I never had luck with kijiji ever. It was really weird inquiries through there and it made me wonder if it was all creepy people lurking on there.

And then after I got started I have gotten 3 families from recommendations and another 1 from word of mouth and also another 1 from daycarebear.

I have had 2 times where people have pulled their cars over on the street and asked me about spots while I was out walking and once just walking down the sidewalk and encountering a mom coming the opposite way. None of those ever worked out because I never had space available.

I would suggest daycarebear, kijiji if it works for you and you don't get strange inquiries, and then going to Ont Early Years in your area and chatting up moms at some of the groups and telling them you do daycare and are looking for families. Just slide it into the conversation casually and see if they know anyone and tell them to point people your way :)

I did flyers when I got started and hung a sign out my front door, but didn't find those to be very effective personally but each area is different.

Good luck. Hang in there. Build it and they will come.

I also find it helps if you take some pictures of your daycare space and put it on your ad. It draws more people in when they can see what a great space you have and you will get more clicks. It is like you are on ebay - do you click on the items with a picture or just a description?? People love pictures :)

Oh forgot to say you could also try taping water proof signs to the side of your mailbox rows around the area :) I have seen other providers do that

I have used my website, kijiji, daycare bear, go daycare, ads taped to mailboxes around the area and word of mouth. I suggest making a website and putting the link on the places you advertise for daycare, it really helps :)

Most of my clients have come from Kijiji or Daycare bear... A web page helps a lot. I noticed the number of inquires increase after creating my site.

Other than word of mouth most of my clients in the last couple of years have come from kijiji, daycarebear, godaycare in that order. Stay away from craig's list as that is prone to more weird inquiries than other sites for some reason. On kijiji I know how I look at the ads when I am just browsing and that is by typing in the subject I want so in my opinion not worth paying to be on the top or for special services since a lot of those ads are ignored anyways and will still come up in a search a person does.

There are other places you can list. On the www.ccprn.com website look under for caregivers and there is a document listing places people have said they have placed ads. Some are free and some are not and some seemed no longer active the last time I used the list but still it is a resource of options.

Having a website does help but it takes awhile usually to build up traffic to it. Make sure you list your website in the descriptions.

I have actually not got any of my clients through word of mouth. Most come from either kijiji or daycare bear for me. For Kijiji, you have to remove and repost your ad pretty much daily or it is lost on page 20 very quickly. It REALLY helps if you create a website for yourself. ALL of my clients came to me because they were impressed with my website :)

DAYCARE BEAR :) and word of mouth for me..TELL people that you are looking and ofter friends of friends and more the word will spread it took a year for me to be full and alot of interviews just dont give up.

GOOD LUCK