Keeping parents informed and up-to-date on your child care center’s news, upcoming events, policies, etc. is crucial if you want your center to be a success. However, with all the responsibilities of running your business, adding a newsletter to the mix can seem like an overwhelming task.

Luckily, we’re here to help! We’ve put together tips, resources and content suggestions to help you create a neat, organized and informative newsletter that parents will love.

Planning and Designing

The first decision you will need to make is choosing a medium for your newsletter. A physical paper copy is nice but usually electronic delivery is the most effective and timely way to get your message out to parents.

You can keep things streamlined and put updates into an email and simply send it out as it is. You could also utilize an online newsletter platform like Mailchimp to create something a little more unique. Or, if you’re looking for the ultimate combination of flair and simplicity, you can use a free design website like Canva to put together a professional looking newsletter using templates to create something completely unique.

There is no right or wrong way to reach out to your parents. It really is a matter of convenience. Which medium do most of your parents use regularly? Which is most easily accessible? 

Some preschools hand out printed hard copies of newsletters to parents as they pick up their children. Others prefer to send communications directly through their Jackrabbit Care parent engagement app, yet others may prefer to mail newsletters directly to the parents’ home addresses, the decision is ultimately up to you.

Determine Frequency

Once you have decided on the medium of your childcare newsletter, you need to decide on the frequency and create a predictable calendar. Bombarding your parents daily and flooding their inboxes will eventually wear them – and you – out. 

On the other hand, sending out an email every couple of months will barely succeed in connecting the school and home. Instead, try to keep a regular schedule for reaching out to your parents to keep them promptly well-informed.

Typically, once or twice a month is ideal. Anything more frequent than that will have you struggling to fill out the space in your newsletter and striving to find things to say.

Proofread

Sending out a newsletter filled with grammatical, syntactical, and spelling errors will harm your daycare business and make you seem unprofessional. Have someone look over your work, or take some time away from it and come back to reread. You may be surprised at what you missed when writing it. There are also online proofreading tools like Grammarly that will check your writing for issues.

It does not matter which method you prefer as long as you have some sort of proofreading process before sending out your final copy.

Newsletter Content Ideas 

So you have a great design in mind but now what? What kind of content do you use to fill in the blank pages? Check out these ideas for inspiration.

1. Calendar of Upcoming Events

A calendar of events may just be the most important thing you can put into your child care center’s newsletter. Are there field trips coming up soon? Is it someone’s birthday next month? Maybe there’s a special guest coming by to read stories to the kids. Keep parents in the loop with a calendar listing out the plans for the month so they can be as prepared as you are.

2. Helpful Links & Reminders

You can make parent’s lives a little easier by including links for making payments, social media and other relevant information in each newsletter. You can also bake in reminders like holiday or inclement weather closures and billing deadlines for clear communication and less late payments.

3. Food Menu 

If your food menu is on rotation and changes every month, then you can assign part of your newsletter to inform parents of the new food items. In addition, if the newsletter is in their email folder, they can easily revert to it every night to check what their toddler will be having the next day instead of scrambling around the house and trying to find that paper copy you sent home a few days before.

4. Child Care Tips

Make your newsletter stand out with a tip or advice section. Fill it with fun ideas like crafts, recipes, books for their children or health and safety notices. This is an easy way to add some personality to the page. If you really want to go the extra mile, reach out to local pediatricians or child psychologists. They may be able to offer quick tips or advice to parents as well. 

5. Center Updates 

Is the playground getting a new addition? Are you opening a new location in a different neighborhood? Let families know. Not only is this exciting news for your business, but updates like these keep parents informed and able to make the best decisions for their kids.

Tip: Strapped for content? Try social media!
If you’re still struggling to fill the space in your newsletter, a section dedicated to highlights or alternate pictures from your social media channels that parents may have missed can be a great way to add something more to your messaging. Check out our blog on what to share on social media for more details. For ideas and content shares, follow Jackrabbit Care on Facebook.

Ready To Reach Out To Your Parents?

Even though it can seem intimidating, building a newsletter does not have to be a difficult task. Once you get into the routine of gathering the information you want to include, actually filling in the blanks in each newsletter is a piece of cake. No matter what design or style you decide to go with, parents will appreciate a neat and informative newsletter that helps them stay up to date with the latest and greatest at your childcare center.

We bet that if you follow our guide, you will have your newsletter ready in no time!