How to Increase Childcare Enrolments in Australia

Map the steps a family takes

A family may discover your service through search, a recommendation, social content or an advertisement. They then need to understand the offer, make contact, explore a tour and decide whether the service suits their needs.

Start by reviewing those steps on a phone. Make location, age groups, hours, enquiry options and the next action clear. Keep availability statements current and avoid implying that every enquiry can be accommodated.

Agree on what the numbers mean

• Enquiry: A genuine request received by the service, excluding tests and obvious spam.
• Qualified enquiry: A request that reasonably matches the service’s location, age group, timing and other relevant criteria.
• Tour booked: A confirmed booking, rather than a click on a tour button.
• Tour attended: A family actually completed the tour.
• Enrolment: Use a consistent business definition, such as completed enrolment or commenced care, and do not mix them.

Record the period and follow the same group of enquiries where possible. A family enquiring at the end of a month may not have reached the tour stage by that month’s report.

An illustrative funnel

These numbers do not establish what another service should achieve. They show why the denominators matter. If there are no tours in a period, a tour conversion rate is not meaningfully calculated as zero.

Use the pattern to choose the next check

Few suitable enquiries: Check whether the service is findable and whether the message, catchment and availability match the audience.

Enquiries but few bookings: Review response timing, clarity, contactability and whether the next step is easy to arrange.

Bookings but low attendance: Check confirmation information, directions, reminders and the family’s expectations.

Tours but few enrolments: Review fit, availability, conditions, the tour experience and feedback. A marketing change may not be the main solution.

Make the website answer practical questions

Show what is distinctive through specific information about your program, people and process. Keep contact details and tour actions visible, use real authorised imagery and make it clear what happens after an enquiry.

Test the form, including failure handling and inbox delivery. A thank-you-page visit is not the same as a received enquiry. Use real records to reconcile the website numbers.

Check the local discovery path

Keep your business profile and website information consistent. Make the actual location and service area clear, and review the pages families see before contacting you. Avoid creating many near-identical suburb pages that do not add useful information.

Useful content can answer family questions before a tour. The content-ideas guide provides examples of explaining practice and routines.

Add advertising to a journey that works

Define the objective, catchment, budget and follow-up responsibility before launching. Separate management costs from platform spend and review enquiry quality, not only cost per click. See the marketing-cost guide for the components.

When estimating business value, use actual booked days, commencement dates and operating information. Gross fee revenue is not profit, and a waitlist or room-capacity constraint changes what additional demand can achieve.

Choose one improvement you can verify

Fix a clear break in the journey, record the change and review the following enquiries. Small volumes need context and time; avoid claiming a causal result from a handful of visits.

The Marketing Scorecard can help prioritise a review, while enrolment advertising support starts with the actual service and enquiry process.

A 15-minute audit to start with

1. Find the next step on a phone. Open your centre website and locate the age groups, suburb, tour request and contact details without using the menu first.
2. Test the enquiry route. Submit one clearly labelled test, check the confirmation and inbox, then record who would normally respond.
3. Review recent enquiries. Count genuine enquiries, booked tours, attended tours and enrolments separately over the same period. Remove tests and duplicates.
4. Choose the largest avoidable gap. If enquiries arrive but tours are not booked, inspect the response and scheduling process before buying more clicks.
5. Record one change and a review date. Keep the next comparison consistent and allow time for families to move through the journey.

A useful baseline records both the channel attributed by your website and the source families remember. A social referral can still result in a website enquiry.