Childcare Marketing Agency: How to Choose the Right One

If you run childcare centers and need marketing help, you have four real options: a coaching company, a done-for-you childcare agency, a generalist local agency, or an in-house hire. The right one depends on whether your problem is execution or strategy.

Most operators pick wrong because they never make that distinction. They hire someone to run ads when the actual problem is that inquiries are arriving and nobody is calling them back within an hour. Or they hire a coach to teach them a system when what they needed was someone to just do the work.

This page lays out what each model actually does, roughly what it costs, and who it fits — including where ChildcareDM fits and where it doesn't.

First, diagnose the problem

Before evaluating anyone, answer this: is your marketing not running, or is it running and not working?

Not running

An execution problem

No ads. An outdated website. A Google Business Profile nobody has touched in two years. No consistent social presence.

You need someone to do the work.

Running but not working

A strategy problem

You're spending money. You have a vendor or an internal person. Reports arrive monthly. But enrollment is flat and nobody can explain why.

Adding more execution here usually makes it worse — you spend more and still can't explain the result.

The distinction matters because the four models below are genuinely good at different things, and the most common expensive mistake in this industry is buying execution to solve a diagnosis problem.

The four models

Model one

Coaching and training companies

You learn the system and your team implements it. Delivered through courses, masterminds, conferences, and group or one-to-one coaching.

The best-known example is The Child Care Success Company, founded by Kris Murray in 2008. Murray is the most recognized name in childcare business coaching in the United States — author of several industry books including The Ultimate Child Care Marketing Guide, host of the Child Care Success Summit and the Child Care Rockstar Radio podcast, and operator of the Child Care Success Academy mastermind. The company works with owners across the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Who it fits. Owners who want to build internal capability, who have a director or marketing coordinator with time to implement, and who value peer community and accountability. If you want to understand marketing rather than outsource it, this is the model.

The tradeoff. You still have to do the work. Coaching creates a plan; someone on your payroll executes it. Operators who buy coaching without the internal bandwidth end up with a binder and no change in enrollment. That's not a failure of the coaching — it's a mismatch of model to situation.

Typical investment. Mid four figures to low five figures annually, depending on tier.

Model two

Done-for-you childcare marketing agencies

An agency that works only with childcare centers and handles execution — ads, website, social, sometimes lead follow-up. You stay out of it.

  • BRIT Childcare — a US childcare marketing company positioning around fully done-for-you service, with monthly strategy sessions and a strong content presence across podcast, YouTube, and Instagram.
  • Child Care Genius — websites, Google Ads, and managed social posting on packaged plans, aimed largely at independent operators.
  • Child Care Marketing Group — full-service childcare marketing with an emphasis on websites and paid search, working with centers in the US and UK.

Who it fits. Single-site and small multi-site operators who have no internal marketing person, don't want one, and need the work done consistently. If your problem is genuinely "nothing is running," this model solves it directly and it's usually the fastest path to activity.

The tradeoff. Packaged services optimize for what's deliverable at scale, not for your specific bottleneck. If your enrollment problem is a tour-conversion problem, a package that delivers twelve social posts and a managed ad account may run perfectly and change nothing. Ask specifically who is assigned to your account and whether the person doing your strategy is the person you talk to.

Typical investment. $1,000–$4,000 per month, often with setup fees.

Model three

Generalist local agencies

A competent local marketing firm that works across industries — dentists, law firms, home services, and you.

Who it fits. Operators with a clear, well-defined execution task — a website rebuild, a brand refresh, video production — where general craft matters more than industry knowledge. A good generalist agency will build you a better website than most childcare specialists will.

The tradeoff. Childcare has structural dynamics that generalists consistently miss. Enrollment is seasonal and the calendar is unforgiving. Parents choose in a radius measured in minutes, not miles — which is why most childcare Google Ads accounts waste money on targeting. Lifetime value is measured in years, which changes what an acceptable cost-per-inquiry looks like. Capacity is fixed, so more leads past a point is waste rather than growth. And a family choosing childcare is making a trust decision, not a price decision — which means the messaging that works in most local service categories actively backfires here.

Typical investment. Wide range, $1,500–$8,000 per month.

Model four

Hiring in-house

A marketing coordinator or director on your payroll.

Who it fits. Groups above roughly fifteen to twenty locations, where there's enough volume to keep someone fully occupied and enough budget to hire well.

The tradeoff. Loaded cost typically runs $70,000–$110,000 for someone genuinely capable, and childcare marketing experience is rare enough that you'll usually be hiring general marketing talent and teaching them the industry. You also get one person's skill set — someone strong in paid search is rarely also strong in brand, local SEO, and analytics infrastructure. Most in-house hires below twenty locations end up managing vendors rather than doing the work, which means you're paying for coordination.

Where ChildcareDM fits

We're a fifth thing, and it's worth being specific rather than claiming to be all of the above.

ChildcareDM is an operator-side strategy practice. The difference isn't that we work only in childcare — several of the companies above do. It's which side of the table the experience comes from.

Most childcare marketing companies were built by marketers who found the childcare niche. ChildcareDM was built by someone who ran the marketing inside childcare organizations before ever selling it as a service — at Educational Playcare through its growth from 6 to 19 schools, at KLA Schools from 12 to 35 locations at both corporate and franchisee level, and at The Nest Schools from 32 to 55.

That's the difference between knowing how to run a Google Ads campaign for a daycare and knowing what happens in a regional director's Monday meeting when three centers missed their enrollment targets.

What that means in practice:

  • Every engagement is led directly by Cory Gabel. Not an account manager, not a rotating team. Specialists come in by discipline as the work requires, but the strategy, the analysis, and the accountability never move.
  • Diagnosis precedes execution. We don't sell channel packages. The first work is always finding where enrollment is actually leaking, which is frequently not where the operator assumed.
  • Measurement to enrollment, not to clicks. Inquiries by source, cost per inquiry by channel, tour rate, enrollment rate — benchmarked against $8M+ in childcare-specific ad spend across 225+ centers.

Who we're built for: multi-site groups and franchise networks where the complexity is real and the cost of a wrong diagnosis is measured in tens of thousands of dollars. Also independent operators who want to know what's actually happening before spending more.

Who we're not for: if you want the cheapest option, a set-and-forget package, or someone to simply execute a plan you've already decided on, one of the done-for-you agencies above will serve you better and cost you less. That's a real recommendation, not false modesty.

Comparison

Coaching Done-for-you agency Generalist agency In-house ChildcareDM
Who does the work Your team The agency The agency Your hire Us, led by Cory
Childcare-specific Yes Yes No Depends Yes
Operator-side experience Varies Rarely No Sometimes Yes
Strategy included Yes, taught Varies by tier Rarely Depends Always first
Best for Building internal capability Nothing is running Defined creative projects 15+ locations Diagnosis before spend
Typical monthly $400–$1,500 $1,000–$4,000 $1,500–$8,000 $6,000–$9,000 loaded Varies by scope

Scroll the table sideways to compare all five →

Seven questions to ask any childcare marketing company

Ask these of us too.

  1. Who will actually do my work, and will I talk to that person? "You'll have a dedicated account manager" and "you'll work with the strategist" are very different answers.
  2. What's your definition of success? If the answer involves impressions, clicks, or engagement rather than inquiries, tours, and enrollments, keep asking.
  3. How do you measure cost per enrollment? Anyone working seriously in childcare can answer this. It requires connecting ad platform data to your actual enrollment records, and many vendors never do.
  4. What would you tell me not to spend money on? A company that recommends everything is selling packages, not strategy.
  5. What's your experience with my model specifically? Independent, franchise, and multi-site groups have genuinely different problems. Franchise operators in particular should ask about brand-standard constraints and co-op fund mechanics.
  6. What happens in month one? If execution starts before diagnosis, ask why.
  7. Can I talk to an operator with a portfolio my size? Not a testimonial — an actual conversation.

Common questions

How much should a childcare center spend on marketing?

Most healthy centers spend between 1% and 3% of gross revenue on marketing, with newer centers and those in competitive markets at the higher end and centers with waitlists at the lower end. What matters more than the percentage is cost per enrollment relative to lifetime value — a family enrolled for three years is worth substantially more than the acquisition cost most operators are willing to accept.

Do I need a childcare-specific marketing agency, or will a general agency work?

For defined creative work — a website build, a brand refresh, photography — a strong generalist is often the better choice. For enrollment-driving marketing, industry knowledge matters more than most operators expect, because childcare's seasonality, radius dynamics, capacity constraints, and trust-based decision process all change what works.

What's the difference between a childcare marketing coach and a childcare marketing agency?

A coach teaches your team to do the marketing. An agency does the marketing for you. Coaching builds lasting internal capability but requires internal time to implement. An agency produces activity faster but leaves less behind if the relationship ends.

How long before childcare marketing shows results?

Paid search can generate inquiries within days. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work typically takes 60 to 90 days to move meaningfully. Website and conversion improvements show up as soon as traffic hits the new experience. Anyone promising enrollment growth in the first thirty days is describing paid advertising and should say so.

Should a multi-location childcare group hire in-house or use an agency?

Below roughly fifteen locations, an agency or specialist practice is usually more cost-effective than a hire. Above that, in-house becomes viable — though most groups above twenty locations run a hybrid, with an internal person owning coordination and brand while specialists handle paid media and analytics.

Not sure which model fits your situation?

Tell us about your centers and what you're trying to solve. We review every submission and respond within one business day — with a straight take on what we're seeing, including a referral elsewhere if that's the honest answer.

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