Did you know that 80% of today’s parents, to children under the age of 12, are Millennials?
That means that your center needs to offer the most seamless and convenient process for parents. Millennials are one of the first generations to be immersed in the digital world. Growing up in the digital age means that they use their phones everyday, they prefer to text, and they love fast responses. How you communicate with a millennial is important and knowing how to speak their language is even more crucial.
Read on to learn which mistakes you should avoid when communicating with millennials.
3 Mistakes to Avoid When Communicating with Parents
The parent experience is the journey a parent takes from inquiry to retention, and also includes key conversion points along the way. Today’s parent experience faces many challenges from slow response times and lengthy enrollment paperwork, to limited communication and no online payment options. Today’s parents want convenience, self-service options, immediate responses, and text communications.
Understanding the Parent Enrollment Journey
One of the first mistakes you should avoid is delayed follow-up or no follow-up at all. Contacting a lead within 5 minutes of their inquiry is 21 times more effective than contacting them after 30 minutes. If you aren’t being proactive, you could be losing up to 79% of your potential families. Automating the initial inquiry via text and email will ensure that your center is at the top of a parent’s mind.
Another mistake you should avoid, is inconsistent communications and no guidance for families. Parents need to be guided and nurtured throughout the enrollment journey. The Rule of 7 Communications tells us that a prospective family needs to hear, see, or read about your childcare program an average of seven times to become most likely to enroll.
Lastly, you should avoid sending email and texts that parents simply don’t want to read. Be sure that you’re optimizing your communications to increase read and response rates. You can increase your enrollment success rate by creating engaging content and campaigns.
View the Webinar to Gain Additional Communication Tips
All in all, you need to be strategic about how you are communicating with millennial parents. Millennials are a very specific demographic that have grown up in the digital age. Personalization and concise wording is important to millennial parents.
To learn more about how to communicate with millennial parents, watch our most recent webinar below.
