An 800% Blog Output Established ChildcareCRM’s Niche Dominance

Ever wondered how daycares manage loads of family information, leads, and communications? In today’s digital world, working with spreadsheets or paper not just wastes time and effort but also fails to make the cut. Plus, loss of information is a big risk with these traditional methods of managing data and leads. 

That’s where ChildcareCRM helps! 

Headquartered in Irving, Texas, ChildcareCRM is the #1 CRM platform in the childcare industry. The web-based customer relationship management software is specifically designed for childcare organizations, enabling them to grow their enrolment and save time through automated marketing. 

Today, ChildcareCRM serves more than 5,000 childcare centers globally, allowing them to improve their inquiry-to-enrollment rates and gain valuable marketing insights. 

We got talking with Sierra Rossing, Senior Content Marketing Manager at ChildcareCRM who shared her journey with this CRM and lead management software company. She talks about the customer problem ChildcareCRM solves and how offering value-adding personalized content has helped them achieve their goals. 

ChildcareCRM Success Highlights

• A key campaign focus for ChildcareCRM is to showcase how marketing automation software can help save staff time and effort. This enables childcare centers to focus on what matters most – the children. 
• Since ChildcareCRM is a thought-leader in their domain, they consistently share value-adding thought-leadership content that educates business leaders. 
• Their blog shares content for every stage in the sales cycle, from driving brand awareness to helping prospects make purchasing decisions to retaining current users. 
• Collaborating with influencers in the niche has also helped them develop high-quality content and earn brand mentions and backlinks. 

Let’s understand more about ChildcareCRM and their content strategy from Sierra Rossing. 

Thank you Sierra for your time. We are intrigued by what ChildcareCRM does and your contribution to its success.

Could you share a bit about your expertise?

I’m a mission-oriented, passionate content marketer with experience in B2B SaaS startup, early-stage, and fast-growth companies across marketing technology, education technology, and healthcare technology. I believe market research is what fuels an efficient marketing strategy. Because of this, I’ve had proven success in driving brand awareness, lead generation, sales enablement, and user feature adoption through content. 

Tell us about ChildcareCRM and how it impacts your customers

At ChildcareCRM, we believe early childhood learning centers play a pivotal role in a child’s educational journey. That’s why our founders created the first-ever CRM for the childcare industry in 2010. Now we’re helping 5,000 childcare centers across 5 countries to grow their business. 

ChildcareCRM caters to childcare centers of all sizes – from single-center, family-owned daycares to international childcare enterprises. ChildcareCRM offers marketing automation, online forms, and digital payment solutions that boost enrollment and save time so providers can focus on what matters most—caring for their enrolled families. 

What’s been your strategy when promoting ChildcareCRM? 

Childcare is a niche industry that I could have never foreseen myself marketing to before joining ChildcareCRM. Something that has surprised me is the variety of segments in this industry. We prioritize tailoring our messaging according to the business’ size and the decision maker’s experience. This ensures that everyone who connects with us has a unique and personalized experience, according to their current needs and pain points.

For example, the way we speak to a single site owner who has been serving as an early childhood educator for 10, 20, or 30 years is very different from how we relate to a childcare executive with more than 500 locations who, often, may not have first-hand experience working in a childcare center. 

However, one trend which has affected operators of all sizes, in recent years, is mass staffing shortages. Particularly since the initial onset of COVID-19, operators have struggled to find classroom teachers; and without those critical staff members, centers are unable to reach full enrollment. 

As such, a key campaign focus for us has been to showcase how marketing automation software can help save staff time (nearly 40 hours each week) and enable them to focus on what matters most – the children in their center; while also allowing them to regain some of the work-life balance they’ve lost. 

Aside from solely driving sales, we strive to educate these business leaders through thought-leadership content in the form of webinars, blogs, white papers, podcasts, and guides.

We are a key thought-leader in our industry and are proud to deliver helpful content that enables operators of all sizes to market their centers, save staff time, and grow their businesses. 

Of all our content, I’m most proud of our blog. Upon joining ChildcareCRM, I have increased our blog output by 800%, lowered our bounce rate, increased our click-through rates, and brought on a full-time copywriter.

Our blogs touch every stage in the sales cycle, from driving brand awareness to helping prospects make purchasing decisions to retaining current users. 

Our leads migrate through awareness, to discover, to evaluation, to intent, to purchase, and loyalty – all while relying on blog content to guide them through the process. This content is often distributed through lead nurture workflows, email newsletters, social media, or through one-to-one prospecting outreach from our SDRs and Account Executives. 

I monitor various KPIs according to the type of content. For blogs, we monitor entrances, read time, bounce rate, and click-through rates. For guides and white papers, we monitor downloads, read time, and new contacts as we prioritize hosting both front-gated and end-gated content on our website. 

Webinars are an entirely different beast and typically lead to a higher number of MQLs and MOBs. These, along with generating new contacts, are our main goals for each webinar or training session that we promote. 

How do content marketing and SEO fit in ChildcareCRM’s overall brand strategy?

I’m a strong believer that content should deliver value to the audience.

But the first step is to understand your audience, step into their shoes; and never forget to talk to Customer Operations and Sales. This will help you better understand your audience’s needs and what questions they have that you can ultimately answer through your content. 

Content touches all areas of the business, and ensuring content is personalized for our audience will continue to be a critical part of my strategy as Web3 emerges. This not only drives brand awareness but delivers the value that consumers are seeking from the content they digest.

Pillar pages have, by far, been our largest driver of SEO. We create all our content and manage our web presence in-house. However, we do use an external agency that regularly consults us on our search performance, keywords, and web rankings – particularly as we expand into new markets like Australia and the United Kingdom.

HubSpot is our go-to CMS at ChildcareCRM. I love being able to switch from our blog to pillar pages, to webpages, and lead records – all in one place. We monitor our web traffic by source, new contacts, influenced revenue, and originated revenue to understand how our marketing efforts are performing and identify how we’re meeting our company’s quarterly and annual goals.

What’s your link-building strategy been like?

Earned media is a large part of our SEO strategy. ChildcareCRM, being the first CRM for the childcare industry, has developed some strong strategic and integrated partnerships with Center Management Systems, Childcare Listing Directories, and Childcare Career Coaches over the last 12 years. 

I have great relationships with Marketing heads, CEOs, and Content Marketers at these organizations with whom we’ve been able to collaborate. We regularly reciprocate sharing blogs on each other’s sites, co-hosting webinars, recording podcasts, and more. We also focus on awards, press releases, and other similar avenues to help us gain backlinks from influential sources.

When I joined ChildcareCRM, I knew I wanted to prioritize influencer marketing. It’s amazing how many educators and childcare owners have become content creators.

They help inspire others to start their businesses and succeed. Many of these influencers are long-time ChildcareCRM users and advocates who deliver great word-of-mouth for us. Their mentions and backlinks to us have certainly contributed to our growth over the past 18 months (when I joined the team).

Is there any piece of content that you own (ebook/ whitepaper/ podcast) you’d like to tell us about? 

I would recommend that any marketing professional, at any level, take a look at ChildcareCRM: the blog. Although it is childcare-focused, we deliver exceptional tips for everything from enhancing your website, understanding your sales cycle, social media tips, to email marketing strategies, and more. 

These tips and best practices remain valuable for all industries, despite the childcare-specific language.

Any advice you’d like to give to marketing professionals, especially in the SaaS domain?

The biggest advice I can give to marketing professionals is to always be learning. B2B SaaS marketing is a dynamic, ever-changing field. There’s always new content to review and trends to keep up with. 

Personally, I listen to probably a few too many marketing podcasts, but some of my favorites include The Marketing Millennials, Animalz, and Marketing School with Neil Patel and Eric Siu.

How have you been striking a work-life balance during these times of uncertainty?

I believe a good work-life balance is 50% the responsibility of the employer and 50% the responsibility of the employee. Your employer should never be asking you to work on weekends or after work hours, and they should be offering you a PTO that allows you to take time for yourself, your family, and your mental health. 

But, it’s also up to the employee to take advantage of those days off and ensure that after 5:00 PM, they’re taking steps to shut things down and decompress.

Working from home since the initial onset of COVID-19 has made it possible for me to spend the 60 minutes round-trip that I may spend commuting to an office in other areas. I’ve started volunteering at the Dallas Animal Shelter, began cooking more, spending quality time with family, and simply enjoying being a human and not solely an employee.

SaaSy Tidbits from Sierra Rossing

• SaaS is a dynamic field with new content to consume and new trends to keep up with. Hence, marketers should be open to learning.
• Sharing thought-leadership content is critical for SaaS firms as it not just educates the audience but also helps them in making a purchase decision. It engages them through the process of discovery, evaluation, intent, purchase, and loyalty.
• Build strong relationships with marketing heads, CEOs, content marketers, and key opinion leaders in your niche. These people have immense potential to become content creators and earn you brand mentions and links.
• Monitoring various content KPIs is critical to business success. For blogs, it’s ideal to monitor entrances, read time, bounce rate, and click-through rates. Similarly, for guides and white papers, track downloads, read time, and new contacts.

For over a decade ChildcareCRM has been sharing value-adding thought-leadership content that educates its prospects and customers alike. This has made them the market leader in the childcare domain.

As a SaaS content marketing agency, we appreciate their passion for sharing great content for every stage in the sales cycle. In fact, we share that passion!

So, if you have any questions on how ChildcareCRM works or want to know more about Sierra’s professional journey, we’d recommend visiting their website or connecting with Sierra via LinkedIn. She’ll be happy to connect and offer any advice on this matter.

Author

Hazel Kamath

Hazel Kamath is a Senior Content Writer and Strategist at Growfusely – a SaaS content marketing agency specializing in content and data-driven SEO.

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