I haven't had to advertise for openings in along time. I need some ideas on how to write a creative ad. Can anyone share? I want to put one in the paper and one on craigslist. Thanks

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Find out what other providers aren't offering that you are and play off of that. For example, I'm a licensed teacher doing in-home daycare and am offering second shift, so I make that either my title or a bolded statement. I have permission from my daycare families to use pictures of the kiddos for advertising so I've got a great picture of my littles wearing silly hats that we wore and their smiles say it all.

I also got advice from others on here to get involved in a lot of things in your community and always have business cards handy.

Hope that helps a little!

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Yes what the previous post says. What do you offer that is different about the other providers in your area? Do you specialize in a certain age group, offer a pre-school program, offer a special diet, offer cloth diapering etc.? Start with those first and then list some of the other highlights in your program.

There are a few of us that use Vflyer when posting on CL. Once you figure out what you want to say on your ad you can plug it in to create a really nice looking flyer that will really stand out compared to the other child care ads. The one bad thing about it ... you have to plug your fee in, it won't let you leave it blank.

I don't use newspaper ads, they're too expensive for me and other providers in my area say that they don't really get too much traffic from them. I make flyers and post them around the neighborhood. I don't know if you can do that in your area but I find that I get about as many calls from them as I do from CL ads. I also have a few signs that you can stake into the ground that I made on the computer that I stake out on my street. I have "Infant Opening Now" or "Toddler Opening Soon" bolded as the title and then my phone number, license # and about 4-5 of my highlights and that's it. I get a lot of calls from that too when I use it.

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I have seen an increase in hits to my website (so I guess more ad views) since I've started using html in my ads. Here's an example: http://norfolk.craigslist.org/kid/2487563824.html

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Question for you. I checked out your CL ad then followed the link to your webpage and I LOVED the traffic feed widget. I use webs.com also and was wondering how you managed to add it to your sidebar? I click on the side bare to edit it, added a custom widget, titled it, created a traffic feed widget on feedjit, copied the code, went back to the webs editor, clicked on the "edit HTML source" button, pasted the code, saved it, published it and then opened my webpage and ... nothing but the title shows up. What am I doing wrong?

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hmm..I'm not really sure b/c it sounds like what I did (it has been awhile though). I tried adding a test spot with the code from the one that's working and had the same thing happen to me. Sorry, I wish I knew what to tell you.

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Your ad is nice. I like how it's laid out. I'm stilling work on mine. Thanks for the ideas. I've already done some of them, put up flyers at stores and library and I have told everyone I see. Hopefully some of that will work.

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