By Childcare Marketing Australia | childcaremarketing.com.au | March 2026
Introduction
Open days and centre tours are where enrolment decisions are made. A family can discover you online, read your reviews, and be impressed by your website—but it’s the tour experience that converts a prospect into an enrolled family.
For Melbourne childcare centres, optimising your open day and tour process is one of the highest-ROI activities you can undertake. This guide covers everything from promoting your open days to delivering tours that convert.
Why Tours Matter More Than Ever
In Melbourne’s competitive childcare market, parents tour multiple centres before deciding. Research shows families typically visit 2–4 centres. Your tour needs to be memorable, reassuring, and compelling—not just informative. The families who tour you are already warm prospects. Your job is to give them every reason to choose you.
Promoting Your Open Days
Use every channel to promote open days: Google Business Profile posts, Facebook events, Instagram stories and posts, local Facebook parent groups, email newsletter to your waitlist, suburb-specific Google Ads, and flyers in local cafes, libraries, and maternal and child health centres.
Promote 3–4 weeks in advance. Send reminders 1 week and 1 day before. Make registration easy—a simple Google Form or Calendly link works well.
Preparing Your Centre for Tours
First impressions are everything. Before every open day: clean and tidy all spaces, ensure outdoor areas are safe and inviting, display children’s artwork prominently, have your team dressed professionally and briefed on key messages, prepare a take-home pack (brochure, fee schedule, enrolment form), and have refreshments available.
The Tour Experience
Structure every tour to cover: warm welcome and introduction, centre philosophy and approach, walkthrough of all spaces, introduction to key educators, explanation of daily routines, Q&A time, and a clear next step (enrolment form, follow-up call). Assign your most engaging, knowledgeable educator to lead tours. Parents are assessing your team as much as your facilities.
Post-Tour Follow-Up
Follow up within 24 hours with a personalised email thanking the family, reiterating your key points of difference, and including a direct link to enrol. A phone call 2–3 days later is even more effective. Most enrolments are won or lost in the follow-up, not the tour itself.
Measuring Tour Conversion
Track: number of tours booked, tour attendance rate, enquiry-to-tour conversion, tour-to-enrolment conversion. If your tour-to-enrolment rate is below 30%, review your tour experience and follow-up process.
Conclusion
Your open day and tour process is your most powerful enrolment tool. Invest time in making it exceptional—promote widely, prepare thoroughly, deliver a warm authentic experience, and follow up promptly. In Melbourne’s competitive market, the centres that master tours are the ones that consistently maintain full enrolments.
Childcare Marketing Australia | www.childcaremarketing.com.au
