We are proud to have worked with Children 1st Day Nurseries for over 10 years. The company is one of the UK’s leading nursery groups, employing 817 people and caring for over 4600 children across its 24 nurseries.
A key part of the firm’s communications strategy is to build trust in its services amongst parents. Afterall, you wouldn’t want to leave your child with people that you didn’t trust! One of the ways we do this is to ensure that we enter industry awards so that Children 1st’s high-quality childcare and expertise of its staff are recognized. This reassures parents that they are choosing one of the best nurseries for their child.
Our latest success came at the Nursery Management Today awards. We achieved 5 finalist places and Children 1st scooped a Hat Trick of awards on the night! Senior Manager Mandy Forrester was named Area Manager of the Year, its nursery in Oakwood, Derby, won Outdoor Learning Environment of the Year and Jess Mitchell from Children 1st @ Sheffield won Nursery Nurse of the Year!
Off the back of the awards, we issued press releases announcing the success. The press releases were tailored to the local media in each area, highlighting the success of the local person (Mandy & Jess) or the local nursery (Oakwood). Ensuring the story is relevant to the publication and its readers is crucial to it getting covered.
We achieved press coverage in The Derby Telegraph for Oakwood and we were thrilled to see Jess Mitchell featured in this brilliant piece in The Sheffield Star. Jess is a truly inspirational nursery nurse and does amazing work with children in a deprived area of Sheffield. To see her scoop the award, to be featured in the media and see such lovely comments on social media about her from current and past parents is amazing. The Star also sent a photographer to nursery to photograph Jess, which the children really enjoyed!
The press coverage achieved in the Sheffield Star resulted in a 103% increase in views of the Sheffield page of the Children 1st website compared to the previous month. The nursery also received the most enquiries of any of Children 1st’s nurseries that month. Children 1st @ Oakwood, which had coverage in The Derby Telegraph, was a close second!
If you would like to discuss how awards and the media activity surrounding them can build trust and drive enquiries for your business, please get in touch.
