What to Include on a Babysitting Flyer
Written & Illustrated by
Matthew James Taylor
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If you're going to the effort to create babysitting flyers and put them up around town, make sure they're eye-catching and have all the information that parents need!
The most effective babysitting flyers contain the following things:
- A catchy headline.
- A fun image to draw attention.
- Your first name only (for privacy).
- A short bio about you.
- What services you offer.
- Your qualifications and certifications.
- Your rate per hour.
- Your contact details.
- Any special skills that you may have.
- Tear-off tabs for parents passing by.
In this article, I'll explain all of the items that you should include on your babysitting flyer before printing it out and posting it around town.
Create Your Babysitting Flyer
Putting up babysitting flyers is a great way to let parents in your local area know that you're available for babysitting.
What your flyer looks like will have a major impact on how many parents end up contacting you. If you're missing certain information, they may not be able to contact you. You also want a flyer that conveys the fact that you're a trustworthy and responsible babysitter.
Luckily I have created some free printable flyer templates that you can use to make this job simple and straightforward! Visit my Babysitting Flyers: Free Online Maker! page to get started on your own flyer today!
In just three easy steps, you can have a beautiful and professional-looking babysitting flyer to start putting up around your area. Simply choose a template, customize your design, and fill in a compelling description and your contact details. Then you're done and ready to print.
It's easy enough that anyone can do it, with no special artistic or design skills required!
What To Include on a Babysitting Flyer
Babysitting flyer designs can vary, and there's a lot of room for creativity and creating something unique to you. Some flyers might contain more or less information than others. But there is some information that I feel should be mandatory to include to give your flyers the best chance of attracting parents to hire you.
A Catchy Headline
The largest and most eye-catching text on your babysitting flyer should be your title.
You can't go wrong with either "Babysitting" or "Babysitter" written across the top in a large font. This will immediately let people know what your flyer is about. If they're looking for a babysitter, there's a good chance they'll continue reading the rest.
You can try a more custom title like "You Deserve A Night Off!" But avoid straying too far from the general message of babysitting. Otherwise people might be confused about what your flyer is offering and end up not reading it.
A Fun Image
Picking the perfect image for your babysitting poster or flyer is worth spending a little time to think about.
Really consider the message that you're trying to convey. Aside from the title, your image is the other main thing that will capture the attention of people who walk by it. So it should strongly relate to babysitting, or at least children.
Cartoons usually work best. They can look professional, yet still strongly relate to the idea of childcare in people's minds. Using a cartoon of an adult playing with a child is a better choice than just using a stock photo of the same thing.
Any image of an adult and child playing or looking happy together is a great choice. Alternatively, you could go with something more abstract like wooden blocks, a teddy bear, or a bottle of formula.
Even a stick figure drawing created by a child can be really eye-catching for parents.
Many illustration programs include a library of free clip-part that you can search to find a babysitting-related image. Or you can search online for royalty-free babysitting images.
Your Contact Details
If somebody has stopped to look at your flyer, your title and image should give them a clear idea of what you're offering. Now you need to give them some way to get in touch with you!
Your name is one thing that you'll always want to include on your babysitting flyer. For the sake of privacy, just using your first name is perfectly acceptable. In fact, for younger babysitters, I would recommend not including your full name for safety reasons.
Besides your name, you also want to include a way for them to contact you. This might be your phone number, your email, or both.
If you haven't got a mobile phone of your own yet, you can choose to put the phone number of a parent or your home phone instead.
A Compelling Description
Just the title "Babysitting" and your contact details probably won't be enough to convince parents to reach out and contact you. That's where a short description can help seal the deal.
Write 3 – 6 sentences to explain a little bit about yourself and what you can offer to parents. It should be long enough to get some important information across, but not so long that people don't read the whole thing.
You could write something like:
Hey, I'm Mike and I'd love to babysit your children!
I have more than 5 years of experience looking after kids ranging from infants to school-aged children. I'm currently enrolled in the Early Childhood Education program at X College.
Parents say that I'm punctual, trustworthy, and that kids love me.
Contact me today to arrange an interview!
The main ideas to get across are your name, experience, a few of your good qualities, and a call-to-action asking parents to contact you.
Some babysitting catchphrases you might want to include are:
- References available
- Available Evenings and Weekends
- Certified babysitter
- Experienced babysitter
- Own Transportation
Many tips that apply to writing a babysitter profile are also relevant to creating a description for your babysitting flyer. See my article Babysitter Profile Writing Tips (Bio Secrets that Work!) to learn more.
Tear-off Tabs or QR Codes
Make it as simple as possible for parents to take your contact information to get in touch with you later.
You've probably seen flyers on telephone poles in your neighborhood offering a variety of services, with little tabs on the bottom which can be torn off.
I highly recommend putting these on your babysitting flyers if you're going to be taping them to objects out in public. That way busy parents who are walking by can just grab a slip of paper with your name and phone number on it to contact you with later.
If you're putting your babysitting flyer on a notice board or shop window where it's behind glass, you won't be able to make use of these tear-off tabs. In those cases, parents will need to write down your contact details or take a picture of your flyer with their phone.
You can make the process a bit easier on them for these cases by including a QR code on your poster. A QR (Quick Response) code is a type of barcode that can be quickly read by a cell phone and turned into a website link, text message, or image by just scanning it with your phone. Just Google "create QR code" and you'll find a number of free websites that will allow you a QR code of your own to include on your poster.
If you are creating letterbox flyers that you'll put in people's mailboxes, these features are less necessary since parents will already have a paper with your contact details on it.
What services you offer
If you only offer babysitting then this section will be very brief, perhaps just stated in the headline. However, if you offer additional services such as cleaning, pet sitting, or tutoring, etc. then you absolutely need to include those on your flyer.
Your qualifications and certifications
If you have completed any kind of training that is important for childcare then it makes sense to list that here too. Some examples include, first aid training, CPR certification, babysitting cource completion, etc. You want parents to know they can trust you with their children.
Information To Not Include On Babysitting Flyers
To keep yourself from receiving unwanted attention from strangers, make sure not to include anything too personal on your babysitting poster.
Don't give your home address, because then anyone who sees your poster will know where you live.
Don't include your full name, this is also for privacy reasons.
Also avoid including your complete schedule on your poster, since it will tell strangers too much information about where you will be and when. Parents can contact you to learn about your availability.
Conclusion
Every babysitting flyer should have a large eye-catching headline. "Babysitter" or "Babysitting" are great choices that will immediately let people know what you're offering.
An image that relates to babysitting or children will also help capture people's attention as they walk by.
Be sure that your flyer includes your contact information and a brief description of yourself. That way people who are interested in babysitting services can learn a bit more about you and how to reach you.
Once a parent contacts you to babysit for them, check out my Printable Babysitting Kit. It includes lots of super-useful free forms, checklists, and documents to help get you started!
Try out our free babysitting flyer maker today!
