Adoption Outreach 7 Free Ways
Adoption Outreach 7 Free Ways
If you are just starting your private adoption journey and not working with an agency or consultant you are likely feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out how to have your profile shown to expectant parents. And sometimes if you are working with an adoption agency they suggest you advertise on your own which can feel incredibly frustrating because that is why you are working with them in the first place.
I think we all want someone to break it down for us and tell us what we really need to do to have our profile seen by expectant parents so we can increase our chances of getting matched. So, that is exactly what we are going to talk about today, what is adoption outreach, and how you can advertise yourselves for free.
What adoption outreach or advertising yourself really means
I know a lot of my clients come to me and they say, just give me the step-by-step process. What can I do? How do I do it? That's exactly what we're going to be covering today. I'm going to be breaking down for you questions such as what is adoption outreach and is it different from advertising. Is it different than just sharing your profile, I'm going to be giving you seven ways that you can do this for free.
The most important thing that you need to keep in mind is that your profile needs to be high quality and really optimized to quickly tell your story to expectant parents. If your profile doesn't stand out from the crowd or doesn't help her quickly get to know you, she's just going to skip on to the next profile, which means that you wasted your time sharing that profile. And I know that it's hard to hear my friend, but the quality of your profile is really important.
In fact, one of my clients recently shared a quote with me from an expectant parent that chose them based on the profile that we worked on together. She said that she felt really confident in choosing them. She said, “Your profile was beautiful, and it really helped me get to know you quickly”. It made me feel like I was picking the right family for my child because I got to hear and see how you live your life on social media and on your website. That really put me at ease.”
Our goal is to provide that ease and that sense of comfort in the decision-making process for expectant parents, based upon our profile really clearly saying who we are. If you are freaked out about this or are worried that your profile is not doing this, I encourage you to reach out my friend, so you can talk with me one on one.
2 Different types of adoption outreach
Adoption outreach is just the act of sharing your profile. There are two main types of adoption outreach- paid and organic. Organic adoption outreach is a freeway to outreach. An example of organic would be sharing it on your Facebook page, and asking that it be shared with others. Paid adoption outreach would be through social media ads, Google ads, and things of that nature.
7 different free ways you can advertise your family
Facebook Adoption Profile Page
The first way is an adoption-specific Facebook page. This would be a Facebook page where you will actually share information about your family and treat it like a quasi-adoption profile book so that someone can get to know you a bit more. If you want to go a little bit deeper there and really understand, I have several different videos and podcasts. You can go back and listen to learn how to use Facebook as your adoption profile page.
Facebook Adoption Groups
The next type of free way that you can share your profile would be through adoption-specific Facebook groups. In these Facebook groups, you would use that adoption-specific Facebook page to post on opportunities that are shared. These Facebook pages are specifically designed to connect hopeful adoptive families with expectant families. There are a few specific things that you need to do in order to make sure that your posts really stand out from the crowd there.
You want to make sure that you leverage, again, a high-quality profile that's really quick for someone to get to know who you are, you want to make sure that your visuals are really consistent, and that you really stick to who you are as a family. And what you're sharing, you want to make sure that the information you're sharing is super straightforward and bite-size, so that she can opt-in on whether or not she wants to get to know you a bit more.
Non-Adoption Facebook Groups
The next different way that you can share your adoption profile through a free channel would be through nonspecific adoption groups on Facebook. So meaning like garage sale groups, local community groups, moms groups. You just never really know where the connection might happen. As a matter of fact, one of my clients, Emily met her expectant mama of her twins in a garage sale group. And just by sharing that she was hoping to adopt, and if others could share her profile as well. And that's actually how they got connected. So there's a role for other types of groups besides an adoption-specific Facebook group.
The next thing that I want to talk about from a social media perspective is Instagram. Instagram is not a platform that a ton of people connect on, but it is something that does happen. I've had two clients over the course of the past couple of years that have actually matched through Instagram. And for them, again, it was sharing similar content and what we share on the Facebook page. But for them, it was really about the hashtags. They had hashtags that spoke to adoption. But that also spoke to things that weren't specific to adoption, based on their content. And that's actually how they got connected because the algorithm was constantly looking to match people that have similar interests together. So, using an adoption-specific hashtag, which happened to be something that their expectant mom had searched for. And then using a non-adoption-specific hashtag, in one case, it was a musician. And another case was a book, using those hashtag combinations is actually what helped them raise just a little bit higher in the algorithm for that content that that hopeful adoptive family was sharing to be seen by the expectant parent. Now, again, it's not something as prevalent, but it is definitely something that can happen.
Flyers
The next way to do your adoption outreach is by using a flier. And I know, you may think, what in the world where do people even put fliers anymore? What would you do with that? And are you talking about that old school flier that you would see, and they would be like somebody's phone number on the bottom that you would tear off a piece of paper?! Believe it or not, I actually had a client, for whom we created a flier that had a QR code that took people to her website so that they could learn more about her. And she put it up in a laundromat in Tennessee, and they matched and they brought home their child. Now, listen, that flier, it took us I don't know, maybe an hour to make it and it took her, you know, maybe 20 bucks to print them out for several of them, and her time to drive around town and put them up. That was obviously time well spent. Right?
Business Cards
You can take that same idea and the same principles into the next type of adoption outreach that you can use, which would be passing out business cards. Now, I know this may sound a little silly, but really sharing your intention to adopt with literally everybody you come in contact with, is ultimately going to help you because the more people that have the opportunity to see your profile only increases the odds that the right person is going to see your profile. So, a simple business card with your photo and the fact that you're hoping to adopt and your contact information is what I call a cheap and cheerful way to share your adoption profile with everybody in your circle, and encourage them to do the same.
Brochures
Our very last type that I want to share with you is something that may again seem really old school but has proven results time and time again and that is brochures. A brochure, like a simple trifold or bifold brochure, that tells a little bit of information about you and that your intention and hope is to adopt. As well as how to get in contact with you is something that you can easily send in the mail, to churches, to nonprofits, to safe havens, all of these different places that really do keep your information on file in case an opportunity comes up. Because you never know what might again come around the bend.
I've actually had four clients in the last six months place or adopt a child through brochures. We got creative, they Googled their local area, and I created the brochures for them and mailed them to them with envelopes. So, all they had to do was take it out, stick an address label on the front and put a stamp on the top, and out it went. You would be amazed again at how cheap and cheerful it is to do that, to actually get these profiles out to these different resource groups that need opportunities that need hopeful adoptive families as resources for people that come into their centers for families in the last six months.
Get Creative When Sharing Your Adoption Profile
Well there you have it, 7 different ways you can advertise/do adoption outreach. Don’t be afraid to get really creative and really focused on how you share your adoption profile with literally every opportunity you can think of. I trust that this has been helpful for you to get some ideas about how you can share your adoption profile for free and a better understanding of the need for a high-quality adoption profile.
Remember, anything is possible with the right plan and support, and I am just an email away or a Facebook message away.
Hi, I Am Amanda
I am an adoption profile expert on a mission to teach you how to adopt and help you create and share your family's story more affordably!
