How to Market Your Summer Camp | Summer Camp Marketing | CampMarketingNews.com

Last week I posted about the benefits of using testimonials to pump your camp. Testimonials lend credibility to your marketing. When someone from the outside says something nice about your camp, their comments are more believable, and credible, than anything you can say about yourself. But I think I forgot to tell you something.

Your testimonials aren't credible in the least if they don't specifically mention the actual people who gave them. Here's what I mean.

My daughter attends a few camps each summer. The other day we got a flyer from one asking us to pre-register for next year. The flyer includes testimonials from parents and kids (nice effort by the camp), but the testimonials lack credibility. They're only attributed to a "Camp Parent" or "Camper," not the specific person who gave the quote.

You tell me which of these sounds more believable:

"My child loved your camp. We'll be back for years to come."
-- Camp Parent

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"My…

I'm writing a "how to market your summer camp" article for the March/April issue of the ACA's Camping Magazine. If there's anything in particular you want me to cover, let me know.

If you're doing a great job, happy camp families are probably sharing compliments with you in private. Why not make these wonderful stories public? Whenever you get a compliment, tell the family you're flattered they recognized you, then ask for permission to use what they've said as a testimonial on your website or in your brochure. Don't underestimate the power of a great testimonial as a selling tool for prospective camp families. Whatever someone else says about you is by far more convincing than anything you say yourself.

One up and coming social media tool is video email marketing. But if you've ever tried to send videos in your emails, you may have encountered problems. For example, sometimes video emails bounce back or even go straight to spam. Solution: Just use a screenshot (jpeg) image with a play button arrow, then link the image to your actual video. Not only will your email reach your intended recipient, your click-through rate will skyrocket.

Though I'm not a big fan of Twitter, I know there's many addicts out there. If you ever get stumped and need ideas for what to "tweet" about, here's a helpful list.

Took my daughter to the orthodontist today. Noticed a new sandwich shop in the lobby as we entered the building. Hopped in the elevator up to the 12th floor for the ortho appointment. At the end of the appointment, as we were paying at the front desk, the receptionist handed us a 20% off coupon to use at the new sandwich shop. We went right downstairs and bought some food. The sandwich shop was getting its marketing done by the dentist, and the my daughter and I really appreciated the dentist giving us the coupon. That's cooperative marketing at its best, and as a camp professional, you can easily set these kinds of deals up with various businesses and organizations in your neighborhood. It's always great when you can get other people do to your marketing for you! :)

Even if you only read this blog occasionally, you know I'm a HUGE fan of making every dollar you spend on marketing do the work of two. Naturally this requires you to maximize your marketing budget. Easiest way to do this is by simply asking your customers and prospects how they about you. When you find out how people learned about you, you should put your marketing resources there and forget about the other marketing tactics you've been doing that are less effective or don't work.

Tips for promoting your press release from the Staples Canada blog.

Here's an interesting article (and valuable for all of us) from MediaPoint.com on how to market to teens and their parents simultaneously.

As we all know, camps have two primary target markets, kids and their parents. (Although I also contend we should be targeting grandparents, too.) In any case I think you'll enjoy reading this.

I do have one point of contention with the article.

Frank O'Brien, the author, says we should stick to print ads when marketing to parents because parents are less tech savvy than their teen kids and "just coming around" to the internet.

Hardly. While O'Brien's position may have been true 5 years ago, it's not anymore. Parents for the most part have caught up with their kids in terms of how to use the internet. Moms are one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) growing segment of Facebook users. This guy's lost in the past if he thinks print ads are the best way reach parents these days

Enjoy the article!

From what I've heard and read, 2011 will finally be the year people use their cell phones and mobile devices to view websites as much or more than actual computers. I've blogged about this before, but as 2010 winds down now is the time to make sure your camp's website is fully optimized for mobile viewing and more.

Most camp directors update their websites each fall or winter after camp ends for the next season. Maybe you change a few dates, alter a few forms, switch a picture or two. But if that's all your doing -- if you're just using the same static website you've been using for months or years, you might consider making more significant updates. The main reason is to increase your number of repeat visitors. If there's nothing new to see, why would anyone come back?

Here's a few ideas for what you can put on your Website to encourage repeat visitors:

Dynamic contentBlogsPollsSurveysForumsAnnouncementsNews updatesPicture of the day (adding a new picture each day)Video of the day (adding a new video each day)
Including any of these things on your site will help a static website involve visitors with fresh, interactive content and encourage them to return to your site more often.

If you're an astute marketer, you're always on the lookout for ways to separate yourself from your competition. For resident camps especially, your food service program might be a way to do it. Do you highlight your healthy meal program when marketing your camp? Check out this article from MediaPost. You might pick up some nice ideas for ways to market to moms in connection with your camp's meal program.