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

If you're looking for camp promo products or items, like t-shirts, mugs, blankets, or anything else, check out www.idmepromotions.com. I don't get anything for mentioning this, I assure you, but I have it on good authority they just updated their website at a huge cost and have everything you'll need this summer at great prices. Check it out when you can. Or you can also email jeff@idmepromotions for more info.

Couple days ago we discussed how to get 100 new campers right now. It was a widely-read post prompting several emails from camp directors asking for any other ideas I could share about signing up lots of kids for camp at once. I sure do: Take out a booth at your local Farmer's Market...It's better than a Camp Fair and you'll have the chance to meet tons of kids and families who are prime prospects for your camp.

Now don't be concerned this strategy only works for local camps like day camps. If your Farmer's Market is a known event (like mine is in L.A.), families from all over the world (such as those traveling or on vacation) will be drawn to the Farmer's Market so you'll have a big opportunity  to pump your camp to kids from all over the world.

If you can find ways to market your camp to many people at once rather than just one at a time, and your marketing message is effective, you could see you enrollment grow like a weed.

Now don't get me wrong. One of the primary ways to create trust and make deep connections with prospects -- especially in today's social media marketing age -- is by building relationships one person at a time. But that doesn't mean you can't market your camp in such a way you'll get enrollments by the boatload instead of just one at a time.

Personally, I'd rather give a site tour to 100 people instead of just 10.

I'd rather put on a free "How to Choose a Summer Camp" marketing seminar for 250 attendees rather than 25.

And I'd rather promote my camp to a little league baseball team comprised of 12 kids all at once rather than each of those 12 kids individually.

Here's an example of how this works. Why not offer a "group rate" to those 12 kids on the…

A hot topic lately among camp directors is how to customize your Facebook fan page so you really max out the page's potential. Here's a cool tutorial I found online in case you want to jazz up your page. It's from the webdistortion blog ... hope you find some value in it.

Heard a great quote today from the gaspedal.com/blog:

"Most companies don't have a negative word of mouth problem -- they have a lack of positive word of mouth problem."

Some of the most recent relevant changes to the way Google ranks your website is your level of  "social influence" online.

By social influence, I am referring to your social media activities and your customer's and fans interactions and references to your camp online.

As you've probably noticed, the stuff you've shared online (such as links on twitter, for instance) often show up first in Google's search results. So do reviews people have written about your camp.

In the past we blogged about the notion of Facebook "Likes" being better than inbound links from other websites. You might want to check out that post if you have the time.
Meanwhile, if I were you, I'd be focusing on getting as many "Likes" as you can and as many customer reviews as you can. Doing so would be highly worthwhile from a search engine marketing standpoint.

Had a great time at Tri-State. Did a session on "How to Triple Your Enrollment in One Year." In case you missed it, the way to triple your enrollment is simply to have each current camper refer at least 2 new kids to camp. PRESTO! You've tripled your enrollment the easy way!
I will try to post the main points of my Tri-State session here soon. Meanwhile, don't forget I will be offering a few "How to Market Your Summer Camp" seminars this fall at various locations across the country. This way it will be easy for everyone to attend no matter where you live. 
If you enjoy the blog, you won't want to miss the seminar(s) because these posts are just scratching the surface. The really good stuff will be in the seminars. 
Details coming soon...let me know if you have questions.

Off to the Tri-State Camp Conference in New Jersey. Hope to meet some of you there. Track me down if you'll be around. See you soon.

Eric

If you've got a custom Facebook page and used FBML (Facebook markup language, similar to HTML) to create it, just a quick note to let you know that starting March 11, FBML will still SUPPORT previously created FBML pages, but you will not be able to make any changes to your existing FBML pages or create any new ones. 
After March 11, Facebook will switch entirely to iframes rather than FBML for custom pages. (If you don't know what a custom page is, check out mine at http://www.facebook.com/alohabeachcamp.)
Now if you have a custom page you're happy with and don't want to change it, you don't have to do anything. But if you need to make any changes to your page or create new ones in the future you need to learn about Facebook's iframes.

I'm always on the lookout for the next hot marketing strategies to share with you. In my opinion two of the up-and-coming ways to promote your camp to the public are via:

1) Coupon marketing; and 2) Video marketing
If you read this blog often enough, then you already know I'm a big proponent of marketing with coupons. Anytime you can tempt someone with a nice discount, they are more likely to sign up for your camp (or, for that matter, purchase anything else). Then, once you get them in the door by offering a discount, you can turn them into full-paying campers for a very long time.
Now unless you've been living under a rock, you probably already know the value of video marketing. Hopefully you've got some videos posted on YouTube and all that. I have a YouTube account for Aloha Beach Camp, where many people watch my videos. I also embed YouTube videos in my camp blog, and in certain places on my website. Hopefully you do the same. People like watching videos much more tha…

You know me, I'm a BIG fan of free advertising and despise all advertising you need to pay for (even though sometimes it's a necessary evil.) There is nothing more powerful than free advertising because when it pays off, you've really hit the marketing jackpot.

I just tried something last week where I got a 100% success rate on three separate attempts for free advertising, and you can do it too.
What I did was, searched online for VERY small newspapers and magazines that serve my community. I found three I'd never heard of before. The reason I wanted small ones is because the bigger publications are  less likely to pick up your story. On the other hand, the little guys are practically begging for local "news" to fill their pages and share with their readers.
So here's what I did. I sent three emails (one to each publication) explaining that my camp, Aloha Beach Camp, has decided to add new bus stops this summer to accommodate increasing demand from families …

One of the marketing sites I read regularly is MarketProfs.com. Some of their stuff is crap, some of it's really good. Today they have an article I highly recommend reading if you've got a few minutes. It's called "5 Myths about the Youth Market: Busted."