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

Everyone's got the same marketing problems. Their marketing budget's too small, they don't get enough leads, they don't get enough referrals, they don't retain campers long enough...the list goes on.

Regarding not getting enough leads, I hear this over and over. But guess what? You might be sitting on a gold mine of leads right now and not even know it. The "gold mine" I'm talking about is you current prospect list.

Unless you've built your list unethically, then everyone on it (at one point or another) took the time to express interest in your camp, perhaps in the form of a brochure request, email inquiry, phone call, or whatever. Keep in mind that person's a HOT prospect for you. But what if you haven't heard from them in a while? Many camp marketers actually give up trying to reach the prospect after a year or two if they haven't heard from them.

I say, don't give up that easy! You have no idea why they didn't buy from you …

Customer reviews can improve your website ranking. So a good search engine optimization strategy is to ask customers to review your camp and post those reviews to Google. Something else to consider might be having your customers include your keywords in their reviews.

What's the #1 free tool you can use to show off your camp's location to the world? Google Maps.

Let me explain.

You're probably familiar with the phrase, "location, location, location." Having a great location can make one business thrive, while a bad one (poor parking, no street visibility or whatever) can force you under.

Now in the summer camp field, you're probably not too concerned with foot traffic or customer impulse purchases -- that kind of thing is reserved for restaurants and retail stores -- yet your LOCATION is just as important. Here's what I mean.
Let's say you're driving down the street and you're hungry. You see a Subway sandwich shop, so you stop what you're doing and walk in to buy a sandwich. You noticed the Subway because it's located in a good spot -- you SAW it, after all, and Subway gets tons of business this way. 
But as a camp professional, you can't count on that. You can't expect someone walking down…

I was in McDonald's today with my kids. We overheard two guys talking about starting a new business together. Gist of the conversation was they thought they had a million dollar idea, but literally ZERO money for marketing. So it got me thinking, what if I only had a couple bucks to market my camp? How would I do it?

Well, let's say I'm in REALLY bad shape and can only afford about $10 for marketing. Here's the kind of thing I'd do.


I'd spend the whole $10 on a great Website domain nameI'd find a free, do-it-yourself website building tool and a place I could host my site for free (like this one -- Blogger.com) and get it online immediatelyI'd blog like CRAZY ... at least three posts per day for as long as it took to acheive my desired rankingI'd put coupons all over my site to entice camper registrants at a discountI'd run "New Customer" and "Bring a Friend" discount offers and specialsI'd use Google Maps strategically to …

I get lots of emails with questions about how to market a summer camp. I wish I could answer them all. Here's a question I got that's of interest to all of us, though.

John runs day camps and overnight camps. He wanted to know the basic difference between sales and marketing.

My thought is that marketing is an educational process -- it's everything you to do help clients and prospects learn about and discover your camp program -- while sales is the process by which, and the tools you use, to ask for and/or get the sale.

Marketing includes your social media activities, email newsletters, brochures and dvds. Sales includes your enrollment form, email offers, face-to-face contact at Camp Fairs or Open Houses, etc. where you ask, and make it easy for, people to sign up for camp.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think?

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