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

For Those Camp's Who Didn't Heed My Warnings About Making Your Website Mobile-Friendly, G-(Google) Day is April 21 Many camp directors are freaking out about Google's announcement that non-mobile-friendly websites are about to get hammered in the search results starting April 21. This should come as no surprise. I've been preaching for years about the importance of building a mobile-friendly site. The reason why is because Google's #1 goal has always been to provide the most relevant search results and best user experience possible. Well guess what? If your website forces users to pinch their screens or scroll horizontally just to use your site, or widen it by hand just to tap a link, that means your website is not optimized for mobile...and THAT means you are making it difficult on Google to provide relevant search results and good experience for users. So consider yourself warned (again). If you don't make the appropriate adjustments to your websit

I came across a blog directory today which lists various summer camp blogs of note. I was glad to see Camp Marketing News included. Whoever compiled the directory described my blog as consisting of "no nonsense posts on camp marketing." Damn right! If you've been following my content a while, you know I don't go with the flow. And I don't want you to, either. Seriously, how can you expect to make any marketing improvements, or get higher enrollment, or do better in search rankings, if you keep doing things the same way you've always done them? And how can you expect to stand out in a crowded camp marketing field if you're promotional program is the same as everyone else's? Seriously, take a look around to notice how other people market their camps. There's usually very little difference, if any, from the one to the next. As I'm quite fond of saying, if everyone's doing the same thing, then many of us aren't necessary. 

As some of you may know, I used to run a website called CampCoupons.com where camps could market themselves with coupons and families could search the site to find offers and discounts from camps that appealed to them. The site was quite popular from 2010 to 2013, with dozens and dozens (and dozens!) of camps listed was a pretty unique concept in summer camp marketing, if I do say so myself. It was basically a "one-stop shop" for folks to discover new and exciting summer camp opportunities and save money on summer camp too. And camps really enjoyed participating. They got lots of new campers from it. There really was nothing else like it, and there still isn't. But I eventually got involved in other projects and let the website go. Well, long story short, I'm happy to say the Camp Coupons website is now fully redesigned and ready to go for 2015 and beyond! So if you're looking for a novel and affordable new way to market your camp and really call attent

If it seems like the number of requests you get for school donations increases every year, this post is for you. I won't go so far to say getting so many donation requests is annoying, but it can definitely get stressful when you're bombarded by everyone and their brother who want one. The problem is (especially for us little guys who operate "mom and pop" summer camps), giving away free camp sessions here and there is tough because the money we make from filling our camps with paying customers is generally how we feed our families. There's only a limited number of non-paying kids we can afford to accommodate because they take away spots from other kids who'd otherwise pay full price. In that respect, asking us to donate free camp is similar to asking an employee to take a pay cut. When you look at it that way, it's disconcerting. And yet, undeniably, making donations to schools and organizations in need is the right thing to do. It ge