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

Years and years ago (we're talking 2005) I organized Camp Fairs for the American Camp Association. Then, not only did I stop promoting them for a period of time, I stopped attending them altogether. My feeling was the internet made Camp Fairs irrelevant. Boy was I wrong. Here's the backstory.


Last year I decided to put on my own camp fair (without ACA) in Calabasas. I called it the L.A. Calabasas Camp Fair. I wanted to see what, if anything, I was missing by not going to Camp Fairs. Aside from the uneasiness I always feel knowing my competitors went to Camp Fairs when I didn't, I wanted to know if Camp Fairs still worked as a summer camp marketing tool.

Things went pretty well last year for the first time out. Over 400 families and 51 camps attended the Calabasas event. Needless to say, I am once again a staunch supporter Camp Fairs for marketing a camp, namely because it's the best way to find so many potential campers all in one place.



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Everything comes full circle, including my opinion on the value of attending camp fairs as a summer camp marketing tool.

Fifteen or 20 years ago, I felt attending camp fairs was among the best (if not the best) summer camp marketing strategy around. You couldn't really count on filling your whole camp just by going to camp fairs, but just signing up a couple campers per camp fair provided a huge return on my marketing investment not to mention the opportunity to meet so many new family prospects in single spot.

Then the internet came along and, pretty quickly, rendered camp fairs irrelevant in my view.

With so much information available online, why should anyone (camps or parents) waste time at a camp fair? Families could just go online, find your nice-looking website, read some good reviews or testimonials about your program, and sign up for camp instead.

But now I've changed my mind again. I feel like I did 20 years ago. Ironically, the internet itself  has made attendi…