Top 17 Best Marketing Books for Camp Directors

Last updated on November 14, 2022

I hope you’re healthy, safe and looking forward to the Holidays. What an incredible year it’s been. 

Even though many of us weren’t able to run camp last summer, I’m hearing lots of optimism from camp directors (even amid the latest coronavirus surge) about reopening in 2021. I hope it happens.

Meanwhile, more good news. Demand for camp is at an all-time high. But that doesn’t mean you should stop marketing. From from it. The camps who put their best foot forward, marketing wise, will have a huge leg up on those who to sit back expecting to generate enrollment anyway.

 The demand will be there, but camps that put themselves out in front of families stand to gain the most. Prospective campers will be there, but competition for them will be just as fierce if not more so than usual. Now is the time to get your marketing plan in place. Many of the marketing and advertising tools I use today, prior to practice into practice in the real world – I first read about in books. I couldn’t come close to telling you how many hundreds of marketing books I’ve read in my life, but I CAN tell you which ones stood out in terms of providing actionable strategies that actually worked in terms of helping generate awareness for my program and getting actual camper sign-ups.

I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you the Top 17 best marketing books I’ve read. When I say Top 17, I mean those which I think will be most valuable in terms of providing you with ideas you can easily implement into your current marketing strategy, whether that strategy consists of generating leads, increasing conversions, boosting registrations or all of the above.

 DISCLAIMER: I am providing links to the above-referenced books so you can easily them from Amazon. The links are connected to my Amazon Affiliates account, which means if you click on link and by a book, I will get a small commission. I assure you, however, I will only recommend products or services I use myself and which I believe will be beneficial to you. My goal is to share my expertise and provide helpful content while generating a little money the side, if possible, to help make a living for myself. There is no additional cost to you for purchasing any of the books through these links.

1. Guerilla Marketing,  by Jay Conrad Levinson

2. Getting Everything You Have Out of All You’ve Got, by Jay Abraham

3.Street Smart Marketing, by Jeff Slutzky

4. The Ultimate Sales Letter, by Dan Kennedy

5. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

6. The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book, by Dee Blick

7. The Referral Engine, by John Jantsch

8. Duct Tape Marketing, by John Jantsch

9. Small Business Marketing Kit for Dummies, by Barbara Schenck

10. Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

11. Marketing to Millennial Moms in a Post-Pandemic World…by Maria T. Bailey

12. What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids, by Daniel Acuff

13. The Tipping Point…How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcom Gladwell

14. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers, by Seth Godin

15. No B.S. Guide to Maximum Referrals and Customer Retention…by Dan Kennedy

16. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

17. Social Media Marketing Workbook, by Jason McDonald

If you’re like me and your standard practice is to plan your camp’s marketing program for the upcoming summer some time in advance — and you’re looking for low cost, high impact marketing ideas that work — you’ll find a goldmine of them inside any of these books you choose to read.

But even if you’re only looking to catch up on your reading and you’re a marketing nerd like me, pick one out and enjoy it at your leisure. They’re all quite interesting, if nothing else.

Happy Holidays and have fun!