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by John Fitterer
With each passing season, more summer camps have migrated toward digital
solutions for the management of their businesses. How many camps use a
paper ledger to manage their financial accounts? It sounds silly, and
in 2004, it is. What hasn't changed, however, about financial management
of a camp is also true for marketing — the principles remain the
same. It is simply easier to use a financial management application over
graph paper. The same is true for marketing — the audience and clientele
haven't changed. It is simply easier, faster, and cheaper to market to
them through the Internet.
Your Camp's Web Site: An Interactive Marketing Engine
Virtually every summer camp has a Web site. It is usually a static series
of pages that reflect the print marketing material created for that year.
Session schedules and costs, directions to camp, and biographies of camp
directors are important; however, this does not address the dynamic nature
of the Internet. It is a medium where interactivity with each visitor
is key. A camp's Web site must be an interactive marketing engine —
where new prospects are engaged and current customers find value. It is
a springboard that empowers parents to spread the word about a camp's
program and tradition.
The Marketing Audience Pyramid
Think about your marketing audience in a pyramid formation (see the "Prospecting
Pyramid" sidebar). This is an exercise that demonstrates two points
— be aware of your overall audience and be aware of how your audience
is channeled. Don't underestimate the power of word of mouth. At the top
of the pyramid are the campers that you worked with this past summer.
Immediately underneath are the parents of the children that attended your
camp. Beneath the parents are the relatives and friends who knew that
a camper was attending your program. Underneath friends and relatives
come alumni, followed by their friends and family. This pyramid empowers
camp directors to realize an ever-expanding universe of potential campers.
Now that you've identified your community, how are you empowering this
audience at the top of the pyramid to spread the word to potential camp
families? This is where the interactivity of the Internet greatly separates
itself from the static nature of print material. Developing an interactive
online community with newsletters and photographs allows for parents,
campers, counselors, and alumni to easily spread the word about your camp
program. This is achieved in a number of ways — e-cards, community
invitations, guest books, and appropriate placement of contact information
on a Web site.
Online Photo Albums
Many camps already publish a photo album on their Web site; however, it
is usually a handful of photographs, which does not convey the overall
joy, nature, and depth of the camp experience. Online photo albums, if
created frequently, are the most extensive documentation of the wonder
of the camp experience. To present parents with photographs of their child
positively interacting with other campers — not to mention thoroughly
involved in camp activities — is a true marketing bullet. By allowing
parents to click a button and send a photo to a friend is the equivalent
of receiving a testimonial from that parent.
Implement two rules for success — make sure the photo is framed
with your camp's logo and overall Web site look and feel and make sure
you provide contact information enabling e-card recipients to learn more
about your program! You are empowering parents at the top of your audience
pyramid to promote your camp on your behalf through the direct testimony
of photographs.
Parents are not the only members of a camp's community who would like
to see all of the camp's photo albums. Because photo albums should be
password protected, enabling custodial parents to invite an unlimited
number of friends and family is key to the marketing success of your Web
site. An invitee is one big step closer to becoming a camp parent. Invitees
are now aware of the diversity and quality of your programs — and
have an intimate relationship with camp. They are advocates of your camp
program and will now spread the word to other potential camp families.
Prospecting and Sharing Information
E-card recipients, online community invitees, and anyone who is accessing
your Web site should be able to request additional information by simply
clicking on a link that allows them to inquire about camp and its programs.
This should lead to a form that requires families to list their basic
contact information. Don't require parents to fill out a questionnaire
that details their child's background and personal interests as this may
be cumbersome and dissuade prospects. The form should simply be a vehicle
to provide you with the necessary information to have a conversation with
a parent. Qualifying inquiries over the phone is important — camp
is a personal experience and personal contact from a camp's director establishes
an intimacy that is harder to achieve through the Web or print-based marketing
collateral.
Measuring Success
Marketing strategies and initiatives are only as good as your measurements
of success. The value of an online community of parents, family, and friends
is greatly diminished if you aren't tracking the usage of these services.
To refine a marketing program, you need to define your goals, analyze
metrics, and redefine goals. For those camps that have a waiting list,
perhaps the goal is simply a greater connection between parents and the
camp experience. For those camps that have extra beds to fill, establishing
parent to invitee ratios, tracking the relationship of an invitee to the
camper, and measuring the number of invitees and e-card recipients that
are requesting more information is fundamental. A statistics page that
details usage of your site on a daily basis and the ability to list the
relationship of the invitee to the camper should be important parts of
your marketing strategy — and a good tool to measure success.
Remember, what is considered run-of-the-mill at camp is magic at home.
Photos and news of campers eating in the dining hall, walking to and from
activities, setting up for the evening's program, cleaning out their cabin
— all add to the overall quality of a camp's online community. Of
course, capturing campers on the zip line, on the climbing wall, and in
the camp play are extremely important, but these are the highlights of
a day. Allow parents to share the whole world of camp. Parents tend to
live vicariously through their children; it is this emotional connection
with parents that makes them such great marketing advocates through a
diverse online camp community.
The summer of 2003 marked a decrease in the number of campers attending
camp. Directors must focus on their marketing strategies — and how
best to cover their overall marketing base. Empowering a camp's greatest
advocates — parents and campers — to spread the word about
camp through the Internet is inexpensive, easy to implement and to use,
and easy to measure the success or failure of your approach and strategy.
Originally published in the 2004 March/April
issue of Camping Magazine. |
