Blog

Creating a Pinterest board for your summer camp

If you love pinning on Pinterest as much as I do, then this post is for you! Pinterest is a great marketing tool for camps to share photos, articles and tips in a fun and engaging way. It can be difficult to get started pinning, but once you have your boards set up it can come pretty easily. Here are some ideas for Pinterest boards for summer camps: - Packing list and tips - Camp recipes and foods - Camp activities - Camp staff -...

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Thoughts on “marketing” as a bad word

A lot of camps I talk to don't want to prioritize marketing as one of their main goals for their summer camp. I hear a lot of people say that it just isn't a priority, or they don't have time to fully focus on it and a number of other excuses for why marketing isn't that important to them. But the more and more I think about camps who think that "marketing" is a bad word, the more and more...

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Personal branding for summer camp directors

Each person has their own individual brand that represents how they portray themselves to the world. For a camp director or assistant director, this personal brand can go very far in helping establish their credibility to new and returning parents. Not all directors are going to want to promote their brand (I'll cover marketing your personal brand in my next blog post), but it still is important to actively cultivate your personal brand. The first step for defining your personal...

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Implementing the Google Conversion Tracking Pixel

Tracking actions on your summer camp's website is an extremely important part of tracking ROI (return on investment). A few days ago, I wrote about implementing the Facebook Conversion Tracking Pixel. Today, I created this video to help you learn more about implementing the Google Conversion Tracking Pixel on your website. Watch the video below to learn more about why this is an important tool for your camp's success. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqk1GzdJir4&feature=youtu.be...

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Make your Facebook posts engaging: Images

Today, I am starting a short series on how to make your Facebook posts more engaging. The first part of the series is going to cover imagery. Luckily, summer camps have great images from their summer photographers, which means they always have an arsenal of photos to use for Facebook posts. Still, I see camps all of the time using images that don't perform well on Facebook. Here are five quick tips to make your Facebook images more engaging: 1. Pictures...

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Social media planning sessions

With the summer season winding down, it is time for your camp to hold an annual social media planning session. Here is an example of an agenda for this type of meeting: 1. Complete an audit of current social media activity, tools, and analytics 2. Decide if you are going to hire a social media consultant. Does your program need help? Or are you in a good place with the current staff? 3. Brainstorm your main marketing objectives for next year 4. Set a...

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Setting a Camper Growth Goal

Before starting any social media program, it is important to build out your marketing objectives and understand the main goal your camp is trying to reach. Most camps I work with are looking to grow their number of campers, but have never set an actual goal around what that looks like. I often encourage my camps to build a chart to map out exactly what 25%, 50% and 75% growth looks like. For small camps it can be a very...

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Facebook insights for your Facebook page

Almost every summer camp has a Facebook page and it is extremely important to take advantage of the insights that Facebook provides you to grow and optimize your page. I am going to quickly walk you through my page's insights so you can see what metrics are important to track. On the main page of Facebook insights there are three panels available: page likes, post reach and engagement. The most important of these three to take a deeper look at is post...

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