The first day of summer just around the corner, so you might be thinking about sending your kids to sleepaway camp. You also may be asking yourself, “What if they don’t like being away from home?”, “Will they enjoy it?, “Will they be too homesick to do so?”, or “What if they feel out of place?” These are some of many questions and concerns that may run through any parent’s mind. Sending your kids away for long periods of time to a...
Read MoreSummer camp tours are winding down and camp families are starting to make their final decisions about camp for next summer. While some families want to make a decision quickly post-tour, it is very common for some families to wait until closer to the early bird deadline to make a final decision. So what can you do to help turn these touring families into customers? Show them great content- I'm always shocked at how camps don't specifically advertise to families who...
Read More
As visiting day approaches and camp starts winding down, I get asked one question A LOT by my clients. "Now that summer is over, can I take a break from advertising?" Is it really worth spending money on ads through the the fall? The answer is (obviously) a resounding yes, but I wanted to explain why we think it is so important. Don't Lose Momentum Summer is the most important marketing time of the year. You create daily content for social media,...
Read MoreLast November, Instagram launched Stories, a feature that closely resembled the photo and video sharing application Snapchat. Since then, Snapchat has experienced a decline in daily users and engagement. This has led many to believe that the relatively new Instagram feature encouraged users to stay on the application instead of using Snapchat for their temporary video and photo postings. What might have caused this shift from Snapchat to Instagram Stories? First, Instagram users are much easier to locate than Snapchat users. If...
Read MoreThe weather is warming up, school is letting out and you can just feel that summer is in the air! This year the American Camp Association reports that more than 14 million children will attend camp in the U.S. at one of the more than 14,000 day and resident camps. While many things about the unique summer camp industry remain the same, there are a few interesting changes this summer. Camp tuition prices are rising, making the potential customer base for...
Read MoreMany camps stop advertising during the summer. I've written in detail before about why you shouldn't do that, but if you camp decides to try out during summer advertising below is a great plan to follow: Promote your best content to friends of fans With daily posting during the summer you should have a lot of new content coming out! Use this content and promote it to your friends of current fans in target zip codes. We want potential customers...
Read MoreEver since I started Social Summer Camp, I’ve been baffled at how summer camps focus on marketing and recruiting all winter and spring long, only to completely stop marketing when summer starts. This isn’t just bad business, this is a crucial mistake! Summer is THE most important marketing time of the year. During this time, we have an amazing opportunity to amplify your message to the friends and family of your campers and significantly grow word of mouth. What we do...
Read MoreDoes your camp love Facebook Live? I have seen some amazing use cases where camps are using Facebook Live to introduce staff, give a virtual tour of camp or just chat with prospective and current camp families. We've enjoyed great live video now, but ads are coming to this fantastic Facebook product. According to USA Today: "The company Thursday announced new initiatives to put more TV commercial-style ad breaks in live videos, and will begin testing ad breaks in traditional News Feed...
Read MoreLess busy work, more optimization - that’s the goal of Facebook’s new Automated Rules tool for ads. Using this new feature, you can create rules and resulting actions to automatically apply to ads. Last Fall, Facebook introduced this new feature to help marketers speed up the ad optimization process. If you’re like most people, you probably spend a lot of time checking in on your ad performance. Now, Facebook can carry some of that weight to make your marketing duties a...
Read MoreA lot of people think that when you hire a camp consultant you are going to spend a lot of money. While this may be true (you do spend money on ads and consulting), I've found that most of my clients do end up saving money in some way or another while working with Social Summer Camp. Recently, I took on a new client who was running AdWords by himself. He hired us because he wanted to be more efficient with...
Read More