Did you know that Google has an AdWords certification program? This means that any advertiser can take two Google AdWords exams that help qualify them in terms of running your AdWords account. I highly recommend asking whoever runs Google Adwords for your summer camp if they are AdWords certified. The team at Social Summer camp is Adwords certified and we feel confident in helping you run successful, ROI positive campaigns! ...
Read MoreMost camps have a pretty fluid marketing budget, where they spend money on print ads, camp directories, attending camp fairs, driving to home parties, but they have not put a significant amount, or any, of that budget toward social media. I honestly believe that you should always shift your marketing budget toward what is working the best for your camp. If print ads drive a lot of new campers then you should continue to do them. But IF you are...
Read MoreA few months ago LinkedIn launched sponsored updates. According to their blog post, "Sponsored Updates can be seen on desktop, smartphone and tablet devices and will clearly be marked “sponsored,” appearing in the member’s homepage feed along with the organic posts from their network and the companies they follow. Members will have the option to “Follow” the sponsoring company as well as “Like,” “Comment” and “Share” posts with their network." In order to take advantage of this, camps will need to...
Read MoreSnapchat is a very cool real-time photo chatting app on iOS and Android. According to Business Insider, they have 350 million photo uploads DAILY. It may still seem like a little app to a lot of people, but the growing popularity among middle and high school aged students is something that most marketers (including camp marketers) can not ignore. I always like to look toward big brands for advice on what smaller brands should be doing when a new social medium...
Read MoreLast month Pinterest announced that they will be starting to provide promoted pins (also known as ads). They are currently testing this with a few companies and promoted pins will only show up in search results and category feeds. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before this is open to everyone and available in the Pinterest news feed. Of course, this is exactly how Facebook started out, first allowing a few promotions on their right hand side and...
Read MoreI talk to a lot of camp directors who want to know if it's possible to do it all. What they really mean is, can a camp successfully run a social media program without a consultant. I've written before about how many hours a month you can save by hiring a social media consultant and I estimated that a full-time social media focused person would spend about 55 hours a month to accomplish everything that needs to be done. BUT, here...
Read MoreIf your camp is doing a lot of traditional print media (newsletters, newspaper ads, magazine ads, etc.) then it is really important to measure your success against your social marketing. Most print media only has two measurement qualities: 1. Reach: How many people received your newspaper/magazine/newsletter? (There is no way to know how many people actually read it, but this is a good enough metric to lean on.) 2. Response to your call to action: How many people either dialed the number or emailed...
Read MoreI have a lot of video trainings available on my YouTube channel and I wanted to make sure that you all had access to them. I'm uploading more each day, so make sure and check out my channel here. Here are some of the most useful video trainings available: Top three ways to target Facebook ads for summer camps How to track social activity using the Google Conversion Tracking Pixel and the Facebook Conversion Tracking Pixel How to build Twitter ads for summer camps...
Read MoreA 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...
Read MoreOne of the most successful ways for camps to market is through email. I happen to love email marketing, especially if like most camps you already have a list of parents and campers who have opted-in to receiving your newsletters and updates. That being said, I am definitely concerned about email marketing open rates and how camp email marketing has become less effective in the past few years. There is no exact email marketing open rate benchmark for summer camps, but...
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