10+ Summer Camp Marketing Strategies to Find More Campers

Summer camp marketing strategies for returning campers.

Marketing effectively to your campers is crucial to ensure that you have a successful summer. Your repeat campers are the ones that keep your camp running year after year. To guarantee that you keep these campers coming back, make sure that you establish good marketing habits to reach out to them as soon as possible!

1. Communicate frequently.

The number one way to maintain the relationship between your camp and your camp families is effective communication. You have to stay in the front of their minds, even between summers, so that by the time registration opens they’re ready to sign up.

Part of your marketing strategy for retaining campers should be keeping them up to date on everything that’s happening in the camp world. Do you have a monthly or quarterly newsletter where parents and kids can read all about renovations going on at camp, new activities that you’re planning, or new staffers being hired?

If you don’t, you should. Parents will enjoy being kept in-the-know about what’s going on at camp, and the kids will be thinking about how much they miss camp all through the off-season.

In order to make this strategy even more effective, consider segmenting your camp families into groups with commonalities. Segmentation is a strong marketing strategy because it allows you to create more specific and relevant advertisements in order to emphasize the aspects of your camp that your segments will be most interested in.

Some common segments for improving your summer camp marketing strategies are:

• Age groups. Split your camp population by what age group the child falls into, so that you can send age-appropriate marketing materials to the families.
• Camp interests. Is there a dedicated crew of kids that always signs up for rock climbing? Or horseback riding? Or painting? Whatever the interest is, make sure that those families are aware of how you’re planning on offering or expanding those activities in the coming camp season.
• Geographic location. If some of your camp families are close by, consider extending an invitation to them in the off-season to come check out the changes being made around camp.

Because you already know these camp families thanks to their time spent at your camp before, you should take the time to create specialized and targeted marketing materials for them. They’ll appreciate that you provide them with the most value based on their interests, and it’ll keep you at the front of their minds while they’re making their summer plans.

2. Early bird discounts.

Once registration opens for your camp’s upcoming sessions, it’s time to make your efforts from the previous months count. A few weeks before registration opens, begin reminding the parents of your campers that registration will open soon.

In order to incentivize your camp parents to register their children as soon as possible, offer them an early bird discount if they register within the first month of registration. You can choose whatever timeline is most appropriate for your camp’s registration timeline.

When you’re emailing, texting, or sending mail to your parents, use language that inspires urgency to ensure that they register their children promptly upon receiving the notification.

Phrases like the following are all effective ways of creating urgency:

• “Don’t wait!”
• “Apply now!”
• “Space is limited!”

Combining urgent and time-sensitive copy with a monetary incentive is a great way to encourage parents to register quickly.

Early registration is important for two factors: one, it gives your staff a litmus test for how your summer is going to go. If you’re able to quickly fill up enough spots to assure your staff that you’ll have enough kids at camp by the time the sessions start, you’ll be able to spend your time in the weeks leading up to the camp kick-off handing other tasks like training counselors and planning activities.

Two, it provides social proof for your camp that you can leverage to encourage new campers to register! When other families demonstrate their trust in your camp, your camp will be deemed more legitimate by families who aren’t familiar with your camp.

3. Referral discounts.

Another marketing technique to entice your campers to return, as well as find new faces, is to offer your campers a discount if they recruit their friends. Parents love discounts, and campers will love to share the greatness of camp with their friends

The best way to market these discounts (besides offering it to parents as a way to save money) is to target the kids themselves, and make them realize how much more fun camp could be if their best friend were by their side.

Send emails with fun images like:

• A picture of two kids having fun at camp, but with the faces cut out like a face-in-the-hole photo op. Then, caption the image, “This could be you and your bestie!” Or something similarly engaging. When you use fun, high-quality pictures, you’re more likely to emotionally engage with the reader.

• A picture of a two-person activity, like tetherball or a chess table, with a caption about how the only things missing from the picture are you and your friend. Again, using pictures makes it easier for kids to picture themselves in the situation and gets them more fired up to invite their friends.

While your campers’ parents are ultimately the ones who will make the decision about going to camp, don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing from your campers at their schools, churches, dance lessons, or other extracurricular activities.

An important tip to keep in mind while marketing for your summer camp is that you have to appeal to your campers as well as their parents in your advertising materials. If your outreach materials don’t remind your campers of how much fun they had last summer and get them excited for the upcoming summer, you won’t be able to retain them in your community.

---

Summer camp marketing strategies for finding new campers.

While encouraging your campers to come back summer after summer is important, so too is finding new campers to expand your camp community. The strategy to find new campers won’t be based on reminding them of how much fun they had, but instead demonstrating to them the value that they’ll find if they join your community.

4. Reach out to local organizations for marketing opportunities.

When it comes time to find new families to bring into your camp community, don’t be afraid to reach out to other places that children and their parents spend their time. In order to find new children to learn about what your summer camp has to offer, consider exactly what that is and where you’ll find children who are interested in those things.

Think about your camp and ask the following questions:

1. What type of children will find the most value in our programs?
2. Which activities does our camp excel at providing?
3. Where will these children spend their time outside of camp?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you’ll know where to look to find new campers. For example, if your camp has a science and math focus for children interested in STEM subjects, reach out to magnet schools and tutoring organizations to ask if you can hang fliers or send in brochures to place in the front office.

If your camp is physically focused, send marketing materials to dance studios, sports leagues, and school athletic programs. You could also reach out to coaches directly and ask them to send your camp’s website out over an email blast or Listserv. The coaches might even be willing to recommend your camp to promising athletes if you do a good enough job of selling your camp!

Other organizations to reach out to in the community are:

• Local schools at all levels.
• Churches, if your camp is religiously affiliated.
• Sports leagues, gymnasiums, and studios.
• School extracurricular programs.
• Community centers and parks and rec departments.

The point is is that you don’t have to conduct cold outreach to find new campers. Just follow your nose to where the children who will be most interested in your camp spend their time. Then, make a connection at that organization with someone who can pass on your marketing materials to the appropriate people.

5. Offer a free tour of the camp to new families who are interested.

When marketing your camp to new families, don’t be afraid to get involved with them in a more personal way than just emailing them! Once you’ve generated some interest by reaching out to other organizations, invite your potential campers and their families out to the camp to meet some of the staffers and see the grounds.

Inviting your potential campers has a few benefits:

1. The parents get comfortable with where they’ll be sending their child over the summer. They’ll appreciate the chance to see cabins, the nurse’s office, and any other places their child might be spending time.
2. The campers will be more comfortable coming back if they’re already a little familiar with the layout of the camp. It can be hard to go somewhere for the first time without your family, so a pre-registration tour might be just the thing a shy child needs before signing up.
3. Parents and kids alike get the chance to ask any lingering questions that they might have before registering. It’s easier to ask questions in person than to send them in an email that may or may not get a response.

A tour of your camp will pique the interest of the children more than any photo or video can, and by offering this value to your potential campers up-front your camp will be able to forge stronger relationships with potential camp families and encourage them to register.

6. Reach out to online resources.

Your camp, as do many other camps, may draw campers from other states or regions due to your resources, activities, or other offerings. If that’s the case, then it’s in your best interest to cast as wide a net as possible to market your camp to new families and campers.

The best way to reach out, regardless of geographic distance, is online! To get your camp in front of as many people as possible, work with other people to promote your camp.

There are many resources on the internet that parents use to find fun activities for their children. They read blogs by parents, look for recommendations from the local news journal or community magazine, and seek out referral lists from other websites.

In order to attract new campers to your programs, you have to be included in those resources! Think like a parent and search for terms that they would use like:

• Best summer camps for [child’s interest]
• Summer camps in [region]
• Top summer camps for [child’s age range]

Then see what resources appear! Once you know what parents find when they research camps, reach out to the writers of those resources and see what you can do to get your camp included in their lists. Don’t be afraid to include your camp’s marketing materials in your emails to them, so that they can see what your camp is all about before promoting it to their audiences.

---