Marketing is a big part of running any business, and camps are no exception.
During your “off” season, you always want to be looking for ways to both get your message out to new people and keep your old campers coming back.
Reminding your kids how fun camp was and making them want to go back is a big part of your job and will help drive more income and increase enrollment.
A camp is all about the campers, after all, and your business isn’t really sustainable without a core group of kids coming back year after year.
With that in mind, here are a couple helpful tips for writing more effective marketing emails to you past campers.
Make It Personal
One thing you always want to remember when you’re writing these sorts of emails is that your campers are more than just potential customers – they’re people, too!
It can sometimes be easy to get caught up in the whole idea of “marketing,” and forget who you’re actually talking to.
Nobody wants to feel like they’re the target of a marketing campaign, even if that’s what this technically is. They want to feel like you’re talking to them, specifically, because you have something that they need to hear.
One simple way to do this is to just make everything in your emails feel more personal. Try referring to common experiences your campers will remember and look back fondly on, and always remember to include the name of the particular camper you’re talking to in the first couple words of the email.
Including some photos or links to a roundup video or gallery also helps!
Again, it just makes it feel more personal – like you’re really talking to them!
Filter out Groups
Another great way to grab the reader’s attention is by actually fitting your message to what they might care about.
If you have a wide age range at your camp, for instance, think about how different high schoolers are from middle schoolers. They have a whole different set of priorities – and you should address that in your email!
Adjusting your message to better suit your audience becomes a lot easier with the help of the right registration software.
A good system will let you quickly filter out the specific groups you want to talk to, so you won’t have to spend time manually sorting out different groups of people.
Create and Automate Email Templates
Good software will also make it easier to send out emails to large groups of people at once.
Not only will you be able to keep more organized by storing all your email templates in one system, but you’ll also be able to automate your system to send out all these emails whenever you want.
It’s faster, it’s easier, and it takes a lot less thought.
Keep It Engaging
There’s a bit more of an art to this last point, but it’s one of the most important skills for you to master.
After all, it’s not enough for you to just send out a giant email blast – it also has to be something people actually want to read!
There are a lot of different things you can try out here, and you’ll probably want to experiment a bit to see what kind of message people react best to. There are a couple rules of thumb, though.
First of all, always remember that emails really are meant to be fairly short and to-the-point. Even if you feel like you have a lot to say, not a lot of people are willing to read all the way to the end of a lengthy email.
Second of all, be sure to keep things visually appealing. Nobody wants to have to sift through a massive wall of text, even if everything you’re talking about is super entertaining and fun.
Pictures with fun captions and short videos are a great way to keep readers engaged and excited to gear back up for camp!
Conclusion
With these solutions in mind, you’ll be well on your way to winning your campers back for another round of fun and adventure.
Building an effective marketing campaign might seem like a daunting task, but it’s really nothing more than making people remember something they already love.
Kids love camp, it’s simple as that. All you have to do is remind them why!
