TriState ’09: Internet Camp Director – Marketing

The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 4 – Marketing

• Your domain is your website address (ie. ours is ilovecamp.org).  It makes sense to own all of the domains that may be associated with your camp business.

CAIRN owns all of the following domains:

Consider:  .org, .ca (if you are Canadian), net, .biz,  and common misspellings of your camp’s name.  The Question to ask yourself is would it make you happy to see someone use your name on their website.  Could just be that they syphon your traffic get ad revenue, could be that they put up a site to highlight the things that they think you are doing wrong.

• Facebook Pages (Some samples: Cairn, Subtlevox Photography by Travis Allison).  Facebook has 175 million users, 50% of which are camper aged.  Pages are better than groups (See Communication Notes)
• Photos:
  -Flickr.com – good google juice.  See CAIRN on flickr.  The purpose of having photo/video on the net is to show that you are fun, up to date, modern. I love Steve Cony’s idea of a minimum of four 60 second videos : About Us, Activities, Facilities, and Staff
  -Camps could potentially make some money by putting pictures online and selling the prints.  There are companies that will host password protected galleries that will do online order fulfillment – you don’t have do to a thing and you might make some extra scratch.  You could use a company like Photrade.com
• Videos:  A site that I love for video is vimeo.com because the quality is much greater and you can make the videos available for download.  Membership is free unless you wish to post HD video.  Put up youtube videos but always link to “higher quality videos on vimeo.com/zoic”
• Business Cards: Moo.com – unique business cards, can be on recycled paper.  Printed with your photos or design on the back.  The cards feel totally different than other local copy-place cards
• Twitter.com – like Cheez Whiz – it adds personality.  Since we are in a people business Twitter helps people understand what sort of people you are.  Avoid mistakes – like the business consultant hired by Fed Ex that twittered as the plane landed that he thought that Memphis was a hole.
• Alltop (http://alltop.com/)  Here’s an idea that we could all work together on: Alltop is a “magazine” style aggregation website.   They highlight the “All Top Money” blogs or “All Top Mommy Blogs”, etc.  If there were camp blogs with enough consistent content they are willing to create an “All Top Camp Blogs”
• Mommy Blogs:  another great way to market your camp for free is to contact some of the best Mommy Bloggers and offer to write articles for them – How to Pick A Good Camp, How to Be the Best Camp Parent, etc.

My Best Advice For Camp Directors
Get a Mac – it makes it soooo easy to edit photos, put together good looking videos, easy posters and even your confirmation packages

To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text    Follow zoic to 40404  or 21212 on Canadian phone