Fall Seminar Attended By Fall Semi-Stars
Two Locations Double the Learning
At the end of October, ACA New England decided to go the unprecedented route
with its fall educational event, and hold two fall educational events - the same one, on consecutive days, in two locations - to maximize the number of people who could learn from it.
And what, pray tell, was the topic of the Fall Seminar, attended by over 120 summer camp professionals, all told? Why, it was Marketing for Camp Directors, Managers, and Owners, and it was led by the illustrious Jodi Rudick (at right, in the picture). And since those in attendance learned so much about marketing, I'll let three of them tell you all about what they learned. Maybe they'll do so well selling you on their valuable experience that you'll want to join us for future professional events.
Nancy McCann, Tripp Lake Camp:
ACA New England's Fall Seminar was well worth attending. Jodi Rudick was fun, creative, and energetic. Her presentation was fast paced, well prepared, and organized. Jodi is passionate about marketing and knows how important it is for camp directors to develop a marketing plan to sell their product to customers. From the workshop, I am more aware of innovative marketing in every aspect of the camp business. I'm looking forward to exploring the area of “branding” camp and how it can be integrated into our promotional materials. I also plan to develop a few new strategies when hiring staff with Jodi and her enthusiasm in mind.
Jodi also emphasized the importance of everyone in your organization marketing for you. Staff, campers, parents, office staff, and kitchen personnel must be trained to market your camp from the minute someone calls on the phone, arrives at camp, and throughout the entire year. Include your staff in the marketing process, and utilize your customers; they have the answers to get more customers.
Liz Tully, Camp Ketcha:
If I had to describe Jodi Rudick in a few words, they would be 'energetic', 'excited', and 'eccentric'. She found a way to make herself memorable to me in the first few moments of meeting her with her brightly-colored, funky clothing, and in this economy, camp professionals need to follow her example and find a way to make their camp stand out among the rest. We need to be innovative, creative, and in many cases start fresh. Jodi did an excellent job bringing us back to the basics of marketing. Creating a marketing plan, evaluating marketing you have in place, and knowing and using your strengths were important messages I took away from the Fall Professional Seminar.
The other 52 attendees and I enjoyed sharing ideas, evaluating our marketing IQ, and setting goals for the next week, next month, and next year. After ending the event, I made a goal to find a way to re-structure our upcoming Open House, which has continually had low attendance. It could be its timing during the week, the fact that we have many returning campers, or the fact that it is not exciting enough to get new families to attend. By next Wednesday, I will have a new Open House plan in place, something that I should have done last year.
Another really great idea I got from Jodi’s presentation was using her Customer Interview Form to get feedback for marketing from our top customers. We survey camp parents from a summer camp perspective, but never from a marketing perspective. It is great to know exactly how some of our most loyal customers see us. Taking the time to hear some positive feedback could give us all the extra boost we need to make it through another summer in this economy.
Christine Peterson, Cape Cod Sea Camps:
On a cool, crisp day, 52 camp professionals gathered at Camp Ketcha to learn new marketing strategies from Jodi Rudick. Participants included summer camp owners, directors, assistant directors, program organizers, activity specialists, and more from New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine.
Jodi began by explaining her point of view on the basics of marketing, what she calls the 8 P’s. Planning, Price, Placement, Promotion, Perspective, and Philosophy all fall under the big umbrella of Planning. She explained that, as camp directors, we need to put ourselves in the shoes (or flip-flops) of first, the parents and second, the campers. A few suggestions were to ask families what they are looking for, be flexible in how we hand out information, give enough background by not assuming what our families already know, avoid using too much camp jargon, and lastly, if it’s not the right environment for the information, then change the amount of information that you’re providing.
Placement of information is another key factor in camp advertising. Thinking about how people access information is very important. Decide which tools are best to reach your clientele, including direct mail, email, social networking sites, camp directories, phone calls, or other sources. Jodi had many ideas related to promoting camps and recreation opportunities.
The majority of the workshop was spent pondering how to create a marketing plan.
Jodi was full of enthusiasm and had some connections to camp life, and this shortened and regional meeting format for the Fall Conference was a good change of pace. She did a nice job of squeezing a ton of information into a short amount of time!