by Steve Cony You send your camp’s story
into a veritable jungle of competing messages that bombard every parent
and every child with whom you correspond. If your brochures, videos, and
Web site do not capture your prospects’ attention, interest, and imagination,
they have not fulfilled their primary function. You must get their attention
first, long before you close a sale.
Attention Getters
There are many ways you can make sure your marketing materials grab the
attention of your audience. You just need to set your camp apart from
all the rest.
Dare to be different
Traditions should be maintained around the campfire, not on the pages
of your brochure or Web site. There should be no standard whatsoever for
camp brochures, camp videos, or any camp marketing materials. Put your
feet up and think of the advertising messages you remember most vividly
and use them as guidelines for your camp’s marketing.
Discover the good in “World of Good”
ACA’s “Camp Gives Kids a World of Good” message can function strongly
to differentiate your camp and boost perceptions of your camp’s value.
Find the relevance of the “World of Good” message to your specific program
and make sure that families understand your camp is more than friends
and physical skills.
Focus on one message
Rather than trying to describe every acre of your property and everything
that happens there, concentrate on a message that cannot be missed, can
be understood quickly, and can be easily remembered. Simplicity is key
to retention. Yet brochure after brochure and Web site after Web site
move the reader quickly into suffocating details about the daily operation
of the camp. At first exposure, prospects want to know what you stand
for, not how many nurses are on site or the precise height of your climbing
wall.
Use wit and humor
Humor is one of the most popular tactics used by advertisers, and camp
— that thing that makes kids laugh and play throughout the summer — is
the best product to market with humor.
The use of wit in advertising is an excellent strategy to create reader
or viewer involvement with the message. The advertiser who uses wit never
travels 100 percent of the way to the audience but rather forces the audience
to participate in order to unlock the puzzle and thus get the idea. Humor
forces a heightened need for alertness on the part of the reader or viewer;
your audience becomes a part of your communication.
Be careful, however, not to set out with the specific objective of being
funny. Instead, set out to be interesting. Then, if humor surfaces as
the best strategy to build interest, it will fulfill the proper role.
Keep Your Message Simple
When you sit down to write anything about your camp, think about the
power of the stop sign. It has no introduction. It has no explanation.
It requires neither. When you approach that red octagon, it does not say,
“Kindly bring the vehicle to a speed not exceeding zero miles per hour
at this precise coordinate in space and time, as there may very well be
other traffic — vehicular and/or pedestrian in nature — traveling in a
direction opposed to yours that may very well intersect with the current
path of your own vehicle.” It just says, “Stop.” And you do it.
Where is your stop sign?
A simple message is more believable; it gives readers and/or viewers less
to criticize and ponder. There is a time and a place for all the details
about which parents ask, but it is not while you are simply trying to
attract attention and interest. Get close to closing the sale — then get
into all those details. Remember that the function of your front-line
marketing materials is to get prospects interested in your camp.
Use simple graphics
Simplicity in graphic design means giving the reader or viewer a dominant
image — a place to start. Too many camp brochures use the 100 percent
collage technique, splattering dozens of small photos together with no
logical point of focus for the eye. Look at good magazine advertisements,
and you will see dominant images, bold headlines, and lots of white space.
Your brochure cover is your advertisement. It is the image of your camp
that sits most continuously on your prospects’ coffee tables or kitchen
tables.
If you keep your own message simple, your message will inevitably stand
out among the clutter of other camp’s complex and convoluted versions
of what camp is all about. Kids think uncomplicated thoughts about their
camp experiences. Why confuse the issue?
Choosing the right camp for a child is indeed a worthwhile endeavor. But
if you think that camp is the most ponderous decision a family will ever
make — lighten up! Speaking of lightening up, you need to remind yourself
of a healthy perspective about camp. Yes, camp can be many or even all
the points in the “World of Good” platform. Yes, you do some pretty impressive
things for campers when you’re having a good day. Sometimes, you even
create defining moments in children’s lives. But it’s still good ol’ camp,
and you need to fill your marketing tools with the smiles, laughter, and
excitement that abound at your facility.
Bad news and good news
The bad news: Families are hardly ever out there waiting breathlessly
for your package. Yes, they may have requested it, but it arrives with
the rest of the mail on just one more hectic day to be digested on the
fly by variously fractionated family units.
The good news: When you sit down to create your message, you start with
an absolutely blank page. You have the opportunity to be different, to
do the things it takes to grab more attention than others, and to thereby
give camp a bigger share of mind than it occupied before your message
arrived. Now, go for it!
Originally published in the 2000 January/February
issue of Camping Magazine. |
