"See You Next Year!" 4 Camper Retention Techniques
Summer break is an exciting two months of the year for kids! When they spend that valuable time at summer camp, they get to learn life skills while experiencing the great outdoors and forging bonds with their peers. However, between summers, your camp will need a strategy to remind campers and kids of these awesome times and encourage them to come back next summer.
High camper retention creates a better camp experience for both your campers and your organization. Your campers will be able to create lasting friendships that span over the years if they are able to continue going to camp with the same group year after year.
For your organization, high camper retention means more predictable incoming revenue and logistics preparations. After all, while a difference of five unexpected clients might not mean much to most organizations, for a camp, that translates to five more beds to prepare and people to feed for months!
Camper retention relies on a number of factors, including helpful online registration tools, a consistent communication strategy, and, of course, a positive camp experience. To help your camp welcome back more campers next summer, here are four tips for improving camper retention rates:
Stay in touch.
Pay attention to satisfaction ratings.
Reduce data re-entry for repeat campers.
Expand your camp’s offerings.
Every summer camp has a unique approach to camp life and activities, so feel free to adjust these strategies in a way that makes the most sense for your organization. After all, maintaining a strong, consistent brand identity can help you retain campers, too. Let’s get started.
1. Stay in touch.
A positive camp experience can be one of your best marketing tools. Campers and their parents can spread word about your camp through word of mouth, helping your current campers remember what they loved about your camp. This can reinforce their desire to return next year, while also helping to market your organization to new campers.
It’s a long time between the end of summer and the beginning of your camp’s next registration window. To keep discussions about your camp strong during your off-period, make sure you stay in touch with your camper’s families. Here are a few ways you can reach out and get campers excited to come back next summer:
Create custom emails. Maintaining a regular email cadence helps show your camper’s parents that your organization is still active and can serve as a reminder for them to fill out registration forms when they’re available. Accudata’s guide to loyalty email marketing specifically recommends that organizations create custom emails tailored to past client feedback to receive the higher response rates. Avoid generic text and greetings by personalizing each message you send.
Send items in the mail. Direct mail might be considered “snail mail” for a reason, but it has a few advantages over digital marketing, especially the ability to send physical items to your campers. You can send cards, pamphlets, and flyers about your camp ahead of time to serve as a reminder to register this year. Some camps might even get creative and deliver small items such as keychains, water bottles, hats, and more to their most dedicated campers.
Host virtual events. While your camp likely focuses primarily on camp activities, consider expanding your outreach program to include new activities to engage campers and their families even when they’re away from your camp. For example, virtual events can be an opportunity for campers to check in with their friends and participate in camp activities that can be held remotely, helping get them excited to get together in person during the summer.
Use digital marketing. Social media allows your camp to stay in touch all year long, and you should make the most of it. Consider taking out paid ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to draw more attention, and don’t forget to make posts reminding campers and their parents about important registration days. A carefully coordinated digital marketing campaign will keep your camp top of mind all year long and even encourage early enrolment!
Stay in touch with your camp’s donors (especially recurring donors) as well as campers. If your camp uses a recurring billing software platform to automatically collect donations each month, make sure you’re also sending those donors monthly thank yous that extend beyond your automated confirmation messages and receipts.
2. Pay attention to satisfaction ratings.
After your camp closes down for the summer, make sure to follow up quickly with a feedback survey to let campers and parents share their thoughts and opinions about their experience that year. Doing so allows your parents and campers to feel heard, and surveys can sometimes provide insightful ideas that may lead to real improvements.
CIRCUITREE’s guide to summer camp enrollment specifically recommends gathering both camper and parent feedback to get a full picture of your overall satisfaction rates. Here’s why they say it’s important to gain this information from both groups and some tips for how to gain the actionable data:
Campers
The feedback your campers will want to give will be about the quality of camp activities, discussing their camp experience, and expressing whether or not they enjoyed themselves. Ensure questions for your campers reflect these priorities. Ask questions that revolve around camp activities and daily life, such as:
What was your favourite camp activity? Why?
Did you enjoy your cabin/sleeping arrangements?
Is there a type of activity you would like to do more of?
Remember that your feedback survey can also be used as a chance to get campers excited to come back for next year. While you should allow open-ended questions and space for campers to share experiences they didn’t like, write questions with a positive connotation to help them remember the fun they had.
Parents
Ultimately, parents are the ones who decide if a camper will return next year, so make sure your feedback surveys don’t neglect their thoughts and ideas. Parents are more likely to be interested in discussing the aspects of your camp they experienced, such as the registration process, communication, and basic logistical concerns, such as camper drop off and pick up. Ask questions like:
Did you have an easy registration process? Explain.
Does our camp communicate frequently enough? Too frequently?
Was drop-off and pick-up a smooth process for your family?
Ensure your feedback forms have a good balance between open-ended and multiple-choice questions. While parents will likely be able to provide more detailed, focused feedback than campers, they are also busy people who may not have the time to complete a survey with several required open-ended questions.
3. Reduce data re-entry for repeat campers.
Your camp likely already keeps notes on various campers for both logistics and safety purposes. This means that when a camper registers to attend your camp again, you might already have key information on them that you don’t need to collect again.
Have your campers’ parents create accounts when they sign up for your camp. Then, you’ll be able to pull prior information about their child easily for subsequent forms, reducing data re-entry. For instance, this process can remove the need for data re-entry for key information fields such as:
Basic contact information. Essential information such as the parents’ names, camper’s name, and emergency contact information will likely be the same from year to year. Plus, saving phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses can help your camp with future marketing efforts.
Health conditions. While some children might discover they have a new allergy between summers, most kids will likely have the same health concerns as they did before. This means your registration forms can carry over previous information about health conditions and medications and allow parents to make new adjustments as needed rather than re-entering everything from scratch.
Payment information. Consider using your camp’s secure payment processor to offer parents the opportunity to keep a card on file for future purchases and automatic payments. Regpack’s guide to accepting payments online advises small businesses to look for secure, scalable credit card processors to both protect their customers and leave open room for expansion and multiple payment options, such as recurring payments for donations.
Make sure to ask permission before saving more sensitive information, such as credit card numbers. Prompt parents to check that the data saved in your records is still accurate. Then, ensure they have the ability to edit their information at any time in case they move, cancel an old credit card, or need to provide an update on their child.
4. Expand your camp’s offerings.
The months leading up to your camp’s reopening are the most important for retaining campers. Before registrations open, carefully consider your marketing materials and figure out ways you can remind campers about the activities they’ve enjoyed from year-to-year.
Additionally, think of new ways to get them excited by expanding your camp’s offerings. Kids who have attended your camp for several years in a row may start to feel like they’ve already experienced everything you have to offer, so figure out new ways to get them engaged with brand new activities and experiences.
You can also get creative about what deals you offer campers’ parents. For example, you might experiment with an early bird special to encourage early enrolment, increasing urgency to sign up quickly.
Your camp’s offerings will depend on your physical location, budget, and other limiting factors. However, your promotional materials should still play up what makes your camp new and exciting this year, specifically.
Retaining campers from year-to-year is more cost-effective than attracting new ones every year, allowing you to focus more on improving your camp activities and less on registration fees. Reach out to your campers and their families during the off-season to establish regular communication and listen to their feedback when they provide it. Then, use that information to create a better camp registration process and even expand your activities.
Guest Writer:
Asaf Darash, Founder and CEO of Regpack, has extensive experience as an entrepreneur and investor. Asaf has built 3 successful companies to date, all with an exit plan or that have stayed in profitability and are still functional. Asaf specializes in product development for the web, team building and in bringing a company from concept to an actualized unit that is profitable.
