Speaker, Social Media Consultant and Photographer
I will Consume Less and Create More.
Our Woodstock small business consulting company - Walking Maverick
I am a Woodstock wedding & commercial photographer
I am also summer camp podcaster
A quick post on our Walking Maverick blog (social media marketing small business) about the value of video.
Presbyterian Camps on Facebook
I’m doing a presentation tonight at a conference of the Presbyterian Camps across Canada (for a full list check out the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association).
As a supplement to that presentation I am linking to each camp’s presence on Facebook so that they can help by “Liking” each other’s Pages.
If you would like to gain some extra Fans and share ideas with other camps please add your camp’s Facebook in the comments!
Canadian Presbyterian Camps on Facebook
Camp Leader’s MBA - Lesson 1
Referral Engine
[This month I am going to begin a new series called the Camp Leader’s MBA. It is a winter-long curriculum for summer camp people to educate themselves on business and marketing. Read along with me and be ready to graduate by Camp 2011!]
The first book in our curriculum is The Referral Engine by John Jantsch. Some may have heard of Jantsch before because of his previous book, Duct Tape Marketing and he is a frequent contributor to television news and business shows. He is a great writer with a easy-to-read style that keeps a reader engaged.
Well, engaged might be too simple. I was _DRIVEN_ to read this book. I made the mistake of reading this book one night before bed and I was up an extra two hours absorbing the ideas and scribbling notes in the margins.
This books connects so strongly to camp because we are a business that relies heavily on word-of-mouth referrals.
Would you send your child away to a place that you hadn’t heard great things about? Exactly.
What John does in this book is help us create a system that will make it easier and better for our families to recommend us to their friends.
Important Lessons from Referral Engine
- Camps must be able to define & tell their “core talkable difference” - your Why Statement. Why you do what you do and why that is different than any other camp.
- A business needs to define their ideal customer. Not just “people willing to give us money”. Look to find your best camp family. Do they: Already recommend you to others? Donate time & money? Bring kids to camp that don’t even belong to them? That is your ideal client. From now on… only talk to them with your marketing. That way you’ll be sure to get more of them.
- Focus your marketing efforts on your existing customers. Set up a system that makes it easy for them to recommend you.
- Look for businesses that also sell to your clients and partner with them. Think of ways that you both can market together (children’s clothing stores, outdoor retailers, etc.).
One of the best things about The Referral Engine is the examples section at the back. He has solicited real-word examples of people using great word-of-mouth marketing. You’d be hard pressed to read this and not find things that would work for your camp.
5 Things to Add to Your Camp Marketing To Do List
- Define your “Why”. Make sure everyone that ever answers the phone or talks to parents at a camp fair believes it and can articulate it.
- Create turnkey tools. Put something in the hands of every family that will help them talk to others about your camp.
- Create separate website landing pages for every marketing venue (links from OCA, other online listings, links you hand out to referring families) so you can measure how effect is each source.
- Commit to video. Teaching is an incredibly powerful marketing tool (waaaaay better than shouting into open space) and we are very good at that. Use YouTube and Facebook to show off your skills.
- Create a survey to send out to last summer’s families. Ask for some feedback on a few specific elements of the camp experience but focus on positiives. Send this out one month before your due date to remind families of the great things that they get from your camp.
What is on your Camp Marketing To Do List this year?
To be an active participant in the Camp Leader’s MBA you can join the discussion on GoodReads. It’s time to upgrade your camp education.
Boom Dee Ya Da
Cairn’s answer to the Discovery Channel’s video. Pretty brilliant.
Northern Lights at your summer camp
The Canadian Space Agency has just released their new northern lights project: Aurora Max.
Aurora Max is a live web feed of the northern lights over Yellowknife, Northwest Territories - home of some of the most vibrant northern lights ever seen. If you turn in at the right time (after dark in Yellowknife) you can see a live view of the sky. And if you have been a very good camper… you can see the northern lights.
The article that referred me to this site (sorry, kind referer…CBC maybe?) said that the plan is to release a phone app so you can view through the camera on your smart phone and even text alerts when the aurora are out to play.
It would be worth signing for the text alerts at your summer camp - when the lights are out in Yellowknife the chances are greatest that they are out in the sky over your camp too!
I loved August nights at Glen Mhor (now Cairn) when we would sit out on the end of the dock and feel like we were swimming in the northern lights - surrounded on all sides.
Have you ever seen the northern lights at camp?
Using Video to Recruit Great Summer Camp Staff
Getting great people to work at your camp is an incredibly important part of a camp director’s job (keeping great staff is a bigger issue that I’ll write more about this winter).
I found this video on the recruiting page of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (a non-profit doing amazing things for hunger issues in the developing world). Let’s look at what it does for CFB:
- It gives the organization some personality - “Hey, we’re real people, with cool ideas, who can sort of draw.”
- It shows off the true spirit of the place - you understand from the video that this is a faith-based organization that is focused on bringing food to those who don’t have enough. We now know their values
- It allows the people of CFB to express themselves- by not “enforcing” a company line but allowing the people to write their own answers this video shows off the uniqueness of all of the people who work there
- It shows (not tells) us that this is a national organization - this also adds value to a potential recruit by demonstrating that there are people from across the country involved.
- It’s FUN - good music, personal pictures, people laughing and smiling.
I’d love to work there.
Your Recruiting Task:
- Ask your staff to send you a photo from their webcams at school, their phones when visiting cool places or their cameras at home answering this question: How does Camp _______ make the world a better place?
- Take a half an hour and put it together in iMovie.
- Place it on your website under staff recruiting.
I bet you’ll be surprised at how creative they can be!
How is your summer camp using all of the tools available to recruit the best possible staff?
Your Next Camp Camera
It’s not totally bomb-proof but it’ll be about $500 and will be an amazing upgrade to any of the cameras that you have: http://photofocus.com/2010/09/14/canon-powershot-g12-is-real/
This year’s model includes:
- 1080p HD video
- tip-out screen
- 5x zoom
- f2.8 lens (translation: super short depth of field to show off just what you want in your photos
Does your camp send out a yearly “Wish List”?
I would add to the wishlist this year:
Canon Point and Shoot cameras (G9, G10 and G11 only, please)
They are great cameras with metal bodies that can take a fair amount of abuse and they take amazing photos.
How to take the best possible meeting notes. A great life skill to teach your summer camp staff.
Tiny Liveable House (video). @yoyojoer would love this. Can you see a bunch of this at your summer camp?
Camp Robin Hood staff rocking the Camp Dance Flash mob outside of the Skydome in Toronto. Congratulations to Howie and the gang!
