The Top Marketing Strategies for Your Performing Arts Camps

Want more camp bookings? Marketing is the answer!

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It’s no secret that we are big fans of camps here at ClassForKids. Holiday camps are a great tool to increase and diversify your club income, to occupy kids during school breaks, and to grow your customer pool. But, how do you go about getting more booking for your performing arts camps? It lies in how you promote your camp! That is why we’ve put together this blog to help you to maximise your online and offline camp marketing strategy. Ready? Let’s break down how to promote performing arts camps!

Online Marketing for Camps

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Getting your online marketing right can make a great impact on your performing arts camps. Why? Because most parents spend a significant amount of time online! These are some of the most common questions around paid advertising for camps that we get from club owners:

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Paid Advertising  

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[.pink__text] Where & how do I create paid ads?[.pink__text]

There are a couple of different options for running online ads: you can run ads on Google, on Meta (Facebook) or using your existing social media posts. We highly recommend starting out with the simplest one: boosting existing social media posts! Simply head to the post you want to promote and click the “boost” button, add in the details specified like the budget you want to spend, and then you’re done! Another great way of running ads is by using Facebook ads through Meta business suite. These can be slightly more confusing, so it’s a good idea to check out [.blue__text]ClassForKids’ helpful marketing  webinars[.blue__text] on how to run these.

[.green__text]How much should I pay for ads?[.green__text]

You will often be recommended budgets on paid advertising platforms but remember that you should keep in mind the size of your business and your own budget. How much your advertising should cost will completely depend on you and your academy! Try with a small budget in the first instance and you can always increase it over time.  

[.orange__text]How do I know if it’s worth it running ads for my camp?[.orange__text]

Running paid ads for your camp is only worth it if they are bringing you some ‘return on investment’, or ROI. This is why you’ll want to regularly track, test and optimise your adverts to make sure they remain relevant to your camp and are bringing you results! It is also good practice to keep track of how people heard about you to see if anyone mentions your adverts: On ClassForKids you can add bespoke [.pink__text]registration questions[.pink__text] such as ‘How did you hear about us?’ This is a very useful marketing tool!  

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Social Media Marketing

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Social media can be a powerful tool in your club marketing arsenal. But [.green__text]what should you be posting on socials[.green__text] to get more bookings for your camp? With everything that you post on social media, you’ll want to provide your audience with posts that will interest them - and just a sprinkling of sales. These are the key things to ask yourself about each post:

1. [.blue__text]Does it entertain?[.blue__text]

2. [.blue__text]Does it educate?[.blue__text]

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Focusing your social media feeds on these two questions allows you to create a platform that is engaging for your audience. Why is this important? If your feed is filled with just sales content asking parents to book onto your camp, it isn’t going to keep their attention. Instead, you need to make your page one which parents want to follow. Then, by building that trust, you can then add in posts which directly encourage parents to book on to camps.

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[.orange__text]Top Tip: Social media allows you to build rapport with a far larger number of parents than you could personally. Just make sure to be consistent with your posts.[.orange__text]

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Your Website

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Your website should be easy to understand and should give parents all the information that they need. You can have a fantastic marketing plan but if parents end up on a webpage that looks unprofessional or is difficult to understand, they are likely to leave and book elsewhere. If you’re confident in your tech abilities, you can choose to create or build your own website. Alternatively, it might be worth it for you to invest in a professionally built website. A great website can really make your camp stand out from the crowd and secure you even more bookings.  

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With your website you need to again just ask yourself two key questions, this time:  

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1.   [.pink__text]Does it build trust?[.pink__text]

2.   [.pink__text]Does it sell?[.pink__text]

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Why are these relevant questions to ask yourself about your website content? Parents need to be encouraged to book your camp! All the content on your website should either build trust or sell to them, encouraging them either in the short-term or long-term to book your camp.

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