Two Quick Things:

1 → My friend Travis Allison at Go Camp Pro runs Camp Marketing Relief, a year-long marketing 101 for camp directors.

If you need help getting started and figuring out how this stuff actually works, Travis is your guy. Twenty sessions through May.

Build your full marketing calendar as you go, alongside a small group of directors, and the fall sessions are recorded so you can catch up now. $797, with a real money-back guarantee.

Closes November 5. Take a look.​

2 → Running camp ads can be confusing, complicated, and overwhelming. It doesn't have to be.

Cullan and his team at ​CampAdsUs​ runs Google advertising for summer camps.

Nonprofit camp? Put the $120,000-a-year Google Ad Grant to work. Yes, you read that number right.

For-profit camps? Rebuild your campaigns so every dollar brings in more families. Put Google Ads to work for your camp. Click the link and say "Hey Cullan! Jack sent us."

Ok, on to camp and solving problems...

What problem does camp solve?

I’ve been thinking about this way (way way way) too much recently. It’s driving me a little crazy. Maybe the good kind. We shall see.

And I know what you’re thinking.

You’re yelling through the screen, “Jack, you handsome devil, camp solves so many problems for kids! Camp gives kids confidence, and skills, and friendships, and independence, and about a thousand core memories. Don’t you see?!”

Yes. I do see that.

But let me expand the question, using Donald Miller from StoryBrand as the little guy on my shoulder. Going to add four words, and they make a major difference.

What 1 problem does camp solve for your customer?

Those four extra words carry a lot. Because the campers aren’t the customer. The parents are.

And all of a sudden, the answer we all gave before doesn’t hold up as well (even if it is all true). The things we love to say about camp aren’t automatically the things that move a parent.

Doug and I have been going round and round on this for weeks. I’ve also been talking with a bunch of parents, never asking the question head on, just getting close to it and listening.

So let’s start a running list. Because when we figure this out, getting more kids to camp should get a lot easier.

Here’s what we’re batting around so far.

The Running List

Screens and the 90s childhood.

There’s real resonance around a more analog childhood. We used to play until the streetlights came on.

And I remember playing outside thinking, I’ll tell you where I don’t want to go, back home where there’s less to do. Plus, being bored was kind of good. Eventually you’re going to pick up Legos or go build a fort.

The customer problem here is something like “big tech is stealing your kids’ childhood, we give it back to them.”

That one is easier to say than some of the others on this list.

Parents need a break.

Kids love camp. Parents love a break. They might not admit it out loud, but they’ve told you when no one was around to judge.

Sending your kid to camp lets you go to Pilates class guilt-free, go to the beach guilt-free. Parents deserve an awesome adult vacation, and the kids are going to thank you for it.

But hearing it from the camp guy is tough. If a parent says it, it’s wheels up. So when a parent says it to me, I write it down.

Knowing where your kid is.

There are so many apps keeping track of kids right now. Parents want to know where their kids are and what they’re doing, pretty much all the time. School solves that for hours a day, about 10 months a year.

But parents also want to know that something positive is happening there. Camp squares that one. The tradeoff with sleepaway is the kids don’t come home for a bit. You know where they are, but you can’t check in the same way.

The parent resume.

Activities also solve for what to say at a dinner party about your kid. A kid’s activities and accomplishments end up on the parent’s resume. And bragging about your kid is really bragging about yourself (which is great, parents should brag about their kids).

Camp should be able to solve this one. For some camps and communities, it definitely does. But not all, and not for everyone.

The independence ladder.

3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months. The one I wrote about a couple weeks ago, borrowed from Erec Hillis. The steps kids take on the way to independence, with camp as the rung between a long weekend at grandma’s and a semester at college.

I really like this one. But it runs on a long timeline. College is way out here. Middle school is closer, and that’s the one parents are worried about.

Independence is important, but it might not drive a short-term decision.

The One Under All Of Them

Donald Miller’s big point is that people don’t buy solutions to external problems. They buy solutions to internal ones.

The iPad fight is external. The 2 AM worry is internal.

And one internal problem that exists for many parents is a difficult tension: wanting your kid to be fiercely independent, and kinda never wanting them to leave your side because you’re worried about them. Both at the same time. Which is impossible.

Camp lives right in the middle of that tension. We don’t have to resolve it yet. We just have to get better at saying it out loud.

Because this is how camps get full. Name the real problems parents are dealing with, the stuff that has nothing to do with camp. Then show how camp helps.

You got this,

Jack

PS - Would love thoughts on this. What problems do you think your camp solves for the parents? Not the campers, the parents.

It’s a harder list to make than it sounds. Though if it’s easy for you, I’d def love to know.

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