5 Simple Marketing Moves That Fill Day Camps Weeks Earlier (Part 2)

30 min · Olivier Rousseau & William Rochford · Mar 11, 2026

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About this episode

In Part 1, Olivier Rousseau and William Rochford shared five ways to fill your day camp earlier. This episode adds five more, with a focus on getting found by parents and turning their visit into a registration. They cover gift cards as a camp sales tool, simple local SEO so parents find you on Google, putting testimonials and reviews front and center, small-budget Google pay-per-click ads, and why a smooth mobile registration experience is often the difference between a visit and a sign-up.

What we discuss

Gift cards as an overlooked way to sell camp weeks Local SEO so parents find your camp on Google Putting testimonials and online reviews front and center Google pay-per-click ads on a small budget A smoother mobile registration that turns visits into sign-ups Resources mentioned 5 Simple Marketing Moves That Fill Day Camps Weeks Earlier (Part 1) How to Improve Your Online Registration by Making It Mobile-First (Not Just Mobile-Friendly) Activity Messenger gift cards Activity Messenger website builder Activity Messenger online registration Ahrefs Book a free demo of Activity Messenger Follow Olivier on LinkedIn About the hosts Olivier Rousseau co-founded Activity Messenger after spending 13 years running a kids' sports program that served 4,000 families. William Rochford is Activity Messenger's product expert. Want to share your story or ask a question? Email olivier@activitymessenger.com.

Full episode transcript

Read the full transcript

Intro[0:00] If you got to listen to our last episode, we shared five marketing ideas to help you fill your camp faster this summer. So, if you love that episode, if you haven't seen it, go check it out. And if you loved it, well, here's another five ideas to help you even better fill up those spots. So, stay tuned. It's going to be a good one. [music] Hi everybody and welcome back to the AMplify podcast. I'm your host Will. I'm here with Oli. How you doing Oli? Very good. Very good. Amazing. We're very excited for this[0:37] episode. Um I think you're going to find some very good tips for this upcoming summer and for the other upcoming summers as well. Um so yeah, without further ado, let's jump right in. We start today with um and by the way what we're looking to to share here are like easy to apply low-cost high return ideas and everything can be applied you know step by stepGift Cards[1:02] right so the first thing we want to talk about today are gift cards because we see gift cards a lot in the e-commerce space and often times we see it we see these being a little bit neglected in the sports and leisure and especially in the summer camp space. So uh let's talk about that. What? What? Why? Why is this such a great option? Like I was telling you earlier, I'm actually jealous of whoever's operating today because I'm I'm not operating in the sports leisure industry anymore. And I've always wanted to have gift cards, but it was always very complicated with[1:32] the system I had, right? The tech just wasn't there, right? Uh to have like virtual gift cards. And I've had a lot of people, grandparents, uncles, aunts being like, I'd love to contribute, you know, to this activity, uh to this camp. And then you know even like share you know instead of giving gifts toys be able to share a memory right and like we were talking summer camps overnight camps are some of the like deepest memories of a childhood. So I think it's something that you can as a[2:00] camp actually promote and be like hey give you know the memories of a summers of a memory memories of a summer or memories at camp right that's a great gift. Uh, it's a place where people right have great memories, but they also are away from screens. It's a place where they connect with other kids, make friends, promotes. It's such a great thing. You like as a camp owner, you have such a great kind of thing that you're selling. Frees up the parents. Yeah, [clears throat] exactly. Frees up the parents. But you have something so[2:28] great to sell that I feel like it connects really well to gift cards. And then it's something that you want to be, I think, adding in in your toolbox. Uh, having people be able to promote it. So, I can purchase a gift card to a friend that I want his kids to come to camp with me. Uh, but even within the family and as a parent, I might say, "My kid really wants to do this like super specialized camp that's, you know, three times more expensive, like you know, um, and that's a little expensive. So, why not gather up funds from the family that that's away and then actually offer[2:58] that?" And then they're gonna talk, the kids gonna talk about it on the call. It creates a relationship, too. I went to camp. It was so fun. Thank you so much. on that Zoom call with a grandparent that's far you can share those memories and they're kind of part of it, right? So, 100% 100%. And so that another thing too is, you know, as a parent myself, often times like when my parents, my kids grandparents ask like, "Hey, what do what do the kids want for their birthday or for Christmas or for whatever?" You know,[3:26] I hardly ever know what to answer. [laughter] Exactly. Like I definitely don't want another plastic toy. I'll tell you that. Exactly. So, this is a a great idea, you know, something something to think about here. So, you're actually serving uh you know, the parents, the grandparents, the kids, the whole family really. and and that's the beauty of it. Um, so are there any other ways to use gift cards? So, we're talking about, you know, uh, using gift cards as an opportunity for grandparents or other family members to offer a gift.[3:53] Is there, you know, another way to use these? Well, once they're in place, it's like, first of all, you just promote it, you sell it, you know, get people going, but then it's like, okay, what do I do with this? And one thing could be like sign up before February 1st and get one of five chances to win a $200 gift card for merchandise or for another week, right? Which is amazing. Like it just kind of promotes getting people signed up earlier. Giveaways.[4:17] Sign up sign up for a newsletter. Put a put, you know, and then sign up for a newsletter and, you know, win a there's a contest after. We're going to take through everybody who signed up for a newsletter. We'll give you a con we we'll we'll, you know, have a draw for for some gift cards. So once that tool is in place and it's really optimized with your system, there's a many things you can do uh that can really be super interesting. And you know, the other thing too is that it's really good for cash flow. So when you sell a gift card, you get the[4:43] money right away, right? But you're not giving the service right away. And you can even make money before opening up registrations, which is awesome. So we talked about this in our last episode. We talked about how, you know, opening up your camp early in the season, well, like, you know, really early early in like winter, you know, uh is really good for cash flow, but this is also another tool in that sense. Absolutely.[5:03] So, you could have, you know, a stream of income uh like all year long really. And the only thing I would say because it's something I really really wanted to do when I was operating, you know, sports and leisure programs and I couldn't because it wasn't optimized. It's like if it's not optimized on your your your website, on your registration system, like you don't want it to become a headache either. Right. Right. Exactly. So like if you have to write a paper, put a code in, sign it, and then you know giving it out, it's a pain for[5:30] the person purchasing it. It's a pain for the person coming in to register for camp with that gift card and it's a pain for you to manage. So you don't want to set that up. You want to make sure you set up correctly. Uh we just did a webinar on on our YouTube channel that you can find where we kind of talk about all the steps for on that level. Right. Great. So you want ways to really just automate that management. Make it make it really really simple. And and that's what you complained about. That's why you said you were jealous at the beginning. The tech wasn't there.[5:56] The tech wasn't there to automate it. So I I was like I don't want to I don't want to deal with all this, you know, management. All I want to do is market it. But in in today's world, the tech is there. So you can easily set it up and then you can even use that tech to leverage and market it and get more and more sold. Right. So I think we're we're at a really good time to to start that if you don't have it yet. Right. Right. Right. So we talked about, you know, um uh contests, draws, giveaways for like signing up to[6:22] newsletter and things like that. And one thing we wanted to add to that too is like a referral program. Y so really um in exchange for testimonials or there's all kinds of ideas we can use in terms of referrals. Yeah. So even if if you purchase a gift card, you get, you know, a free t-shirt or whatever it is, right? So you get something and you get a gift card, you can give to someone. So a bunch of things like that you can do or refer a friend and and win a gift card, things like that. So really, really good promotional tool once it's[6:49] set into place. It's not only something that you can offer to your clientele to for the whole family to make memories, but also use it as a promotional tool. So really good things there. [snorts] All right, so let's go into a topic thatSEO Strategies[7:01] might scare a few people. Stay stay there. That's that's all right. We're going to simplify it. SEO, right? So, search engine optimization. What in the world does this mean? So, if we simplify it like to its max maximum simplification, basically SEO is optimizing your website so that parents have an easier time finding you on search engines, i.e. Google. Um, so what are some really really good tips for optimizing your website in terms of SEO? Yeah, I think uh first of all I'm not an SEO expert in but I have done a lot of[7:41] SEO to grow our current you know software Activity Messenger. So I've learned a lot of stuff and one thing that's important in SEO is always looking at like how strong your competition is. Right. And a lot of times in the camp world there's not that many people doing an efficient job. So you don't even need to necessarily hire someone. You can actually probably learn a few basics on your own and actually get some results because it's not the most competitive industry, right? So again, you probably want to do some searches at first and[8:08] then make sure that it's not too competitive in your area at that at that level. But basic stuff, your your website has got to be quick. Most of the time nowadays, that's pretty not that big of a deal, but you still want to check for that. And then you want it to be mobile friendly. You want it to be really [clears throat] use to navigate on a phone because Google said it out like they said it needs to be like this is one of the things we will look at if people click and they don't have a good experience on mobile[8:34] it's going to hurt you. Um, and then you want to you want to look at like, okay, what what are the keywords I want to be I want to be doing, right? So, for example, probably want to be doing summer camps in Ottawa if you run a summer camp in Ottawa, right? Uh, or if you run Yeah, exactly. If you were run a summer camp in Atlanta, you might even write an article, what are the best summer camps in Atlanta? Now, if that article is not written yet, and you will kind of like control the narrative in a sense. So, yeah, you'll be referring to your competitors. That's fine. you want[9:02] to be doing that, but at least it's going to be on your website if nobody has done it, right? And that that kind of pulls out the the search there. Uh but it could also be like what are the best sports camp, right? Not just camp, like what's your specialty? Exactly. Do you have a specialty? Um and even if you're offering a like a like a magic camp, have an article about magic camps because then somebody's going to be searching in your area and they're going to say, "My kid loves magic." And then poof, that's going to that's going to go there. So even if the search volume is[9:28] very low, those those clients are looking for something very specific. So you know, I would say it makes sense to to create uh articles about it. Yeah. And this is also a beautiful tool. I mean, it's 100% organic. You're just writing these things. You're hosting them on your website and then you're just putting in those basic optimization principles so that Google can find it easier. Y um what's another important? So, you know, two birds, one stone, right? We[9:58] often want to make content that can work in in different ways. Um, so how does video act as a good uh Yeah, it's a really good point because I remember when I when we kind of decided that SEO was going to be a strategy for for Activity Messenger, I was like, "Oh boy, writing articles that make sense. It's going to take forever to rank and all that stuff." And it's true, but in today's world, you have a tool. And what I started doing was I recorded videos. So record a video, four or five minute video on how to select a camp, right? Or uh you know what to prepare for camp. So[10:30] whatever type of articles you want to write, make it in a video format. Then you could take that transcript, feed it to AI and say, "Hey, take my ideas and write it in ChatGPT." And again, Google doesn't mind using AI for articles. Um especially if it's your ideas, but when you're doing a video, it's all your ideas. It's not picking up from anywhere. So, it's really taking your original ideas and then it's writing the text. I guarantee you'll have to be spend a bit of time to like adapt the text, make it more personal, but it's going to save you like tremendous time,[10:59] like incredible time. You'll be able to do like I would say 5 to 10x quicker. Like I would do videos, you know, 2 3 minutes and then and then go and and have the article. Unless you're a creative writer and you love writing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. [laughter] There. Exactly. It's going to give you a nice clean draft that then you can go and reread and and ref. Craziest thing for camps is that you already have all these amazing people on video. Like if you're a good camp counselor,[11:23] put them in front of the video. Put him in front of the video. Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't have to be you. It could be somebody else and it just creates all this video content because maybe you've noticed, but I've seen it a lot when I search on Google now. Google will show me videos, right? It's not only going to show me text. So for certain queries, it's going to show me a video. Sure. Well, YouTube is owned by Google and one of their biggest assets. So definitely they're pushing those. And and one of[11:45] the strategies I took was I was like, "Okay, I for example, I I I had a search term I put in Google. I was like, oh my, like all these people are writing about it. That's going to take forever to rank." Then I took the exact same search and I put in YouTube, I was like, "There's nothing." Like the video it showed me was not even relevant. So there are some cases out there of things that you're like, "Whoa, there's there's these niches on YouTube that if you do a video, um, and if you're the only one there, even the video quality doesn't have to[12:09] be that that great, right? So it could be something you can test. I think that the content needs to be good uh and it needs to be relevant to the query that the person is searching but I think there's a there's a massive opportunity for camps there and modern modern smartphones are so powerful in terms of video recording as well and another thing that Google has been doing a lot recently is giving some the that AI answer when you search for something it's basing itself on videos[12:36] it's it's learning from YouTube videos it's even adding videos sometimes in there and it's and it's it's also learning from your SEO. So, if you're not there and and somebody says, "What are the best camps in Oakville?" and you're not there, you know, have an article on, you know, summer camp in Oakville, they can't even pick you up, right? So, I think like it's really important to to just make sure you cover the base. I'm not saying you should have 120 articles, but like find what are the like the top things that people are searching and and[13:02] you know, a lot of people talk about keyword research. I'm like, "No, talk look at your experience. You've been running a camp for 20 years. You know what questions people are asking before they come to camp. You know how they're searching. you know, you collected that data, you have that expertise, just go share it, right? And I think video is is a great way to do it. And the, you know, the last thing I think to mention on that are backlinks. Um, again, I don't think it's the most important thing. It's actually important if you're new, but like you want to make sure that[13:26] people know about your camps and that other websites are referring to you. Um, I love to use a tool called Ahrefs. They have a very cheap plan. It's 29 bucks a month. you can use it for a month or two, but then go in there, put your your your your competitors, go see their backlink profile, and then look at all the links they're coming from. So, they might get a backlink from a city, they might get it from like a a camp, you know, blog, and then reach out to those people saying, "Hey, I exist, too, right? Here's, you know," and then try to get some backlinks and create[13:53] connections because that'll tell Google you're a legit, right? Because you're getting all these back links from important websites, right? So, you're looking at these websites that are linking other camps and being like, "Hey, I can have a link there, too." Exactly. Awesome. ThisPromotional Content[14:05] episode is sponsored by Activity Messenger, an online registration software I helped build after spending more than a decade managing kids sports programs and dealing with outdated, disconnected tools that slow everything down. I know the frustration of using a bunch of old tools that don't sync, don't scale, and definitely don't make life easier. Activity Messenger is built to fix that. Our goal is to be your all-in-one operating system, modern, mobile first, and to simplify your entire workflow. Want to check it out? Visit activitymessenger.com to book[14:39] your free demo. Now, let's get back to the show. All right, so this next tip uhSocial Proof[14:44] is going to be important for as much for the conversation we just had as for the conversation we're going to have afterwards. Uh but basically, we're talking about testimonials, online reviews, so all of your social proof. Y and putting that forward, making that really really evident so that when people fall or you know arrive on your website or arrive on your social media that those are really really for at the forefront and obvious and what's the what's what's why is that so important?[15:12] Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is just the example of restaurant. I know it's outside of scope, but like when we take the referrals or looking at reviews online, we I always think of a restaurant, right? It's like one of the first things you do is like, "Oh, let's look at it." Like, sure. you know, when we went on a on a um to a trade show, you know, on our way back, we actually did like probably a 10-minute detour to go to this one specific place in a city because it had a[15:35] five-star review and they had like 2500, you know, it was it was like, oh, that must be good. But it was just like, okay, that's a small example. We actually went out of our way to get that five-star review. It was really good. But even if like it wouldn't have been that good, it's just a meal. now shift that same perspective but for summer camp like we both have kids like summer camps are experiences that you remember for a lifetime like you know what I mean and it's it's part of your youth it's how you you grow up there's a lot of things[16:04] that happen there and it's like a bad experience a whole week of a bad experience for a child compared to an exceptional experience I mean that has an impact much more than a bad meal at a restaurant right so it does so for for me it's like okay it's even more important for a parent when they're shopping around to see testimonials. So I would say when you have good experiences, get people on Facebook, Google, Yelp, all the places where you can get a review, get them putting testimonials there. Yes.[16:30] Um, so a great time is, you know, maybe at the end of at the end of the camp. Um, and move to video. Don't only do text like and sometimes people don't even want to write a text necessarily. Get them filmed. Get an iPhone out there. Person's leaving your camp with a smile. Can I take a minute? I just want to share this again. Let's use your counselors. Get a counselor to make it fun. to bring a video, bring a video, makes make something fun, and then just show and get a lot of them out there, right? So, again, like that[16:54] restaurant was a great example. They had so many reviews. And I think like if you're looking for a camp that has 12, and you look at another one that has 499, it's like, yeah, whoa. Like people are not only like not only do they like the camp, but they're like, I want to go take some of my time as a busy parent and write about it. Like it says a lot. A review says, I took time out of my calendar to write about your camp. Like that that that says a lot, right? So yeah. So go on that review and thank[17:18] them for that review. And if you have a review that's also maybe slightly a bit more critical, then go on that review also and say like, "Hey, we hear your feedback, you know, we're going to take it to heart. Show that you're listening." Yeah. And those can be used in ads. Like I've seen a lot of ads on Facebook and it just shows it like get your best review and you're like, "Wow." You put it there and then at the top like 300 more reviews like that, you know, and then it's just like that just says[17:42] it all. It's like, "Hey, let people talk about how how great the camp is." Yeah. And just as a by the way to kind of, you know, complete that story about this restaurant that we that actually attracted us because of all these reviews, we got there and lo and behold, all throughout the restaurant on every single table, there was an invitation to write a Google review. So it wasn't an accident that they got all these reviews. Exactly. And the food was good. It was It was very good. The product needs to be[18:10] there, but it wasn't like the most spectacular food I've ever had, you know? Exactly. But we were but I mean for a quick lunch that we were looking for it it was it was it was perfect. Perfect. Exactly what we were looking for. But yeah, they they talked about it. That's a really good point. It's like you got to talk to your clients. You got to tell them about it. You got to when they leave camp they made a point of it and they they got our dollars, right?[18:29] And it worked. It worked. Yeah. Right. So, we're talking about, you know, credibility. We're talking about trust as well. it it builds trust to have these testimonials and also um we were talking about the comment section and how in these reviews you you actually go and respond to all of these reviews and that's really important because you know I didn't do that for the restaurant I didn't go and read all of these reviews but if I'm taking the time you know the decision to send my kid to a summer camp is is a is[18:58] a longer term decision and I might take my time you know and go read the reviews and I'm going to go and try to find that review where they tell me that you know somebody wasn't wasn't nice at the camp or something like that, right? And how you respond says a lot. Exactly. And it's like you want to tell the client. So it's it's that's a really good point cuz when you respond to a review, it's not only to the person leaving the review, it's to the person who's going to read the review. Right. That's right.[19:20] And don't go in there necessarily making excuses on, you know, things like that. But just kind of show that you're willing to accept criticism, to listen, and then to adapt and change. And I think that that just kind of shows a business that, you know, I want I want to work with. I mean, mistakes happen, problems happen, but if you're willing to change and and and you know, go through it, I think people are going to respect that a lot. Yeah. And every now and then if something really bad happens, you know, you have gift cards online so [laughter][19:44] that there we go. Just saying. That's a really good point. That's a really great tool even for that. [laughter] Sorry. Um, okay. So, we're going to go back toGoogle PPC Ads[19:55] Google for a second. And now, so as as much as like the SEO optimization piece of the puzzle was an organic approach, now we're going to go for a bit more of a paid approach. So we got like pay pay-per-click ads. Y on Google. Uh I know next to nothing about pay-per-click ads. So talk to us about those. So you know, I I run some Facebook ads, Instagram ads. I I would say those were like what we spoke about last week was like those are the things I I know a bit more about. uh and I would spend more[20:24] budget there. But Google Ads was still very, very important. Again, I'm not an expert, but I did learn it myself. So, I can tell you kind of the basics that I think could work, especially if you go in in Google and you see nobody putting ads. Yeah. Two things. That means you're going to be alone or with another person. And it probably means it's going to be cheap, right? Cuz that's how Google works. If there's seven people, it's like kind of bidding thing. It's an auction. It's an auction.[20:47] So, um so that that that that's one of the first things. And I think they complement really well because they're very different. Right. We talked about Facebook, Instagram ads. You're paying dollars to push Yeah. things to people, right? People are not thinking about summer camps when they come across. Exactly. But when they see it, they click, they might register, they might come back. But in this case, you are, you know, people[21:08] are looking for it, answering a search. They're, you know, they're like, "Oh, I forgot to the camp." Or like, "I missed my spot at this camp that I really wanted. They filled out too quickly. I got to find an alternative now. I'm desperate." Exactly. So, I'm going into Google and I and I always like to say Google when people go into SEO a lot of times a credit card is right here, right? Compared to Facebook ads where I might not even know where my wallet I might have lost my wallet by and I see the ad.[21:30] But it's like when you're googling a lot of times you're ready to to purchase. Not always, but in a lot of cases it might be. So, that ad can be very very powerful. Um, and it seems scary and I'm going to tell you if you have never done Google ads and you go into their Google ads, you will be overwhelmed like crazy. Like, they do so much and I've never tried to optimize it. So, all I can say is I've got really good results with very little optimization. And the three things I looked at is my ad creation. So, they show you a step by[21:56] step. I'll give you an example. Let's do camps in Toronto, right? Let's just let's go for that one, right? Or summer camp or hockey summer camp in on in Ottawa, whatever it might be. Um, and that's a keyword. So, that's your keyword you're going to look for. You're going to have all variants of keywords around that. And then you're going to build an ad on that. So, saying, you know, my your camp name and register today or whatever you want to do. So, you build it out, but they really show you how to build it out. And then all you have to do from there is decide on a[22:20] budget, right? Seven bucks a day, decide on postal codes. So, again, if your registration software, if you pick up the postal code, there's great information there. You can go in and really, so it's not going to go outside of it. Um, yeah, overnight camps will probably have a larger postal code cuz people will drive to overnight camps a lot of times versus kind of a day camp where people come back every day. Well, then maybe, you know, you're only in the postal code where you have that camp. So you're not spending money outside of[22:44] that. A bit like Facebook and and Instagram. Yeah. Um and the last thing would be demographic. So just you don't want to be, you know, throwing that to like necessarily grandparents or people under, you know, that are just 18 years old, don't have kids. So you want to make sure you're kind of going at the your target. But so you can get that precise targeting. Exactly. You get that budget control. Exactly.[23:05] And you also get measurable results, right? They give you a nice uh they get you a really nice report. And the cool report is if you have if you are able uh in your software and most software are now able to do that you can have like a tag in your in your form so that on your registration process so that when they actually make a purchase we can know that they click on that ad right and then you can actually say hey you got four conversions right so you're paying like you know maybe you're paying like 10 bucks a sale right for example that's actually really good right so[23:36] it's like what what are you what are you looking for and then you you can adapt it. Uh, but even just starting with basics and putting a few dollars a day, I I'm almost sure you'll get some some some results, especially if you're in a market that few very few are doing it because then you're not spending a lot of money. Yeah, 100%. Um, so maybe one caveat with this tip is that it's definitely not the first one you want to you want to handle. Uh because when Google presents your website and your offer, you want to make sure that that offer looks[24:07] enticing, looks good, gives parents the the the desire to to continue learning about your day camp or just to straight sign up. So all of these tips about website optimization, about um testimonials being really, you know, at the forefront, all these tips are super super important before you sort of get too deep into Google ads and stuff likeBetter Online Registration[24:31] that. And our final tip here on the list today also goes into that. And this is something we talked about on I think it was episode one. We'll link to that episode uh in the show notes so you can go check that out right after this. But essentially improving your online registration experience. This is so so so key. Um I spoke to a camp owner who was using a registration platform that made it next to impossible to register on a smartphone. And this is so key now because I'm pulling a stat out of my hat, but 80 to[25:12] 90% if not more of parents who register online to your day camp are going to be doing it on their phone. And if they're not doing it on their phone, it's because they can't. Exactly. Or it's too hard. It's too hard. Exactly. Exactly. So, it has to be simple and and you know, otherwise you're going to be just inundated in phone calls of like, I can't register. I can't. And you don't want that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think so, you know, we won't redo all of episode one. So, this is something I think very critical, but[25:37] like we just mentioned in the last two episode nine tips that we think are great that are proven that we've seen camps use that we that I've used in in the past that all have worked. So, even if you put all those into action, you do them perfectly. If when they click the registration is not mobile first, it's hard to find a class. It's clunky. It's it's again, it's like a bucket. You have a bucket of water with leaks and you're paying for the water you're putting in, right? your ads and the time spent doing all that stuff and yeah, you're capturing a bit of water, but there's[26:05] all these other things that are not optimized. So, I think that's one important thing. And you know, the big highlights, mobile first, not just mobile friendly. So, a lot of software will tell you we're mobile friendly. Yeah, that means you was designed for desktop and we try to patch it up so it looks good on a phone. So, look for something that's mobile first. Everything was designed for the phone and obviously works on desktop. Uh, I love the conditional branching that we have in a sense where uh, at Activity Messenger, I'm sure other[26:30] platforms do it. You can easily select. So, if I have a six-year-old, I'm not going to I just click on the six-year-old and it shows me only those only. So, I can and I can select the branching that I want. So, either location, age, specialty camp, all that kind of stuff. That's very important because the real estate on a phone is very small. You don't have you don't want to scroll through like 75 options. You want to click two, three things that relate to you and then find the the correct ones. Make sure you[26:54] don't show irrelevant information. Exactly. Exactly. Or too much, right? Or just big images for every camp. And it's like you got to really figure that out. Um how you how you show it on the phone. I think flexible play uh payments and clear terms are super important. So if you're going to like use one of our tips to like register really early, well maybe the parents like sure, but like I'm registering to six weeks of camp. It's going to cost me a few thousand bucks. Like can I get a way of you know deferring the payments? And then that's so I think that's going to help a lot to[27:23] be like, "Yeah, sure." You sign up in January, you have like five payments, so it's 200 bucks a month for that $1,000 bill and, you know, makes it a lot easier because camp, especially multiple weeks, can actually get very pricey. Yeah, absolutely. And then all these tips we've talked about before about, you know, automating those confirmation emails, using those as the opportunities that they are to give extra details, answer those frequently asked questions. um the idea of being able to integrate your form directly to your website um[27:52] you know to build that trust to keep people you know you don't want people landing on a oh now I have to create an account before I sign up for the camp this is all very strange um and being redirected to another software like one of the things is if you can embed it on your the branding is completely different you click from one to the other and it's like when you click register you lose your client there possibly and then it's even more dangerous if it came from an ad because then you might lose your ad[28:13] spend right because they're they're not sure what's this I got to create so you got to make that it's blended from the click ad to the confirmation email. It's a really good point. And then having that registration software that works for you, being able to automate that waitlist if possible, that's a game changer because then that's one less thing to manage. The system is doing it for you. And whenever a spot frees up because there's always something that happens, you know, someone has to move or[28:37] whatever. Um, well, that spot can be filled in for you so that you can really optimize your spots in your day camp. So, that was those was our 10 tips umOutro[28:48] between last episode and this episode. I hope you enjoyed. Uh I hope you're able to implement some of those things and we hope that your registrations go super well. As always, a lot of the things we talked about here in this podcast will be linked in the show notes. So, you can go back to previous episodes, you can go and see things that we talked about in the show notes. So, please do take a look at that. We also would love to hear from you. So, if you've implemented some of these things and it's worked for you, if you've noticed any differences in your registrations this year by[29:18] implementing some of these things or whatever you wish to share, if you have ideas for more tips that would be really useful for other uh camp owners, uh we really want to uh encourage you to share those with us and we'd love to read

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