Subscribe to the Immersive1st newsletter for new openings and smart job search tips. Hiring? The next issue will show how your organization can reach the right candidates.
Your silence is costing you summer campers
|
Many camps still communicate with parents like it’s 2005. Back in the olden days of the early aughts, you could send a welcome packet, slap up a few photos mid-session, and trust that families were fine with what was happening. Parents filled in all the blanks with camp goodwill. They assumed things were going well unless they heard otherwise. That worked then. It doesn’t work now. The DisconnectConsistently, I see this gap growing between what camps think parents need and what parents actually want, expect or even need. On the camp side, there’s an inkling of righteousness. We deliver a great experience. We know what we’re doing. Parents should trust us. All probably true. On the parent side, there’s anxiety. They’re writing large checks during uncertain economic times. They’re swimming in information everywhere else in their lives. And then they send their kid to camp and hear almost nothing. Camps optimize for outcomes parents never see. Parents react to what they don’t hear. The gap keeps getting wider. The Changes Over TimeParents now are way less trusting than previous generations. Who could even blame them? News cycles run constantly and social media feeds anxiety around every decision. I hear this from friends all the time. Not camp industry friends. Regular parent friends. They send their kid to camp, and the communication is rough. Photos take days to get uploaded with minimal updates. And because they’ve seen other programs communicate well (school, sports, and so on), it looks even worse by comparison. They notice. That’s the reality now. Communication quality is relative. Parents are judging you against every other camp their friends use, every school that sends weekly updates, every sports league with a live video feed. The Justifications I HearCamp leaders push back on this all the time. The explanations are familiar: “We don’t want to bombard their inbox!” I’ve never heard a single parent complain about too many kid-at-camp updates. Not once. “Those aren’t the parents we’re trying to attract.” Those parents are everywhere now. The anxious, information-hungry parent isn’t a niche segment. It’s the default. “Parents don’t need that much information.” They do. And they’re comparing you to every other provider in their life who gives them more. What To DoParents getting info affects enrollment, retention, and referrals, plain and simple. It makes a difference whether families renew long before re-enrollment season starts. Camps with strong comms outperform others by comparison alone. A few practical shifts: Communicate earlier than feels necessary. Start building the relationship before camp begins. Send things more frequently than feels comfortable, which I know camp people hate to hear. Think you’re overdoing it? Good, you’re probably getting close to the right amount. Assume parents are comparing your communication to other camps. Because they are. Treat silence as a liability. Neutral feels negative to an anxious parent. This is the kind of thing I work through with camps one-on-one. Where are the gaps? What do parents actually experience? How to build trust? If you want to talk about where your family communication stands, reach out. And make sure you reach out to the parents too. They need to hear from you. Sincerely, Senior Consultant at Immersive1st Learn more about Immersive1st's Approach |
Immersive1st
Subscribe to the Immersive1st newsletter for new openings and smart job search tips. Hiring? The next issue will show how your organization can reach the right candidates.
I was touring a camp last summer with a non-profit CEO. We’d just walked her property together for an hour or so, looking at programs. I told her she was a good CEO who cared about camp. She said, “How do you know that?” I looked down. “Your shoes.” She was wearing sneakers. The Sneakers Test Do sneakers tell the whole story? Yes, I think sneakers tell the whole story. She was dressed to be on the property all day. The tour was the smaller thing she happened to be doing. It doesn’t matter if...
There’s a shift happening in how parents experience their kids’ lives. Most camps don’t see it. The ones that do are moving ahead of the others. This is a structural thing. Technology drove it, and it’s reshaping every relationship parents have with their kids’ world. I’m a parent myself. I’m inundated with information about my kids. Everything has an app. Everything has a group chat. And I see camps every week trying to operate as if that’s not the reality. Silence Has a Cost Notifications...
A camp client wanted to know how parents are using AI to research their camp. So we sat down and “pretended” to be a parent (even though I am a parent!) looking for a camp like his. Simple prompt: “Tell me if [Camp X] is the right fit for my 12-year-old daughter.” What came back was eye-opening and definitely something all camps need to understand, and understand quickly. The AI framed its response as “my honest take, parent to parent.” As a reminder, AI is not a parent. The Audit I ran it...