When the weather warms up and schools let out, millions of kids across the country start looking for something to do with their summer vacations. And every summer, around 14 million children and adults choose to participate in summer camp activities. If you want to get more of those participants for your organization, here are five tips to promote your summer camp activities effectively.

Hang posters around town

While social media and websites are definitely great (and shouldn’t be overlooked), online materials can be seen by a global audience. Do you think people from other cities, states, or countries will come to your local summer camp? Maybe, but you’re likely better going for a local audience. And one of the best ways to reach a local audience is with good old-fashioned poster templates.

A well-designed poster hung in the right location can capture the attention of anyone passing by (which are most likely people who live in town) and entice them to want to sign up for your summer camp program or at least learn more about your services.

To save you time and energy, check out some of the poster templates available online from websites like PosterMyWall. You can have a professional, eye-catching poster ready for print in just a few minutes to speed up your summer camp registrations!

Work with other local organizations

Other organizations around town likely interact with your ideal audience constantly. For example, summer camps are mostly for school-age kids. Well, school-age kids spend a lot of time in school. Partnering with local schools would be a great way to get more kids interested in your summer program.

Schools aren’t the only local organizations where you can reach potential camp attendees. Restaurants, government buildings (for the parents), and even recreation centers are great places to promote your summer camp offerings.

Once you find a potential partner, ask if they’d be willing to put up your posters or allow you to speak at an event. Even better, the organization might be willing to sponsor your summer camp, which can give you extra funding for even more fun activities. Win, win!

Start a referral program

One of your best marketing tools might be standing right in front of you: your current camp attendees! Naturally, everyone who attends your summer camp has a good time and wants to come back year after year. Why not encourage them to spread your camp’s praise to their friends and family with a referral program?

Referral programs can easily help bring in more people to attend your summer camp. For example, tell your current attendees they can get 10% off their enrollment fee for every person they bring to the camp. They’ll go home and immediately tell all their friends and family how great your camp is and that they should sign up. You’ll have to get a bigger signup sheet!

Host a signup event

You can learn a lot from a poster or website, but nothing beats seeing something for yourself. To really engage with potential camp attendees, host a signup event at your camp.

Before the summer camp season starts, bring in some vendors like food and entertainment, call in all your existing camp members, and let people play games or do activities that they would participate in during your summer camp. Create an event to show everyone how much fun your summer camp really is, so they’ll have no choice but to sign up.

Of course, offering early-season discounts at your event wouldn’t hurt to encourage more signups either.

Harness the power of social media

Although it might reach a global audience, social media is still a powerful force in today’s marketing world. In fact, over 70% of the U.S. population regularly uses at least one social media platform!

If you haven’t already, create profiles for your summer camp on various social media platforms. You don’t have to do them all (since that’s a lot of pages to manage!), but focus on the ones that reach your ideal demographic. For example, if you want to reach mostly school-age kids, TikTok or YouTube might be better than something like Facebook.

Do your research to find the social platforms where your ideal audience spends their time. Then create amazing content about your summer camps to make it seem like the most fun they can have during summer vacation!

Pro tip: All those posters you made to hang around town make great social media content, too!

Get more attendees for your summer camp

If you want more people to come to your summer camp, you need to show them how fun it will be! Use poster templates to design amazing promotional graphics, partner with local organizations, start a referral program, host a signup event, and use the power of social media to get your messaging in front of as many people as possible. With all your marketing efforts working together, you’ll have a full camp in no time!