YMCA Summer Camp Marketing

[ about ]

Greater Somerset County YMCA sought to advertise its summer camp offerings following an almost entirely virtual school year for most area children and ongoing, albeit somewhat less stringent, COVID-19 restrictions and health guidelines.

APPROACH & OUTCOME

COVID was still at the top of local families’ minds—which meant that over-communication of summer camp program offerings, core value propositions, safety measures, and fundamental processes/procedures at every one of the association’s six day camp locations was critical.

A 360º integrated marketing campaign was launched starting in the early months of 2021 that included coordinated website content (page content with measured use of popups and alert bars), social media content, email marketing, social media-based digital advertising, SMS marketing, print and out-of-home ad placement, digital signage, and weekly member newsletter placement. A heavy social/digital marketing approach was determined to be most appropriate for reaching busy families who had grown accustomed to heavily relying on digital communications for timely, need-to-know information. Additionally, email-based marketing communications targeted past camp participants, current/past school-age childcare families, current/past youth programming participants, and current/past families with school-age children in the household who had not previously participated.

Regarding the tagline and summer camp creative, the strategically mellow “Summer Vibes” tagline was used for this second COVID-era summer season. Social-emotional learning and summer learning loss support continued to be heavily emphasized in support of disproportionately impacted under-resourced school districts in the Y’s service area. The marketing communications plan was successfully executed from open house to the last week of camp. All associated messaging and promotions reflected the calm and safe-haven-like atmosphere curated by the Y to mitigate the effects of the disruption to typical social interactions at various developmental stages due to state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions over the past year and a half.

This project is an example of the player-coach role I pivoted into while at Greater Somerset County YMCA as the organization recovered from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including significantly reduced staffing levels in areas like marketing, finance, and HR.

MY ROLE

Copywriting, Digital Marketing, Interdepartmental Liaison, Project Lead & Web Design

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & TOOLS

• Strategy: Audience Segmentation | Brand Differentiation | Brand Messaging | Brand Stewardship | Brand Storytelling | Campaign Management | Conceptual Thinking | Cross-Functional Collaboration | Customer Experience (CX) Strategy | Customer-Centric Mindset | Data-Driven Decision Making | Integrated Marketing Communications | Multi-channel Marketing | Nonprofit Marketing | Organic Social Media | Project Management | Strategic Marketing & Planning | Value Propositions
• Creative & Production: Budget Management | Content Creation | Copywriting | Creative Development | Digital Marketing | Email Marketing | Event Promotion | Print Advertising | Social Media Marketing | Vendor Management | Web Design
• Tools: Accrisoft Freedom Website CMS | Daxko Engage Email/Marketing Automation | Google Docs | Google Sheets | Hootsuite Social Media Management | MarTech Stack Proficiency | Meta Ads Manager (Facebook & Instagram) | Outdoor & Out-of-Home | SimpleTexting SMS/Text Messaging