Enrollment crisis II: diagnosis and recommendations

Camping Magazine, Nov-Dec, 1995 by David A. Hilliard

The previous Marketing Matters column presented a case study of Always Sunny National Camps' enrollment crisis. Sara Trout, specialty camp consultant at a regional marketing firm promised to call Abe Johnson, camp director, with a diagnosis of causes for his enrollment crisis and some long-and short-term recommendations.

Diagnosis:

High transportation costs

Sara began by addressing the camp access barrier. "To buy your service, some customers have to pay transportation costs equal to your tuition, Abe. This is one key reason your enrollment is dropping."

Recommendations

Sara explained, "While there is no clear solution to the cost for customers who travel a long distance to go to your camp, you can make your camp seem more affordable by targeting prospective campers who live closer to the camp."

Diagnosis:

Offer only one product

"Second, you have only one product," Sara continued, "one length session for one price. The program doesn't change from year to year. Your customers tell you they like the product, but you're not getting repeat buys."

Recommendations

"We suggest you consider offering a variety of session lengths to flex with the customers' already packed family schedule. The program itself also needs a bit more variety. After two years in the program, kids report it is boring. Make the program responsive to the interests of today's kids and try to offer a new or progressive program each year so there is something to draw kids back."

"Your problems are not unlike those of regional or national theme parks. Discriminating buyers just won't pay the premium to return over and over again without a hook to catch their attention and a new benefit for their buck. Theme parks build new rides and offer incentives and discounts because they need repeat buyers. Your programming and mission themes are equivalent to their rides and promotional themes. With some creativity, you can still get your key messages and values across. But you can't afford to ignore customers' complaints."

Diagnosis:

Seldom ask for the sale

Sara next addressed the low number of camper enrollment or "sales."

"Sales are the result of a customer directly seeing value and benefit in what you offer. We think your dropping sales volume means you are not connecting with the customers' needs and are not communicating with the customer."

"What do you mean?" Abe asked. "We have a great promotional program. We send out birthday cards, fancy new brochures, and letters from counselors. We communicate constantly."

"Yes," agreed Sara, "You certainly keep in touch! But our analysis of your communication is that it is oriented to features of your operation, not benefits to your buyers. In trade jargon, we call what you're doing fulfillment work. You give the prospective buyer lots of data but you seldom ask for the sale. You don't provide incentives to buy early or repeat buy. You have a one-size-fits-all operation, but your buyer is conditioned to expect variety, benefits, quality and options.

"Unfortunately, even your 1-800 service is out of date. Your former counselors are enthusiastic, but they don't inquire about the callers' interests and don't try to draw them into conversation or get information. They even fail to ask for a name, address or phone number let alone ask for the sale!"

Recommendations

"The situation is that you have six weeks to start up and you are 400 plus campers short of goal. Registrations continue to come in but not at a pace that gives you confidence that you'll come anywhere close to your goal. Here are our recommendations:

* Focus on an outbound telemarketing campaign. You have 2400 self-qualified prospects who wrote or called for information but haven't registered. Call them.

* Don't use former camp counselors to make these calls! Use a professional telemarketing service to engage in a 'guaranteed results' sales program. If you must keep it in-house, we recommend a sales training program conducted by an outside, professional trainer.

* Purchase a list from a professional list broker that matches the demographic/psychographic profile of your current clients. Contact these prospects.

* Consider a targeted media campaign aimed at prospective customers within 500 miles of your camp. The campaign should be designed by a sales-oriented media consultant.

* Increase this season's tuition for all prospective customers in this targeted marketing effort. The tuition increment should cover the expenses of this extra effort."

"What is a 'guaranteed results' sales program?" Abe asked.

Sara responded, "Professional marketing consultants can match your customers' profile. Then, in a test effort that you pay for, they contact potential customers, usually through telemarketing, and ask for the sale at a price they feel will cover both tuition and their fee. Based on the results of the test effort and existing forecasting methods, they can predict how many calls and how much time will be required to get the sales you need. They will then guarantee the cost of acquiring each additional camper."