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  1. Hire the best designer you can find.  EVERYONE can tell if you do not.  Seriously, it’s more obvious than you know.  Just because someone has children doesn’t mean they can run a camp and just because you have a camp doesn’t mean you can tell your story.  Get a professional.  Give them a per-unit price you want them to design to.  They should also help with efficient print sizes.
  2. Pay for the right photography.  The pictures you put on the internet for your parents will not work.  Look carefully at the background. Your parents will.
  3. The difference between the right copy and the almost right copy is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning (apologies to M.T.). This is the best time to tell them why you do what you do.  That’s your story.
  4. Smiles.  We all want those close in – instruction photos.  They capture beautiful camper / staff moments.   But there is something powerful about a smile.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a smile is worth a thousand pictures.
  5. Be picky about paper.  You can spend a lot of money here, but this is the only promotional piece they hold in their hands.  Camp is different than everything else; it needs to feel that way as soon as they pick up your brochure.  Papers samples are not enough.  You want to see samples of print and photos on that paper.
  6. Consider if you really need a full booklet.  We all want something to put on the coffee table, but it does not have to be big.
  7. A quality brochure is consistent with our philosophy of camping.  We are in a visceral business.  Camp cannot be reproduced on line, so we need something physical to hold.  Put another way, we’re not Gnostics, we’re outdoor educators, so let’s put something in their hands that is as physical as the mountains we want them to climb.

Adam Boyd

Camp Director