Do you run an RV park business and you want to increase occupancy rate? If YES, here are 10 marketing strategies to boost the occupancy rate of your RV park.
If you own a Recreational Vehicle Park (RV Park), then it means that you must have invested some reasonable capital into the business. A recreational vehicle park or caravan park is a place where people with recreational vehicles can stay overnight, or longer, in allotted spaces known as “sites” or “campsites”.
They are also referred to as campgrounds, though a true campground also provides facilities for tent camping. RV parks primarily operate recreational vehicle (RV) parks and campgrounds, as well as vacation camps. Basically, RV parks take care of outdoor enthusiasts and also provide access to facilities such as washrooms, laundry rooms, recreation halls, playgrounds et al.
This line of business requires huge startup capital and operational cost hence it is expected of an investor who operates a Recreational Vehicle Park to employ all the needed strategies that will make people patronize the business.
Part of your sales and marketing strategies should be geared towards boosting the occupancy rate in your RV park. You are expected to pay attention to the promotion of your recreational vehicle park so as to attract occupants. Having said that, here are 10 practical tips that you can employ if indeed you want to boost the occupancy rate in your Recreational Vehicle Park.
Marketing Strategies to Boost RV Park Occupancy Rate
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Create and Promote Special Packages on a Regular Basis
One of the ways you can boost the occupancy of your recreational vehicle park is to ensure that from time to time you come up with promos that will be too tempting for customers to resist and at the same time will not eat deep into your profitability.
For example, if your recreational vehicle park offers additional facilities like washrooms, laundry rooms, recreation halls and playgrounds et al., package them together with accommodation for a really great deal that can encourage guests to use services they may not have previously thought about.
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Partner with Key Stakeholders That Attract Customers
Another strategy that you need to adopt if you want to boost the occupancy of your recreational vehicle park is to ensure that you partner with key stakeholders in and around your location.
You can partner with travel and tour companies, hotels and social media influencers who have the capacity to send clients your way. You can reach an agreement with them on the percentage they stand to get when any customer comes through their referrals.
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Develop Mailing Lists
Develop mailing lists of your best weekend customers and stay in contact with monthly emails that list midweek special offers and promotions. Remind them that midweek is the best time to visit local shops and attractions; away from the weekend crowd. Mail them midweek discount vouchers too.
So also, you should endeavor to print out fliers and business cards and strategically drop them in offices, libraries, public facilities, train stations et al.
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Spend More on Advertising and Promotion
If indeed you want to boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park, then you must be ready to spend money. You are expected to advertise your campground and recreational vehicle facility on national dailies, local TV and radio stations.
You are expected to promote your campground and recreational vehicle facility online via blogs and all available social media platforms. Make use of attractive handbills to create awareness and also to give direction to your facility.
Position your signage/flexi banners at strategic places in and around the city where you have your recreational vehicle park. Also, in promoting your recreational vehicle park, you should engage in roadshows within your neighborhood to create awareness.
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Offer Top Notch Services and Always Make Your First Impression Count
Making a good first impression on those who use your recreational vehicle facility for the first time will no doubt help you boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park. The truth is that a first-time customer will return to patronize your services if they are impressed with how they were treated when they came for the first time.
If they are not satisfied, they may not come back again and may also discourage their family and friends from patronizing your business. On the other hand, if they are impressed, they will come back and as well recommend your facility to their family and friends.
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Ensure That Your Facility is Top Notch
Another key strategy you need to adopt if indeed you want to boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park is to ensure that your facility is top notch and always welcoming. You must ensure that your facility is equipped with modern technology, that it is always homely and secured, and you should pay attention to details in and around your RV Park facility.
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Create a Loyalty Plan
If indeed you want to boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park, then you must be ready to create a loyalty plan. Loyalty plan is a plan that will enable you reward your consistent members.
As a matter of fact, it is quite easy for those who have benefited from your loyalty plan to become your brand ambassadors; they will be more than willing to encourage their family and friends to patronize your facility. The bottom line is that you must make sure that you offer your lodgers incentives if you want to retain them.
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Make Use of Effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
In order to boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park, part of what you need to do to achieve this is to track progress, results or outputs with the aim of improving on them quickly. When it comes to managing your customers and building loyal clientele base, you should purchase a customized CRM software.
With a customized CRM system, you can easily stay in touch with your clients (you can carry out quick surveys, you can introduce new products and prices to them without any hitch, you can felicitate with them on their birthdays and other anniversaries, you can keep track of their progress, you can send bulk sms and customized e mails and above all, you can easily receive complaints and feedback from them).
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Diversify your Marketing Methods
Just like how your current members do not match up to one particular profile, your method of finding new members for your RV park should also be varied.
In order for your advertising to be effective and have the furthest outreach, you need to be as digital friendly and accessible as possible. Most of your target audience will search the internet as their first resource when looking for a recreation vehicle park to visit.
The first rule is about attribution. If you have a client portal, you can have a custom integration done with Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and Google Analytics to report on how many leads are coming online. Make sure to use Urchin Tracking Modules (UTMS).
UTMs are tags that you can add to your website’s URL that will track where your online traffic is coming from. When these are combined with your CRM in your facility management software, you can find out which marketing channels (social media, content, paid, etc.) are bringing you the most prospects.
No doubt, you’ll have members that don’t sign up online, and that’s okay. Be sure to have your sales representative or front desk staff ask each prospect how they heard about your RV park, and attribute the lead manually. Whether they came in manually or online, you’ll need a CRM to monitor the success of your RV park membership sales.
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Be Prompt in Converting Leads into RV Park Members
You must ensure that all your hard work and the money you put into your marketing campaigns help in boosting the occupancy rate of your RV park. Make sure that your diverse campaigns all end with the same result: collecting and storing client information.
After collecting all client personal and contact information, ensure this information is funneled into your CRM system so that these promising leads do not become missed opportunities. Since a good percentage of your leads will not immediately join your RV park for a variety of reasons, periodic follow-ups with deals and offers is a crucial RV park membership sales strategy.
However, when these leads are used poorly, prospective clients can be discouraged from joining if they feel annoyed by repetitive sales pitches. This is easy to avoid by assigning leads to specific sales staff who can then update the status of the lead over time.
All leads should be logged in your CRM Client Database. Your lead information should include the basics such as: name, phone number, email, rating (how hot or cold the lead is), Consultant in charge of the lead, status of lead, source, and time/date the lead was created.
CRMs eliminate confusion by clearly placing a consultant in charge of pursuing the lead as well as updating the lead’s “status”.
In Conclusion;
There is no one strategy fits all when it comes to boosting your RV park occupancy rate. All you need to do is to practice all the points highlighted above and also ensure that you customized it to fit into your environment and the Business model you are operating on.
The bottom line is to ensure that you keep improvising if indeed you want to continue to boost the occupancy rate of your recreational vehicle park.