Jeff Beyer
Editor’s Note: This column was written by Jeff Beyer, CEO of Big Rig Media, a marketing firm that focuses on developing comprehensive and integrated branding, website development and digital marketing platforms. Big Rig Media is a Google Certified Partner with 20-plus years of combined experience in online advertising, social media, copywriting and web development for RV parks – and notably has been recognized with only five-star reviews from its clients.
Modern marketing, or digital marketing as it’s often called, includes anything you do to reach your customers online — your website, social media channels, paid advertising and email marketing are the digital components of an effective holistic marketing strategy.
But when you’re a small business owner wearing all the hats, not only can the digital options be confusing, they can be time prohibitive as well.
Not to mention trying to decide what to spend and how to track the return on the investment.
Digital marketing plays a significant role in the success of your RV park’s overall marketing strategy, but it doesn’t have to be complicated; it just has to be connected in the right way. And with expert guidance and some strategic planning, you can reach your prospective guests where they are and make sure no dollar is wasted.
We created this detailed guide to help you understand the terminology used and the capabilities and potential that modern marketing initiatives can offer your RV park in today’s complex environment so that you can make every dollar count.
The Foundation Of Successful Digital Marketing Is Your Website
For any of your digital marketing efforts to be effective, you must have a solid, SEO-optimized, human-focused website. The foundation of your digital marketing efforts will be your website, so it’s important to get it right.
First, your website should be mobile responsive and optimized. Most of your visitors are searching on their mobile devices as they move around the country. This just means that when they pull up your website on their phone, the size of the photos, the text and the page layout are all adjusted to fit the size of the mobile screen.
Next, your website should be SEO-optimized. This means that keywords and phrases your potential customers use to search are woven into your website content, including things like alt-text for photos (alt-text helps search engines understand the content of the image and show it to people who are searching for related information). This is how you get found by the right people through a search engine like Google.
Your website content should be helpful and answer all the questions your potential customers could possibly have. The content should be organized in a way that offers a great user experience, and the layout should be easy to navigate, with a clean and intuitive design. And it should be fast. If it takes a long time to load, people are likely to leave.
Target The Exact Audience You Want To Reach With Digital Ads
The best way to get traffic to your website and convert potential guests into paying customers is through digital advertising. Digital ads can be served as display ads, search ads, keyword ads or social ads.
Display ads are the ads that you see on websites and mobile apps. They can be targeted to audiences based on geographic location, demographic information, and behavioral data. If you read the New York Times online or have a Yahoo email account, the ads you see there are display ads. They typically include minimal copy and an image or video.
Search ads, are the “sponsored” ads you see at the top or bottom of a Google search. They are activated when your customer searches for a term that relates to you and has been set in your campaign. The key to keyword search terms is understanding what your customer is searching for and how they phrase that search. For example, an RV park customer may search for “RV Parks in Florida” or “Long term RV Park Houston,” and if your campaign includes those keyword phrases, your ad will appear. Keyword search terms can also include negative terms (keywords you don’t want to be included in your campaign) such as “resort,” “all-inclusive” or “hotel.”
Social Media Ads on Facebook and Instagram are another way to connect with your target audience and drive traffic to your website using behavioral targeting and other data.
All of these digital ad options can be highly effective for a variety of reasons, including the ability to target your audience by demographics, location, and time of day. You can spend as much or as little as you want, and with PPC (Pay-Per-Click), you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. The opportunity to run ads this targeted and efficiently is why digital advertising is a powerful and successful option for RV Parks.
Digital Marketing Provides Trackable ROI
If you’ve ever wondered where your marketing dollars are going, wonder no more. Modern marketing tactics are trackable and measurable, providing you with a clear view of your return on investment.
With the right help, your digital marketing efforts should be readily convertible into customers, aka you should have packed RV parks and campgrounds thanks to your digital investment. A certain number of ad exposures should equate to a certain number of website visits or inquiry calls.
You should be able to see who was targeted and where, how much you spent on each ad, and what the ROI was on each campaign. You should get a monthly report detailing this information and you should have the opportunity to ask questions about the results and increase or decrease your ad spend as you see fit.
No Contracts, No Spending Limits, No Surprises
One of the most significant advantages of modern marketing is the ability to measure and analyze the results of marketing campaigns. Another advantage is the ability to adjust your budget every month, if you’d like, vs. an upfront buy-in for a print or radio ad.
You should be able to look at the numbers from your ad campaigns and instantly see what’s working and what isn’t. Known as key performance indicators (KPIs), these reports are available to you in real-time. These are the important numbers to watch:
Another major benefit to digital marketing is there are no contracts to sign or minimum spend requirements, you can spend as much or as little as you like and still see positive results.
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