Five Ways To Boost Occupancy Right Now

Let's start with the big number one, numero uno in today's world, and that is online visibility. If someone goes and puts in RV Park located in blank, wherever you are, you have got to pop up on that list. If you don't pop up on that list, the game is already over. So you need to get with someone who understands the internet and how to get the job done, and you've got to make sure.

That in a simple search of your market, that you are on that official list. Now, most people will go and contact many of the people on that list comparing prices and locations, but you have to be on the list. Or you're just excluded. You're completely out of the game. So make sure that you have that online visibility.

And additionally, if you have online visibility, you can't just stop there. You can't just be on the list. You've got to have a decent looking website that gives the reasons and the photographs as to why someone would want to stay there. You also need to have really, really good social media reviews.

So that people know that you've got a good product. We all are often steered today by those stars and commentaries of what people think of your business. So if you want to succeed, you've got to have good visibility, you have to have good social media reviews, and you have to have a good website. That's more important than anything else we're going to talk about. Number two, you've got to have good signage. Now if someone is driving down the highway

And they've found you online and they're going to go to you and maybe stay there. Or if they're driving down the highway and just have decided without doing any prior research, wait a minute, uh is that at RV park? You need to have something big and bold that tells them, yes, I'm at RV park. I'm located right here. Here's the name of my RV park. And you've got to make sure that they can see it from the road so they know to turn in.

If someone doesn't see you, they may go to your competitor. If they can't find you easily, they may then give up and do another simple Google search and go to your competitor. You have to have a really good sign. Now some people will say, but wait a minute now. That good sign is enormously expensive. No, they're not always enormously expensive. When I say signs, it has to be something that can grab attention.

But typically you can build a sign out of metal or out of wood that is maybe four by eight feet or five by ten feet in size, held up by two four by four posts for not a tremendous amount of money. And it's a permanent feature that every RV park needs to have. So you've got to have a really good sign at the front to announce where you are and who you are. Next you've got to have some bandit signs.

Now, what are bandit signs? Bandit signs are little, very inexpensive signs that you can have printed almost any Kinkos or fast signs. I know you've seen these things. It's basically a chloroplast sign with some words on it on a wire frame that you stick in the ground with your foot. Now what's a bandit sign do for you, you might say? Well look, a lot of signage opportunities are in fact not necessarily legal to put signs in.

And when people put signage beside the road in locations that they have no permit to do so, those are called bandit signs because you're putting signs in was really without permission. And the downside of bandit signs typically is They'll be pulled out of the ground. Often the state highway department or the local inspector will just yank out the bandit signs and throw them in the trash.

As your competitors may also do so. But sometimes you'll put a bandit sign on the ground and it will stay for a long time. It might even be months. And the important part of the bandit sign is it serves a very, very important function for its low cost. Let's say for example you have an RV park that's in kind of a difficult to find location.

People exit at the same exit that you told them to exit at, but they don't really know when they exit there. They forget, do I turn right or do I turn left? And then they may also forget, well, how far down the street do I even go? So you can print bandit signs with a turn arrow here or turn left arrow there. You can even put how many miles until they get to your RV park. It helps people just find it.

They can also be used competitively. You can put bandit signs near your competitors kind of and just put, you know, RV park with an arrow to try and direct people past their park and onto yours. It's basically a cheap form of advertising that can pay big results if you have them properly placed.

Now, if you're going to use bandit signs, make sure you know the downside penalty. Don't do it if there's a huge fine for having a bandit sign. But for most RV parks, particularly ones uh that are operated bake way out there in the in the county There typically isn't really a penalty for them other than the fact that your sign may be disposed of. Next, put something big and exciting out in front of your RV park besides just your sign. Something to grab attention.

Now what can that be? Well you can get inflatable things to put on your frontage at not a lot of money. Or you could build a giant US flag. That would be some more money. But anything you can do to garner attention would be great. Now some RV parks, they go over the top. They go out and buy an old abandoned plane and put up a giant metal pole with that old plane on top of it. And yeah, that'll definitely garner attention. You bet it will. But that's kind of expensive.

For most RV park owners, a better solution that's more affordable would be such things are what are called feather flags. A feather flag is a vertical flag, it doesn't require the air to keep it furled out at all times, and you can buy feather flags for maybe two hundred dollars apiece. And a good feather flag will last you a really long time, maybe even into the years, although it'll get pretty faded after a year or so. And you can put them in any kind of color combo you want.

Just put them right down your frontage and you will get a lot of bang for the buck. A lot of people will turn their head and look over there because wait, what is that? Look at all the flags. Oh yeah, look, there's there's the R V park.

Finally, you've got to make sure that you have properly trained your manager on the basics of phone etiquette. When someone answers the phone at your RV park, it needs to be the name of the RV park and how can I help you? Needs to be professional, needs to sound cheery. Like they're in command. It can't just be hello or what do you want? That's a real turn off to most customers or try to make a decision on where to stay. Also make sure that your manager always answers the phone.

It won't do you any good if you have all this online visibility and all these other items going for you and then no one answers the phone when they call. You can take your phones and port them through a service such as Who's Calling, and you can actually see what happens with those calls. It'll tell you which ones are answered, which ones weren't, and we'll even record the calls so you can listen in on what was said.

The important part is that having a really great marketing program won't do you a stick of good if you don't have a manager to help use it. It's like having the greatest race car ever made but a terrible driver. You're unlikely to ever win it NASCAR. People will admire your car, but you'll always have disappointment thereafter. So having a good manager and a properly trained manager is the final step to really getting your occupancy boosted quickly.

Now, every item I just told you is not really very expensive. The big sign out in front is the most expensive, although there's many inexpensive methods you can do that with. But all of these steps are extremely important if you want to get those vacant spaces filled and filled fast. This is Frank Roth, the RV Park Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.