November 11, 2020
Meghan Fitzgerald
Marketing strategies with Campspot reservation software to help advertise your campground, entice guests, and cultivate the best user experience.
The camping industry has seen an increase in demand from new and seasoned campers alike. To take advantage of this surge, it’s important for campground owners to ensure they optimize their online presence.
Do you display accurate, up-to-date information online? Does that information grab the attention of visitors and prompt them to reserve a stay?
To help you market your campground and beat out the competition, here’s our simple list of marketing opportunities for campground owners.
Ninety percent of the information processed by the brain is visual. This means that visual content can have a major impact on guests remembering your park and choosing what site type to book. Campspot makes it easy for you to add and update your visual branding to help draw in new and repeat visitors.
Clear, accurate site type photos can help potential guests gauge what your park looks like as well as what they’ll be receiving at the time of booking. In our experience, parks with photos of each site type convert bookings at a higher rate than parks who use stock images or no images at all. It’s important to have at least one photo of each of your site types in Campspot, but utilizing the ‘slideshow’ feature to showcase more site type photos will engage your visitors and help provide a visual representation of the sites. For more information on how to capture the best photos of your park, view our photography tips blog post.
It’s critical to feature your logo on your website and all outgoing marketing materials to customers. Your online reservation system should be no different. Add a bit of personalization to your consumer booking page by making sure that your park logo is up to date. You can upload and update your park logo in Campspot through the Consumer Site Admin section.
All Campspot consumer site booking pages have a default hero (or background) image of pine trees. Parks have the opportunity to update this photo to a different, high resolution photo of their park if one is available. This gives guests a nice visual overview of the park when they are first looking to book and sets your park apart.
Aloha Beach RV Resort chose a scenic, wide-angle photo of their park for their hero image.
Site descriptions are key in terms of not only helping a guest choose your park, but also choose what site type to book. One of the most overlooked, but most important functions of site descriptions is the ability to sell sites and more importantly upsell within your park. We frequently see parks copy and paste the same site description for each of their site types within their campground — it’s great to offer this information, but guests need to be told why they should want to choose a specific site type.
When writing site descriptions, focus on what makes each site type unique. Each site can be sold in a different way. Therefore, the key to the perfect site description is not to make one site look better than the other (because you want your guests to feel confident picking out any site), but to make each one unique. For example, do you offer premium sites that are near the waterfront? Are your standard RV sites conveniently located near the entrance to the park? Here’s an example: Standard RV Sites: Our standard RV sites contain all the convenient amenities you need, including 30/50 amp electric and water and sewer hookups. Our standard RV sites are located near the entrance to the park; giving you easy-in, easy-out access to the park and all the wonderful nearby attractions. Premium RV Sites: Our premium RV sites feature concrete pads and are full hookup with 30/50 amp electric, water, and sewer. All premium sites back up to the Grand River, offering a quiet and serene escape with beautiful views.
While you’re updating your descriptions, it’s important to make sure that every site is updated. This will help offer guests options if their desired site type isn’t available, and it can also help repeat guests try something new.
Campspot offers parks a unique opportunity to generate additional revenue and improve the guest experience through the ability to sell add-ons at the time of booking.
Add-ons can be anything you sell to cater to the guest experience. The most common add-ons we see parks offer are golf cart rentals, linen packets for cabins, and kayak/canoe rentals. You can get creative with the types of add-ons you offer to help go above and beyond with the guest experience. For example, offering hammocks as an add-on would allow you to neatly set up the guests’ hanging relaxation spot before arrival.
Remember earlier when we mentioned to take advantage of every opportunity within Campspot to visually promote your park? This applies to add-ons, too! Every add-on site type includes the option to add a photo and description. This gives you a chance to talk about how that golf cart rental can make traveling around the park a breeze or how your kayaks give guests the opportunity to cool down on the water while exploring different areas.
Are you ready to take the next steps to bring your consumer booking site to the next level? Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. We’re happy to help—happy marketing!
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