Your campground’s demographic is the primary interest group or groups you target.

For example, many RV parks in Texas, Arizona, and Florida are 55+ campgrounds—meaning they only admit senior citizens and tailor their communications and offerings accordingly.

While this might sound counterintuitive, potentially restricting your audience, these campgrounds benefit from highly focused marketing and amenities that attract one specific campground demographic.

By knowing and targeting your campground’s demographic, you’ll benefit from more efficient marketing spending, proper prioritization of infrastructure projects, and increased profitability. 

Let’s dig in to understand how to get to know your campground’s demographic, ways to market to that demographic, and methods to adapt to demographic changes. 

Know Your Campground’s Demographic

Many campgrounds don’t know their demographic. But by asking a few straightforward questions, you can get to the bottom of your primary target audience.

WHAT DEMOGRAPHIC IS COMING TO YOUR AREA?

You’d be surprised at the number of RV parks that don’t have a ready answer to this question. Don’t let that be you! By taking stock of your surroundings—towns, national parks, attractions, economy—you can quickly figure out who’s traveling there and why.

Are you near a national park? You’ll likely have a demographic of very outdoorsy and adventurous folks of all ages, eager to explore.

Near wine country and vineyards? Your demographic likely includes a more affluent base who might enjoy a more refined camping experience.

Near the beach? Everyone loves the beach, so you’ll have a wider demographic range you can choose to focus on. But the majority will be eager to spend time at the beach, not at the campsite.

In the sticks? No problem. Take time to figure out who is traveling to your area and why. You can build your park’s image around that audience: hunters, anglers, those looking for more affordable camping or more prone to the outdoors.

Near a city? Millennials and remote workers love cities (generally speaking) so, if you’re near an urban oasis, they are a demographic to consider targeting. 

WHICH DEMOGRAPHIC DO YOU WANT TO SERVE? 

Even if you live in an area frequented by senior citizens, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to focus on serving that audience. Florida, Arizona, and Alabama, for example, are major hubs for remote workers and younger nomads.

If you have a park in these states and would rather serve a remote working demographic, why not?

The point is that your campground’s demographic is a combination of who you want it to be and who is coming to your area. Take the time to understand who is coming and decide which group you’ll focus on and how.

WHAT’S THE AVERAGE INCOME FOR YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC? 

Another important factor to consider is the level of income for the demographic you wish to serve. If it tends to be higher, offering amenities like luxury clubhouses, spas, tennis courts, and more might make sense.

If you cater to nomadic professionals, investing in excellent WiFi, coworking community spaces, and glamping options are usually the way to go.

Or, you may want to cater to a budget-minded demographic who simply wants clean, safe, and reliable amenities.

Either way is fine—but understanding the average income of your customer on the front end will help focus your efforts. 

Marketing To Your Demographic 

Having a deep understanding of your demographic will greatly help when it comes to the marketing you do for your campground. Here are some tips for creating engaging marketing that speaks to the people you want it to speak to.

LEARN THE LANGUAGE 

Listen to your prospective customers to learn about the problems they have (e.g. challenges they’ve experienced at other campgrounds) and what they desire in an RV park.

The best way to do this is to constantly gather feedback about what your guests do and don’t like about your park experience. Ask them when they check-in. Ask them when they check out. Follow up with them via a short email or text after their stay.

The replies to these questions will be gold for you as you craft your campground’s messaging. 

USE THE LANGUAGE

Once you know how your demographic speaks, you can use that language throughout your website, in your social media communications, and around the park.

For example, if you have a large number of remote workers coming to your park who love your coworking-friendly clubhouse and speedy WiFi, you could post an Instagram pic of folks working with a caption that reads something like:

‘No matter where you park it, you can be connected. Come check out our fan-favorite clubhouse at our RV park.’

You can also use the language of your customers in physical locations throughout your park to show guests that you get them and have what they need. An aptly worded mission statement in the clubhouse or a snippet of your story in a welcome packet goes a long way in connecting you with your campground’s demographic. 

FIGURE OUT WHERE YOUR TRIBE IS

How is your target customer currently finding campgrounds? What RVing groups are they part of? How do they communicate about the places they love along their journey?

It’s important to know where your demographic is communicating and engaging online so you can get in front of them to show off your spot.

An overwhelming majority of people rely on Google reviews to make decisions about businesses they buy from. That’s why it’s vital for you to ensure your Google Business Profile is up to snuff. Devote time to crafting your Google business description and cultivating reviews to call out to your target demographic.

RVers are also very active on Facebook—meaning that having a basic Facebook page for your park with a regular posting plan is a helpful way to understand and market to your tribe.  

GOOD SAM CAMPGROUND SOLUTIONS TIP

These traditional means of setting up social media accounts and online business pages like Google Business Profile are only the tip of the iceberg when reaching your audience online. Good Sam Campground Solutions Marketing & Advertising tools help you expand your reach.

These tools put your campground in front of audiences based on their interest. So if your campground is located near a lake, you could reach audiences searching in the “Boating Fun” section, so more audiences with a boat might see your campground first.

In addition, Good Sam Marketing & Advertising allows you to choose placements, paid media, social media, and ads a la carte, so you specify the type and extent of reach you want to pay for.

Adapting Your Campground To Demographic Changes

The only constant in life is change. Your audience might want one thing one day and another the next. Or that’s how it feels. Here are some ways to maintain the right amount of flexibility to respond to those changes.

KNOW THE CHANGE

Now that you know your campground’s demographic, it’s important to keep up to date with trends that impact them.

One of the best ways to do this is via Google News Alerts. This system allows you to tell Google about the trends and topics you want to hear about—wherever and whenever they appear on the web.

If you cater to full-time RVers, for example, you could tell Google you want it to ping you when it sees news articles related to phrases like: “full-time RVing,” “family RVing full-time,” “full-time RVer groups,” and more.     

Google will then email you links (on a schedule of your choosing) to the most relevant articles for your search terms. By taking a few minutes each week to read these articles, you’ll have a deeper understanding of your tribe and the changes that might be coming. 

EMBRACE THE CHANGE

If your campground caters to a younger crowd, chances are good they’ll want to know that you’re continually upgrading your park’s technology.

Tech advances have made this easier than ever for you because you no longer have to build everything yourself when it comes to things like online campground reservation software and camp store management. Software and tech companies realize that they have to make it easy for you to keep up with technological changes, so they work hard to put things together in easy-to-use packages.

If your demographic is older, you’ll likely benefit from a customer base that changes more slowly. The things they want today will likely be very similar to the things they want tomorrow—meaning you can focus on doubling down on the amenities at your park you know they love.

No matter which crowd you serve, embrace change as an opportunity to find new and fun ways to engage more deeply with your guests. 

CHANGE THE WAY YOU COMMUNICATE

Oftentimes a simple communications shift can help you respond to change. Perhaps your demographic is being hit hard by external forces like inflation, high-interest rates, or career uncertainty. 

You could speak directly to these issues in your marketing to show people why your park offers an affordable and refreshing escape from these woes. 

Get creative with ways you can adapt your messaging—rather than your foundations—to respond to change. 

OR, MAYBE DON’T CHANGE…

Just because the demographics change doesn’t always mean you have to. Some of the best businesses on the planet are ones that sell their refusal to change.

For example, places like old-school diners, vintage trailer campgrounds, and drive-in movie theaters sell their unchanged ways.

It can be risky, but if you have the right kind of RV park, holding your ground is sometimes the way to go.

The demographic you serve at your park informs an array of decisions—from marketing to infrastructure to the booking platform you use. Oftentimes, you’ll serve a number of demographics, but there’s usually one or two that’ll make up the majority. Stick with the steps above to get to know them and to speak to them in ways that lead to awesome customer relationships. 

Gaining new customers at your RV park can be costly, especially if done through traditional marketing channels like ads, social media campaigns, online placements, and direct mail.

It is far less costly—and usually more rewarding—to deepen your connections with current customers.

According to Forbes, it can cost up to five times as much to gain a new customer than to sell to an existing one.

While it’s important to seek out new customers, it is even more important to create lifelong relationships with the guests you already have. Let’s talk about the strategies you can employ at your campground to build lifelong guest relationships. 

YOU ONLY GET ONE FIRST IMPRESSION

We all know first impressions are important, but how much energy are you putting into wowing your guests from the minute they arrive?

Little things like check-in complications, difficulty locating sites, and a scarcity of friendly faces can leave a sour taste in your guest’s mouth—and once that sour taste gets started, it’s tough to wash away. 

The best way to make a stellar first impression is by managing and exceeding expectations. Combine campground booking technology with the perfect staff to accomplish these two key tasks for excellent first impressions.

Manage expectations with campground booking technology, like that from Good Sam Campground Solutions, which allows guests to see a satellite map of the campground and their campsite before they arrive. Plus, use that same tool to make check-in simple, easy, informative, and quick.

Your staff can pick up the ball as soon as your guest arrives to ensure your guests reach their site, get answers to any questions, and know you’re there for anything they need during their stay. 

CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT GUESTS WANT TO COME BACK TO 

Is your park clean and uncluttered? Is your infrastructure up to snuff? Do you offer speedy and reliable WiFi?

The fundamentals that make for a great RV park are the foundation of lifelong guest relationships. You don’t need to be perfect, but it’s important to understand that no level of customer service and friendliness can make up for failing infrastructure. 

Guests simply won’t come back if stuff like water, sewer, electric, and showers don’t work as they should. Guests read reviews–so earn good ones for each of these items.

And in the case of Good Sam campgrounds, they are rated on a Triple Rating System each year to demonstrate to campers that their cleanliness and infrastructure are top-notch.

INVEST IN YOUR TEAM

Once you have the right team at your RV park, it’s important you continually provide your staff with the resources and encouragement they need to serve your guests.

It’s worth spending a significant amount of energy and resources on training your team on the customer service experience you expect at your park, so your expectations are met even when you are away.

For example:

• Act out common customer interactions during team training.
• Provide email response templates for frequent guest questions.
• Give your team the freedom needed to quickly and effectively resolve guest complaints.
• Create a new employee checklist and training protocol.
• Foster open communication with your employees.
• Cross train various roles for employee development.
• Make sure tools and supplies are always readily available and restocked.

MAKE GUESTS FEEL LIKE PART OF YOUR COMMUNITY

When guests feel at home, they’ll keep coming back for more. Simple things like hosting s’more nights, bringing in local live music, or offering coupons to local attractions help build memorable guest experiences that lead to lifelong customers.

Take stock of the opportunities in your local network, and source what you wish to highlight. This builds relationships on authenticity.

It’s also important that you and your team express a genuine desire to get to know your guests—ask them where they’re from, ask them their story, get to know their kids, and offer them local recommendations based on what they tell you. 

Little things like that go a long way in guest satisfaction.  

CREATE EXPERIENCES

What makes your park stand above the pack? By knowing this answer, and highlighting it for your guests, you’ll create experiences that people will associate uniquely with your campground.

Partner with local companies to offer discounted excursions for your guests to explore any natural wonders in your area. Or you could host an owner’s “happy hour” where you mingle with guests and provide refreshments. Common areas such as outdoor kitchens, communal fire pits, and clubhouses with board games are simple but effective ways to set the stage for memory-making experiences. 

Have fun with this. Take the things that you and your team love to do and share them with guests to create wonderful relationships.   

PROACTIVELY MANAGE GUEST CONCERNS

Nothing sours a relationship faster than an unresolved complaint. When guests arrive, be sure they know how to promptly reach your team for any concerns that might arise.

If concerns do pop up, ensure your team is empowered to promptly address those concerns. Believe it or not, negative experiences can be one of the best ways to create lifelong guest relationships if you handle them properly. 

That’s because a negative guest experience gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how much you care and how far you’ll go to make things right. Managing unexpected guest experiences in the right way will leave an unforgettable impression with your campers.   

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Maintaining lifelong guest relationships hinges on consistent guest experiences. If a guest has a stupendous experience at your park for several years and then suddenly they come back to a dramatic change, they may look elsewhere.

That’s why it’s important to build systems into your business and your customer service processes that ensure a consistent guest experience time and time again.

• Key in on what works, and don’t change those parts of the experience.
• Be cautious if new processes/procedures could change a guest experience.
• Provide ways for customers to leave reviews—positive and negative.

GO THE EXTRA MILE FOR YOUR RAVING FANS

These are the guests that love you, come back every year, and bring their friends. While remaining fair to all your guests, always keep an ear out for creative ways to make your return guests’ experience better and better each year or trip.

If it’s a care package when they arrive or simply remembering them on a first-name basis, it’s important they feel special when staying at your campground. Reciprocate the relationship.

Raving fans are the ones who shout to the mountaintops about how awesome you are. Keeping them happy is key to creating more lifelong guest relationships at your park.

GATHER AND GROW FROM GUEST FEEDBACK

Have a strategy in place to ask each guest how they enjoyed their stay. This could be as simple as sending a short text a day or two after they leave asking for feedback on their stay.

As you gather more feedback, look for consistencies and use them to continually improve your guest experience.  

ENGAGE WITH GUESTS BEYOND THEIR STAY

Keeping yourself top of mind is an important part of maintaining guest relationships. Here are a few tips for doing that:

Send all past guests a welcome email as you open each season and offer them a special incentive to come back.

• Use social media to simply and effectively stay in touch with past guests.
• Develop a follow-up process to check in with guests after they leave and gather their feedback via text or email.
• Send a snail mail postcard to all past guests once per year with a special discount. People hardly send snail mail anymore, so you’ll stand out in a good way!

Lifelong guest relationships are the mojo that’ll keep your park growing. By taking the proactive approach listed above, you’ll be set to cultivate long-lasting guest relationships. Have fun with it, get creative with it, and enjoy the ride as you create wonderful memories for all who visit you. 

The RV campground store is a great opportunity to earn your guests’ trust and return visits. It’s the one place you can have guaranteed face-to-face interaction and make a lasting impression.

Guests visit your store for two main reasons: they have a problem they hope you can solve or they want a casual giftshop experience for knick-knacks and apparel. Both are good sources of additional revenue for your camp. But, more importantly, they are chances to build a rapport with your guests.

Let’s talk about setting up your camp store inventory to ensure you can always be a resource in these two scenarios. Best practices for inventory include 1.) Carrying the right inventory, and 2.) Managing inventory for the best impact on your business.  

Cover those bases, and you stand to profit from your sales and continue to build relationships with long-term customers. 

What Inventory to Carry

All retail shops carefully choose the inventory they carry based on the customer experience they want to create. But RV campground stores have an especially tall order. 

Your space is often limited, and the varying needs of campers are wide, from groceries to firewood to power converters to nightcrawlers. Choose inventory to cover top items from common experiences RVers and campers face–but prioritize inventory that gives you an edge and an opportunity. 

Pay Attention To the Small Stuff

A forgotten kitchen item or ingredient. An unexpected need for a first-aid kit. Tools to set up a tent. Deodorant or soap. These small, clutch items might have a low profit margin, but they yield a high return on your customers’ opinions of your campground. 

Necessary supplies should be conveniently available to your campers, and you’ll learn what to include more over time. For now, predict the situations campers may find themselves in, and stock your shelves accordingly.

Stock Location-specific Items

Evaluate the needs at your campground and generate a list of camp store inventory items unique to your location. These items are convenient for your customers, but, more importantly, carrying them sends a clear signal that you’ve thought about their experience at your campground.

• Does your campground have sand? A volleyball pit or beach? Consider carrying a few hand vacuums.

• When operating in a location that has campfire bans during summer dry months, stock a few affordable propane campfire alternatives.
  
• If mosquitos are a nuisance in the evening, carry repellent torches and bug spray, including child and baby-friendly versions.

You know your location better than anyone. And you are best prepared to envision the items your guests will want, need, and value. Plus, you know what’s sold in the past and will likely be needed in the future. 

Track Camp Store Inventory Usage

Your previous sales data should be a roadmap for your inventory management. When you track inventory usage, you get an objective look at what sells and how often. Use this to determine your min/max inventory levels, and stock accordingly. 

Many campgrounds manually track their sales, and this is part of their inventory management process, reordering goods and products when sales push a certain item below its minimum amount.

However, campground owners may also utilize one of the many camp store applications which help streamline processes like usage tracking. Good Sam Campground Solutions helps you organize sales data, so you know what sells by simply looking up a part number. 

Best-Selling Basics

Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Campground visitors will expect certain types of inventory from a camp store, and it’s best to stick to the best-selling categories as your baseline inventory.

Cooking, food, and perishables – Keep the staples on hand, even if in small quantities. Longer shelf-life items like chips, canned goods, oils, and spices are better than perishables. But the goal here is to think of the food and cooking items campers are likely to forget. 

Camping gear – Tent spikes, tarps, small tools, propane, RV supplies, ice, charcoal, and outdoor cleaning supplies all sell frequently. Many guests will count on these to be available, so keep a healthy stock.  

Personal care – Stock common hygiene essentials–anything from toothbrushes to toilet paper, deodorant, hand sanitizer, and more. And don’t just stick to the cheapest, generic varieties. Ensure you have plenty on hand of products your guests would expect to see at the store. 

How to Manage Inventory 

The inventory you keep at your camp store should serve two primary purposes: equip your guests (and earn their confidence) and generate revenue for your campground. To do this, source and manage your inventory in a way that optimizes profit. These inventory management tools help get more bang for your buck.  

Where to Source Your Camp Store Inventory 

The fewer distributors you have to deal with, the better. It’s easier to manage your camp store inventory when you only have to order from one place. But this isn’t always possible with the type of inventory you want to keep. Most campgrounds will work through a wholesaler to provide all their common items. But what about the inventory they don’t cover?

For example, you will likely need to source your campground-branded inventory like t-shirts, mugs, and apparel from a single provider, and that won’t always be a wholesaler.

Take that idea a step further: Are there local products you could stock at your camp store that would generate revenue for your campground and a local product? Locally sourced consumables, home goods, craft and artisanal goods, or locally-themed items? These will often come from individual suppliers. But these have a high sell rate for those visiting the area. 

Wholesale Inventory

Source your inventory through wholesalers at a discount, which will decrease the selling price for your guests while allowing you to still profit. There are many wholesalers who specialize in camping products–anything from bug spray and flashlights to multi-tools and tarps, novelty stickers and mugs to coolers and tent poles.

The benefits of buying from a wholesaler include:

• Single source ordering
• Reduced costs on bulk orders
• Reliable availability and deliverability
• Automatic min/max ordering capability.

There can be downsides to working with a single wholesaler. If, for example, they don’t offer a certain brand or product line you want to carry, you’ll have to source that separately, which adds more to the monthly or weekly ordering process. As you seek a wholesaler, consider their product line: do they offer an adequate selection, and how often do they add items to their inventory?

Responsible Price Markups

Camp stores are practical because your guests don’t have to leave the park to access commonly needed items. One could argue that a trip into town disrupts the “away-from-it-all” mindset many go camping to find. Plus, once you set up your RV, staying put is the goal.

For this reason, camp stores have a bit of a monopoly on sales. And, sure, most campers know they will pay more at the camp store than at a grocery store in town. But that doesn’t mean you should increase the price as much as possible. Revenue should come from repeat sales, not overpriced goods. 

A rule of thumb for responsible price markups is charging no more than 20 percent for consumable items guests could find cheaper with a trip into town. Bread, milk, produce–those basics shouldn’t sell at extreme markups. 

Meanwhile, you can be more aggressive with souvenir and gift items, which often sell at a markup of 45-50 percent. Here, you can choose your prices based on what campers are willing to buy. 

Staff Training 

Unite your team with a common goal by providing your staff with the necessary training to manage inventory. When everyone knows the importance of accurate inventory, sales data, pricing accuracy, and ordering processes, you create a culture that values an organized camp store. 

The more accurate your inventory, the better you’ll become at restocking and the more revenue you’ll bring in over time. And you achieve this when all your staff understands the importance of inventory management. 

Plus, when your staff has the same mindset as you, they’ll have conversations with guests to learn which items you ought to be adding to your inventory. If you aren’t communicating with your camp store staff, you’ll never gain these insights.  

Guest emergencies are few and far between–and you won’t get many second chances at the camp store to offer clutch inventory when and where your guests need it. Consistent inventory practices save the day.