Premium · Campground Marketing Strategy

A real strategy, not a status meeting with a Google Sheet.

Most "marketing strategy" engagements are a 30-page deck delivered once and forgotten. This one is different: a 90-day rolling plan, a monthly working call, a unified dashboard pulling from every channel, and a single human accountable for the number you actually care about, bookings. Designed for operators who want to focus on guests and let a real marketing team own the rest.

Aerial drone view of a forested RV resort property

The case

Why "marketing strategy" is broken in this industry

The standard campground marketing strategy engagement looks like this: a senior consultant flies in, runs a 2-day workshop, builds a 40-slide deck with frameworks borrowed from B2B SaaS, presents it to the operator, and leaves. The operator nods, files the deck, and goes back to running the park. Six months later, nothing has happened. The consultant blames the operator for not "executing." The operator blames the consultant for not understanding the business. Both are partly right.

A working strategy engagement is structurally different. It runs in 90-day rolling cycles because anything longer is fiction in seasonal hospitality. It has a single human, not a "team", accountable for the outcome, because diffuse accountability produces zero accountability. It includes the working hours to actually execute (not just plan), or at minimum a tight feedback loop with whoever does. And it reports on the four metrics that actually matter for a park (cost per booking, organic share of bookings, repeat-booking rate, channel ROAS) instead of vanity metrics that look good in slides.

Consultant decks vs operating strategy

The structural difference between strategy and slides.

Dimension Traditional consulting engagement Campground Management
Planning horizon 12-month deck delivered once. 90-day rolling plan, refreshed monthly.
Cadence Quarterly check-ins. Monthly working calls + weekly async updates.
Accountability "The team." A single named strategist, on your account for the duration.
Reporting 40-page automated PDF. 1-page monthly: 4 KPIs that matter, plus what we did, what is next, what is at risk.
Execution Hand-off to internal team or another agency. Strategist coordinates execution across SEO, paid, social, email, content tracks. Single accountable thread.
Cost $50k+ for the engagement, then nothing. $2,400/mo all-in, strategy + reporting + cross-channel coordination.

What's included

What ships every month.

90-day rolling plan

A live document, what we are doing, why, in what sequence, with what budget. Refreshed monthly. Always covers the next 90 days, never the next 12 months.

Monthly accountability call

60 minutes, every month, with your assigned strategist. Review last month, finalize next month, surface decisions that need you. Recorded for the operator who could not attend.

Unified channel dashboard

One dashboard pulling from Google Ads, Meta, GA4, GBP Insights, your booking system, email platform. Every channel's ROAS in one place, refreshed nightly.

Cross-channel coordination

Strategist owns the throughline across SEO, paid, social, email, content. No more "the SEO agency and the paid agency are running into each other." One brain, multiple hands.

Quarterly strategy reset

Every 90 days, we step back. Channel mix, budget split, seasonal flighting, competitive moves. Reallocate hard if the data demands it.

Decision support, on-call

Vendor selection, new channel evaluation, M&A due diligence on adjacent properties, we are the strategic sounding board, not just the marketing team.

If/then

When this engagement is the right fit.

If
You are running 4+ marketing channels with no unified accountability.
Then
You are this engagement's ideal customer. The ROI from coordination alone usually exceeds the fee.
If
You are running one channel and want to add 2 more.
Then
Skip this for now. Add the channels first, then layer strategy when there is enough surface area to optimize across.
If
You have an internal marketing manager who needs a strategic partner.
Then
Run the engagement as a "fractional strategist." Your manager owns execution; we own the plan + reporting + accountability. 80% of our strategy engagements run this way.
If
You only want a one-time strategic plan.
Then
We do offer one-time engagements (a 90-day plan with no ongoing accountability) at $4,500 flat. Honest take: the plan without the accountability cadence is roughly 30% as effective.

How the engagement runs

From kickoff to compounding results.

01

Diagnostic

We pull every channel's data, audit current performance, benchmark against peers, and produce a 1-page diagnosis.

Weeks 1–2
02

First 90-day plan

Plan delivered. Channel mix, budget allocation, sequencing, KPIs we are optimizing toward.

Week 3
03

Operating cadence

Monthly accountability call, weekly async updates, monthly 1-page report. Plan rolls forward 30 days every cycle.

Ongoing
04

Quarterly reset

Every 90 days: full channel-mix review, budget reallocation, seasonal flighting adjustment, new-channel evaluation.

Quarterly

Common questions

What operators ask before saying yes.

Do I get a real strategist or a junior account manager? +
A senior strategist with at least 7 years of agency or in-house marketing leadership and at least 18 months in outdoor hospitality. The same human stays on your account; no rotating juniors. If your strategist leaves the firm, we surface that immediately and offer a transition plan.
How is this different from "fractional CMO" engagements? +
Fractional CMOs typically run higher ($8–15k/mo) and own a wider remit, hiring, vendor management, board reporting. We run a tighter, marketing-only scope at a lower price point because most parks do not need a full CMO; they need a senior accountable strategist. If your scope is broader, we will refer you out honestly.
What if you and my existing agency disagree? +
We mediate from the data. The plan is built on metrics, not opinions, so disagreements resolve at the dashboard. If your existing agency is genuinely underperforming, we say so on the record. If they are doing great work, we say that too, and structure our engagement around supporting them.
Can you replace my existing in-house marketer? +
Almost never the right move. The right structure is: you keep your in-house person for execution + brand stewardship + on-property coordination; we provide the strategic layer + cross-channel orchestration. The combination outperforms either standalone by a wide margin.
How fast will I see results? +
Reporting clarity: month 1. Cost-per-booking improvement: months 3–6. Revenue lift: months 6–12. We will not promise faster because anything faster is either a fluke or someone selling you on signal that will not hold.
What is the contract length? +
6-month initial commitment because the cycle of diagnostic + plan + first quarterly reset takes that long to demonstrate value. After 6 months it is month-to-month, cancel anytime.
Sean Hakes
Written & maintained by
Sean Hakes, Founder, Campground Management

25 years in Marketing & Advertising and 14-year RV industry veteran. Founder of RVParks.US and Campground Management.

Bring on a strategic operating partner.

Free 30-minute call. We will pull your current channel performance, identify the biggest unforced error, and tell you whether this engagement is right for your stage. Honest answer either way.

"We're not trying to be the biggest. We're trying to be the best one for the family-owned park."

Sean Hakes, Founder · Read our story