Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is laid out in this article.
Should you choose to accept this mission, 2025 will be a better year.
I will share with you a checklist of items to review to ensure you are maximizing your budget regardless of size or location. The mission is simple. If you want to spend more and get less, that is your business. If you want to get more and spend less, that is my business.
The good news is the mission is possible.
To be successful in your marketing, you must plan for success. A strong market might allow for poor planning but can hide a lot of mismanagement.
We are going to break this down into five sections. Each section deserves your utmost attention. The five areas are tracking, pricing, front-end marketing, remarketing and conquest.
After you complete this article, reviewing these five areas should be your first task to set yourself up for success.
Tracking
Start tracking the number of vehicle detail page (VDP) views that each piece of RV inventory receives. The VDP is the only commonality of all leads and buyers. In fact, after a lengthy study this year, we found the average website lead form takes 150 VDP views.
With that in mind, you want to track in real time which RVs are the most active and which receive numerous eyeballs but are not converting into sales.
Review simple adjustments regarding the channel generating these VDP views. Then, compare the price of your competitors’ RVs against your active but non-selling RVs.
Pricing
We should all agree with this statement: A sale starts with traffic, which is then turned into a lead and then becomes a sale.
To turn your traffic into leads, you need to be concerned with pricing. Pricing is even more important in a challenging and highly competitive market.
Now is the time for some strategic thinking.
This next step is critical if you believe in planning your advertising for success. Gather your past sales results and list your bestselling RVs. Next, review the RVs with the top VDP views over the past six months. The results may be different from your top sales results last year.
As you review this data, here is what you are trying to identify. Select four RVs you can advertise throughout the year. These should be high-demand RVs and RVs with an ample selection.
Plan to run messages that simply say: “We have (#) of (RV) starting below ($).”
If you have an RV or RVs with a solid sales history, are active with VDP views today, and you can price them competitively, then you have a winning message.
Now for your next step. How do you get eyeballs on your messages and your website? I call this front-end marketing.
Front-End Marketing
The simple definition of front-end marketing is your basic yet critical pieces that must always be in play. The most important activity is paid search ads.
Paid search ads account for 40% to 50% of the first-click attribution for leads filled out on your website. That translates into a simple statement: 50% of your website leads go to your website initially after someone clicks on a paid search ad.
That is significant.
In fact, I could give you three examples of dealers who have come to us with very little paid search ad exposure in the past eight months. In a matter of 30 days, their traffic and leads showed significant increases. That is just the way the world works.
The next step is to check your keywords to ensure your budget is spent on the right keywords.
You might ask, “What are the right keywords?” I would suggest using keywords applicable to the RVs you decided to promote. Then, in the second step, go to other keywords that match your inventory. Spend no more than 20% of your budget on keywords such as “RV Dealer Near Me.”
These are high-purchase-funnel keywords and must be managed accordingly.
Other front-end marketing includes building a strong Facebook ad budget. Be sure to build your audience, and do not rely entirely on Facebook to create this audience for you.
To make a significant difference in who sees your ads, include every email address you have, every hashed file and every mobile capture ID. These additions make a significant difference in who sees your ads.
As a rule of thumb, ensure you augment your Facebook audience with at least two outside data sources.
Remarketing
My new favorite quote, which I coined, is: “The closer someone sits to the donuts, the more likely they will eat one.”
The same holds for leads. The more VDP views a consumer has on a given product, the closer they are to becoming a lead.
With all the website traffic your dealership receives, you must remarket, re-engage and remain in contact with these prospects. You are basically begging for their business! Remember, if you do not ask for their business, you will not get it. You have to check your retargeting program.
Here are the top five things you should do.
Basic Google display ads re-marketing. These ads target people who have been to the site.
Facebook dynamic ads. These ads put a display ad with the RV consumers last looked at into a carousel ad with four other products. Then, the ad is pushed into consumers’ Facebook timelines. These ads are amazingly effective and low-cost.
Activate a pop-up form with a retail discount offer. We receive a pop-up lead for every 200 to 250 VDP page views.
Capturing visitors’ contact information by going to your site. Once you capture the contact information, you can have AI communicate with them via email or set up a nurturing email program that sends four emails over the next 14 days. Either way, you are talking to the right people: the ones closest to the donuts.
Lastly, match those visiting your website with past customer lists. Have your managers or sales team call these people directly. They have already done business with you and will not feel like it is an intrusion. Instead, it is just a coincidence that you called. Do not lose a previous customer to any other dealership in 2025. Use technology to hold on to them.
Conquest
The last point here is a simple one. You need to talk to your competitors’ customers as often as possible.
If you are not growing, you are dying (I am sure you have heard that one before).
The saying holds for you. The easiest way to talk to your competitors’ customers is through email.
For around 3 cents per name, you can send effective and creative emails to consumers with your (GREAT message) creative. Open rates are well above many industry averages, and the click-through rate is strong.
For example, if you send 25,000 emails, you will get about 1,500-2,000 new RV visitors to click on your website.
Many strategies are available to go after RV intenders outside your dealership world. Ensure you follow at least two strategies to add to the traffic you create on the front end.
Ensuring marketing success is not an impossible mission. So go to work and follow these steps.
Track VDP views of your inventory for better ordering and messaging.
Price your lead products aggressively because pricing still sells. If you include how many RVs you have available, that will add to an effective message.
Make sure your paid search plan targets your highlighted product effectively and as cheaply as possible. Be sure you find a way to get visual shopping ads on these search pages. Finally, expand your Google My Business page listing to city names outside your direct address.
Keep serving up the donuts. Remarket from every possible angle.
Keep talking to new people interested in RVs and the RV lifestyle. You have to increase your overall market presence.
Your mission is simple. Do an internal check-up and get ready for the new year. If you have any questions on your mission, just drop me an email.
Let’s go sell some RVs in 2025!
Ron Wheeler is founder and principal at Wheeler Advertising. Ron has been a speaker at RVDA for more than 30 years and at NADA for more than 18 years.
