Go RVing Reflects on ’23 Highlights, Sees Momentum into ’24 – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
The Go RVing campaign this year is looking to build on the momentum of its various marketing efforts from 2023.
“We’re primed and ready for 2024. We’re excited about this year and hopefully seeing a bit of an improvement in the economic situation. We’re all, as an industry, hopeful for that,” said Jeremy Greene, senior director of marketing and events for the RV Industry Association (RVIA), which along with the RV Dealers Association (RVDA), oversees the Go RVing campaign.
To accomplish that, Go RVing plans to build on some of its successes from last year.
One of Go RVing’s major initiatives in 2023 was the release of the Path to Purchase study, which provided extremely detailed information on the path to buying an RV by first-time and repeat buyers, and the differences between motorhome and towables buyers. Go RVing commissioned market firm Ipsos to do detailed interviews with three groups – RV owners, intenders and abandoners — to determine pain points in the potential purchase process. It also offered recommendations RV industry members can make related to the customer purchase process.
“Go RVing (in 2024) is taking advantage of data and insights from that report to re-look at our messaging, who the right audiences are, and how they make their purchasing decisions so that we’re more effective in pushing them down the (sales) funnel to where they are finding a dealer and they’re more prepared buy,” Greene said. “One of our big learnings was that those early experiences in Go RVing are so critical to the future purchasing decisions. That’s why we’ve really zeroed in on our core, high-value audiences.”
To provide further insights on RV buyers for industry members, Greene said RVIA will release one of its periodic RV owner demographic profile reports later this year.
“We’re going to be looking at demographics of the RV market across all segments, for each type of RV, and who is the core audience for those RVs,” he said.
Other notable 2023 developments for Go RVing included:
• Expanding the Go RVing Board to include four marketing professionals. Historically, the Go RVing board has included the presidents of RVIA and RVDA, plus the chairmen for each association, for four members total. In 2023, the board was expanded to include four more members: Renee Jones, vice president of marketing at THOR; Amber Holm, chief marketing officer for Winnebago; dealer Mike Regan with Crestview RV; and Sarah Marshall, marketing and brand manager for Great American RV. Having people who work in marketing on the OEM and dealer side will be a huge plus for Go RVing, according to Greene.
• Making use of automotive and RV industry expert Mike Caudill as a Go RVing brand ambassador. Greene said Caudill generated a ton of media exposure for Go RVing in 2023, doing multiple satellite TV spots from Elkhart Open House Week, filming several video segments from his 27-day RV road trip with his family that were posted on Go RVing’s Facebook page, and appearing on a Fox & Friends live segment to kick off the RV season, which was seen by more than 1 million people. This month, Go RVing sent Caudill to the Tampa RV Show. Meanwhile, plans are in the works to send Caudill to this year’s Elkhart Open House Week.
• Having 5.5 million viewers visit the Go RVing website. Additionally, Go RVing made increasing use of social media to help amplify Go RVing’s message. While Go RVing continues to make use of traditional media channels such as TV and broadcast radio, Greene said the campaign has increasingly turned to social media platforms including Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest to generate buzz for Go RVing—a trend he expects will continue in 2024.
“The great thing about social media digital in general is that you can identify your audiences so much more clearly and make sure that the dollars that you put behind your ads are reaching the right, intended audiences,” Greene said. He added, “And this year we’re going to shift more toward influencers and content creators. On the influencer side, we could be more direct in targeting growth audiences like multicultural groups, LGBTQ+ audiences or other audiences that haven’t traditionally been core buyers. If we want to continue to grow as an industry, these are groups that can help us grow our overall consumer base.”
