The off-season is a terrific time to refresh your listing(s) for your next on-season of RV rentals. There are simple yet highly effective tactics you can undertake during this time to get more bookings and more (positive) reviews.
In this post, we’ll check out some of the proven strategies we’ve seen our hosts undertake during the off-season to level up their on-season.
As we walk through all that, we’ll do a review of several other blog posts we’ve written that’ll give you a detailed deep dive into ways you can refresh your listing. Let’s dig in.
Take stock of how you want to grow
We live in a culture that’s hyper-focused on growth. That’s okay to a point, but growing just for growth’s sake isn’t always a solid game plan.
If growth is what you seek — ask yourself why you seek it and to what level you’re ready to commit to the cost.
There are plenty of RV hosts who are perfectly happy renting out the family rig, creating memories for others, and getting paid to vacate in their RV.
Either road is okay as long as you take the time to make sure you’re heading where you want to go.
The off-season is a great time to reflect on directions. We wrote up this post to walk you through a series of questions to ask yourself as you set goals for your business this year.
Photos, photos, and more photos
We can’t over-emphasize the importance of photos in selling your RV rental.
Be sure your listing has scads of high-quality and well-lit photos that show off how fun and cool your rig is. Put yourself in your renter’s shoes and think about the images that’ll get them excited to camp in your RV.
For example, renters will usually be looking for action shots and shots of amenities they can expect. Snap some photos of your family around the campfire, cool amenities you offer, and capture your rig from all angles to paint the best picture.
This post will walk you through the exact photos you should take and how to take them.
Does your rental have a catchy headline?
The hard truth of today’s uber-connected world is that you usually have just a few seconds to peak someone’s interest enough to read into your listing.
That’s why you should think of your listing title as a newspaper headline — it’s your chance to capture a prospective renter’s attention from the sea of competition.
For example, if you’re near a popular event like a NASCAR race or music festival, it pays to mention that fact in your listing description and even your listing title.
A listing title such as: ‘Well-stocked travel trailer — delivery offered to Daytona 500’ is an example headline that can get a renter’s attention.
This post breaks down listing tips to get more bookings — including strategies for your listing title/headline.
Is your listing description all it can be?
Your listing description is more than an opportunity to tell people what you have to offer — it’s your main chance to make your rig stand out from the competition.
We crunched our numbers and found that our highest-performing listings feature 16-20+ photos, listing write-ups with between 2,500-3000 characters, and descriptions that clearly unpack all features, options, amenities, and add-ons you offer.
Take time during the off-season to ensure your listing description is doing everything it can for you. Here’s our full guide on writing a great listing description.
Consider adding a video tour
People love video. That’s why it can really help you sell your rig if you upload a short video tour to your listing’s photo gallery.
It doesn’t need to be anything fancy — it just needs to be shot in a well-lit setting that’s free from clutter and noise.
You also don’t need a professional camera for this. Any smartphone from after 2018 should be all you need for a quality virtual tour of your RV.
Here’s a guide we put together on how to create awesome video tours.
Is your RV properly insured?
Outdoorsy has you covered insurance-wise during the times that your rig is rented. But what about when you’re using your rig for personal use?
Sure, you probably have personal RV coverage, but did you know that many carriers can cancel your policy if they discover that you’re renting out your rig?
That’s why we synced up with Roamly — RV insurance from people who get it. Roamly was built by RVers, for RVers, and offers all the coverages that everyone else should.
They’ll usually save you a chunk of change too. And yes, Roamly is all good with you renting out your RV.
You can get an instant quote and have coverage bound right online at Roamly.com
How are you keeping tabs on your rig(s)?
From the 90-day inspections all hosts complete to mechanical upkeep to your cleaning routine, there’re a host of logistical pieces to running an RV rental business.
The off-season is the time to take stock of what worked well and what didn’t in terms of tracking the upkeep of your RVs.
Additionally, many hosts have started implementing GPS tracking of their rigs so they can ensure renters don’t take the RV out of range, drive too fast, or do other actions you’ve prohibited in your rules of the road.
We’ve partnered with Zubie to help you easily add GPS tracking to your fleet. Zubie allows you to do things like:
- Track your rented RV(s) via mobile or desktop
- Set geofencing notifications that’ll ping you if your rig goes into an area you’ve marked as restricted
- Receive mileage-based maintenance reminders
- Share your vehicle’s location in case of emergency
And we worked out a special deal for our Outdoorsy family so you can save on GPS devices and monthly Zubie subscriptions.
Other ways to refresh your listing in the off-season
Maximizing your RV rental(s) to get the booking flow you want is an ongoing process. You’ll usually be tweaking things during your on-season and then digging into heavier refreshes during your off-season.
Here are our top tips for pulling all the levers you can to get where you want to be:
- Join our RV Host Community on Facebook. We suggest this all the time because this group works. It’s made up of RV hosts of all types and stripes who have probably been there and done that with whatever you might be experiencing.
They’re a friendly lot and ready to help with any questions/issues that may come up as you build your business. - Check out this post where yours truly gives some real-life perspective on how I keep my RV rentals refreshed to maximize bookings.
- Peruse our Outdoorsy Host Of The Week Stories. This is a weekly segment we put out that features one of our hosts opening the hood to their RV rental business to help you discover new ways of doing business.
- Review logistical things like calendar settings, security deposit level, and cancellation policy strategies that impact bookings.
- Read these 13 ways to get more people to rent your RV
Getting your listing ready for the upcoming season can be a fun process where you build upon the experiences of the last season. That’s the beauty of running your own business — the ability to grow things, tweak things, or even turn things down if you just want more time for yourself and your family. The tips we’ve unpacked above will help you do that in the way that best fits you.
