Donna Bordeaux warns small campground owners about Good Sam's expensive advertising contracts. She describes a client charged nearly $12,000 for a 35-site campground and questions whether the referrals justify the cost. Track where guests actually come from before committing to long-term deals.
Folks, I've got to speak up. I'm seeing campground owners waste a ton of money and I can't let it happen anymore. Let's dive in. I'm Donna Bordeaux with campgroundaccounting.com I have been a speaker in many association events for states as well as the ARVIC Association. And many years ago I spoke out about Good Sam advertising. I got a little blowback. Couple people were very upset with my comments and I understand why. I found out later they worked for Good Sam. So I'm not here to damage a reputation of a company, but I need to bring out some facts that you as campground owners need to realize and to know. And I'm seeing a continuing problem in our industry with how advertising is approached. Remember those good old days of yellow page ads and people kept selling yellow page ads long after nobody was ever looking at them. Well, folks, we've got ourselves a case of the yellow page ads. What brought this to light and really angered me is one of my newer clients approached me and said, hey, I've got this payment plan set up with Good Sam so you'll see these payments drafting each month. So I asked her to send me a copy of the agreement. This agreement was for monthly payments and a hefty down payment that totaled nearly $12,000. It was $11,931 to be exact. This is a campground that is in a great travel area. A small family owned campground with 35 sites. That's it. This is not a mega park with hundreds of sites. They have 35 sites and they were sold a plan of advertising for nearly $12,000. Now, I'm not saying that they didn't play a role in it. They accepted the agreement. They signed off on it. They did not ask me first, which I wish they would have consulted me and now it's too late to do anything about it. But I don't want you to fall into this same trap. Now, let me talk about Good Sam from a customer's perspective. I'm also an RVer. I travel the United States. I will tell you that I take and I use my Good Sam discount. A long time ago when we bought a travel trailer, our first one ever, had no idea what was going on the industry. We took advantage of the lifetime membership with Good Sam. I still have it. I get my 10% off at a lot of different campgrounds who still offer Good Sam discounts. Now first ask me if I would have been willing to pay that extra 10%. Absolutely. I'm just taking it because they're offering it, and in many cases, I'll forget to even mention it. Making a reservation. And they know that I'm going to ask about it when I get there. So they volunteer and say, are you a Good Sam member? Let me get your discount, folks. People don't just offer up discounts. Discounts. Let's talk about what this means. You're paying Good Sam to reduce your sales by offering a discount. And in return, they're supposed to send you people. I've never once gone to a campground because they had Good Sam ratings. And I got them from the Good Sam site. Now, I understand many years ago, when they had the yellow pages of campgrounds, the Good Sam died in the rv. You didn't have the Internet. You'd look in there, find out, and map out where you were gonna go. I get that. I also remember the days when Kodak made cameras with film in it. That doesn't change the fact that our system has changed these days. And nobody that I know of has used Good Sam to book their campground unless they're on a Good Sam reservation system. Nobody says, hey, I think I'll go find a campground. Let me go to goodsam.com doesn't happen, folks. Now, if you're using other platforms to book a trip, yes, you will see Good Sam RA ratings and you will see the Good Sam logo over the park. However, I don't still use that. We look at the ratings that guests give a campground and the comments of reviews that guests list for a campground. I even question how the rating system works because from what I've seen, the people who pay more get better ratings. I don't have any evidence to back that up. Just telling you an observation of what I see. So I'm not here to tell you the Good Sam doesn't work. That's not my premise. I'm not here to tell you it's a bad company. That's not my point. My point is their advertising practices and their sales staff are, I feel, crossing the line in signing people up for these contracts that don't make sense. And they know they don't make sense. If this were a reverse mortgage and an elderly person, the news would be all over it. It's not. So I've got to be the one to tell you, hey, you don't need Good Sam. Your people are not coming from Good Sam. When you have your guests walk in the door if you don't believe me, I want you to ask each guest where they came from and do it in the Right way. Where did you hear about our park? Ask them and track that on every reservation. You need to know when you look at that number and you realize now people are going to say they got a Good Sam discount card. That doesn't mean they came from Good Sam. But look at those numbers and track where these people come from and use that to analyze where your advertising dollars should go. Your advertising should be no more than 3% of your revenue. In the case with my client, if they had to spend $12,000 on this good Sam contract, they would need to bring in an extra $400,000 in revenue that was specifically driven to them by Good Sam. I'm here to tell you to get 35 sites. That would be nearly impossible. So keep your eye out, folks. Use good judgment. Talk to someone before you sign off on these contracts and know that your guests are not finding you in most cases from Good Sam. I'm sure they may be helping by having ratings that are out there, but educated guests know those ratings don't matter. And talk to your fellow campground owners who have dropped this. Ask them if their business has dropped off. I know the answer, but I want you to hear it from their ears. Again, this video information is from my opinions. I am not trying to say anything bad about Good Sam. I'm saying that I think their practices are outdated and they need to revise their business model. And they have said they're doing that. And also, folks, check out what the new business model is. Guess what? It doesn't really involve campground advertising anymore. I feel like this $12,000 is funding some whole new agenda at Good Sam rather than giving my client a good return on their investment. So make your comments. I know I'll make some of you mad, but my purpose here is to educate campground owners to use their money effectively and grow their campgrounds, not just spend money.
