Day 36: Marketing a Boat and RV Facility Finding Tenants Before Fall

Welcome to day 36 of the Boat and RV 100 series. I'm Joe Downs with the Storage Moguls, and today I'm covering marketing, specifically the 5 channels that actually produce boat and RV tenants and why the broad advertising approaches most operators default to generate mostly noise without results. The data on this is pretty straightforward. Boat and RV tenants come from a small number of highly predictable sources: dealers, marinas, other tenants, Google search, and waiting list conversions. That's really it. Operators who understand this and build systems around these 5 channels fill their spaces efficiently. Operators who run generic digital advertising campaigns spend money without filling spaces. If you want everything we cover in this series backed by a community of people actually doing it, you should come find us at storagemobiles.ai, where you'll find real operators sharing what actually happens in the field, not what textbooks say. Remember folks, mogul isn't just someone who holds a deed. The definition is a sophisticated operator of real estate, someone who's mastered the full arc from finding a deal to running one. And that's what we teach because that's what we do. We don't just buy storage, we acquire and we optimize. And there's a difference, and that difference tends to be worth tens of thousands of dollars per deal. And we're real people— couplepreneurs, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, people just like you. Nobody here is selling you a dream from a stage they stepped off years ago. We're actually out there Evaluating deals every day between $400,000 and $2 million. Why? Because that's the range that's financeable. That's the range we can take down. That's the range you can take down too, and we'll show you how. So start for free, advance your own pace, and let's get into marketing for boat and RV customers. Boat and RV marketing is fundamentally different from self-storage marketing, and the operators who don't understand this difference spend their marketing dollars in the wrong places. The addressable market is small and defined in a given county. The people who need boat and RV storage are the registered boat and RV owners, a specific identifiable population. That's what you're looking for. That's what you're marketing to. You're not trying to reach everyone. You're trying to reach the 5 to 10% of registered owners who don't currently have a storage solution and are in your target market. Broad digital advertising like Google Ads, social media campaigns, display advertising that generates impressions across a general population. But most of that population doesn't own a boat or an RV. So the cost per qualified lead from broad advertising in this vertical is typically very high relative to the cost per tenant acquired through the relationship channels. The seasonal concentration changes the playbook as well. In self-storage, new tenants arrive throughout the year and in a continuous— sorry, a continuous marketing presence Makes sense. In boat and RV, 70 to 80% of new and annual movements happen in a 6-week window in the fall. So marketing for that window needs to be built months in advance, but it's targeted and time-bound, not continuous. Here's the 5 channels you need. Build all 5 and you won't need a marketing budget in the traditional sense. First is dealer referrals. This is the highest yield channel in this vertical. When a boat or an RV dealer sells a vehicle to someone who doesn't have a storage solution, they have an immediate conversation about where to store it. If you've built a relationship with that dealer and left your cards, your brochure, or simply your name on their referral list, you're the first call the buyer makes. One dealer relationship in a market can fill 5 to 10 spaces per fall season. Next is the marina and the campground referrals. Marina operators and campground managers frequently encounter boat and RV owners who are looking for winter storage or long-term solutions. So a relationship with a marina near your facility, even an informal one, produces a steady stream of high-intent referrals throughout the season. Then you have referrals from your existing tenants. Your current tenants are your best marketers. They know other boat and RV owners at the marina or the campground or the boat club or the RV rally. A tenant who's happy with your facility mentions it constantly in those communities. So build a simple referral program, maybe 1-month rent credit for a successful referral, and you've created an incentivized word-of-mouth system by doing that. Uh, Google Local Search. When a boat or RV owner searches for storage in your area, your Google Business Profile is the first thing they see. So a complete, well-reviewed profile with accurate information and recent photos is your organic search presence. Costs nothing and produces consistent inbound leads from high-intent searchers. And then the waiting list conversion. Your waiting list is your highest conversion marketing asset. These prospects already chose you. They just couldn't get a space when you— when they first required— inquired. Contact them the moment a space opens. Don't wait. A waiting list tenant who doesn't hear from you for 3, 4 days after a space opens up has already found another facility. The dealer relationship is the single highest yield marketing investment available in this vertical. Here's exactly how to build it. Identify the top 2 or 3 dealers in your market, both boat and RV. These are the dealerships selling the most units into your target geography. A quick search of dealership locations online and online reviews will identify the relevant ones quickly. Go visit in person. This is non-negotiable. A phone call doesn't build a relationship the way face-to-face introduction does. Walk in, ask for the sales manager, introduce yourself, explain what you offer and where you're located. Leave your cards and a one-page facility summary with your contact information and current availability. Ask what their customers ask about regarding storage. This is the most underused question in dealer relationship building. The dealer who sells 200 boats a year has heard every storage concern their customers have. They know which objections matter and what buyers want in a storage facility. And that intelligence is free and directly shapes how you position yourself. Offer a reciprocal arrangement. When a tenant asks you where to service their vehicle or which dealer has the best selection, refer them to the dealer partner that you just created. Mutual referrals create a genuinely sticky relationship. A dealer who sent you 8 tenants and received 3 service referrals in return is a partner, not just a referral source. And then do a quarterly follow-up, not a pitch, a check-in. Bring them a seasonal update, how the fall filled up and what spaces you have coming available. Thank them specifically for any referrals that converted. This keeps you top of mind for the next buyer conversation without being transactional about it. Your Google Business Profile is free. It produces high-intent, high-intent inbound leads and takes 2 hours to set up correctly. Most boat and RV facilities have incomplete or outdated profiles, which means a complete, well-managed profile is a competitive advantage, not just a baseline. For business category and keywords, use boat storage and RV storage as primary business categories. Add outdoor vehicle storage as an additional category. This drives how Google matches your profile to local search queries. Operators who use generic categories like storage facility miss the specific searches that produce your high-intent prospects. For photos, you want to upload recent, well-lit photos of the facility— drive aisles, space types, the air station, the rinse facility, the gate system. A prospective tenant who can see what they're choosing is more likely to call or submit an inquiry. A profile with no photos or with photos from 5 years ago, that creates uncertainty. Under review management, make sure you respond to every review. A 4-star review that receives a thoughtful response from the owner tells the next prospective tenant that is, that, that is a professionally managed facility that engages with their customers. A negative review that receives no response tells them the operator doesn't care. The response matters as much as the rating. Under posts and availability updates, use Google Posts to announce availability openings, new amenities, or waitlist openings. An active profile signals a functioning, engaged operation. A profile with no posts for 18 months signals the opposite. The waiting list is the most underused marketing asset in the boat and RV storage. Operators who manage it actively never worry about filling spaces after a vacancy. Operators who don't build it scramble every fall. So build a waiting list. Every inquiry that can't be immediately filled should result in a waiting list offer, something like, we're currently full, but I'd love to add you to our waiting list. When a space becomes available, you'll be the first to know. Capture their name, phone number, vehicle type, and preferred space size. A waiting list takes 3 minutes to create and converts at far higher rates than any other marketing channel. Tell them the expected wait time honestly. If your typical wait time is 6 months, say so. Realistic expectations produce tenants who stay on the list. Optimistic expectations produce tenants who leave the list when wait is longer than they expected and find another solution. Working the list. Contact every person on the list the same day a space opens. Personal call, not an email. First come, first served. A waiting list tenant who gets a same-day personal call from the operator feels valued before they've even moved in. That feeling is the foundation of long tenure. The lender package angle. A documented waiting list with names, dates, vehicle types, and contact information is demand evidence. Goes in your lender package as refinance proof that the market is genuinely supply constrained and that your fall occupancy assumptions are supportable. Build it like it matters, because when you're refinancing in 5 years, it does. 6 months from June to November, the operators who fill their spaces fastest in the fall started building the pipeline in June. In June, you refresh your dealer relationships. This is the last visit before the pre-fall window. Drop off updated information, ask about their fallback or their fall outlook, and remind them of your current availability. A dealer who saw you in June remembers you when the fall buyer asks about storage. In July, update your digital presence. New photos on Google Business Profile, updated availability, any amenity improvements from the summer are now documented and visible. The prospective tenant who searches in August should find an updated active profile. Come August, this is your most active pre-fall marketing month. Contact everyone on your waiting list with fall availability. Send a one-page update to any prior inquiries who did not convert last fall— last year. Announce the amenity improvements. This is when the motivated tenants, the ones who had the storage problems last fall, are already thinking about solutions. September and October is the peak window. Respond to every Google inquiry within the hour. Work the waiting list as spaces confirm. Be available on Labor Day weekend. That's the single highest volume move-in weekend of the year. In November, you close the loop. Document final occupancy. Thank every referral source who sent you a tenant. Any remaining vacancies get a targeted push. So call the waiting list again, update the Google profile with specific availability. Marketing a boat and RV facility is a relationship and systems exercise, not an advertising exercise. The operators who fill their spaces fastest spend the least on marketing because they've built the right relationships and maintain them consistently. Remember the 5 channels: dealers, marinas, tenant referrals, Google local search, waiting list conversions. Build all 5 and maintain them. The combination produces consistent, high-quality tenant acquisition at near-zero cost. Start in June. The fall window is 6 weeks. The window for that— the pipeline for that window needs to be built in June and July. Operators who start marketing in September are already behind the operators who started in June. The waiting list is the asset. Every name on a documented waiting list is a future tenant you've already Partially acquired. So build it with every inquiry. Work it in the moment the space opens. Document it for your lender package. All right, next up, day 37, Managing Vehicle Liens and Abandoned Property: The Legal Process Most Operators Mishandle. This is the episode that prevents a liability exposure most operators don't see coming. Go ahead and like and subscribe by ringing the bell, as well as share this episode you don't miss the daily drops or the bonus content we'll be putting out shortly with short series on things like SBA loans or how to choose a manager, as well as other series I'll be doing with other industry pros. Not to mention the launch of storagemoguls.ai, the platform and community, and announcing for the first time the brand new Storage Moguls podcast launching next week, where each week I'll bring you the operators, the lenders, And the real people who've bought deals recently, so you can hear their stories and how they did it and learn this business from the folks living it every day. To recap, storage moguls.ai education platform and community, and the Storage Moguls podcast both launching next week. So subscribe to this channel so you don't miss those announcements. And quickly, right now, go register at storage moguls.ai as well. Join Storage Moguls, make smarter, market smarter, fill faster. See you tomorrow.