Island Creek
A Marketing Proposal · Prepared May 15, 2026

Island CreekRV Resort

A marketing program built specifically for Doug Grant — designed against MCG's feasibility study, the live Wilmington SERP, and the real economics of 66 high-end sites on 19 acres in coastal North Carolina.

Begin
The Market Signal

WilmingtonKOA'sseasonalsites
are full. With a waitlist.

That's not a marketing claim. It's on page 6 of your feasibility study. The closest direct competitor — 6.7 miles from your front door, with 85 sites, a dated build, and a Speedway gas station next door — has more long-stay demand than it can serve.

The marketing question isn't whether the demand exists. It's whether you capture it before opening day, or after.

The real reason to work with us

Bundled. Like Microsoft 365 for campgrounds.

Most park owners hire a marketing agency for one channel and patch the rest together. We don't sell channels — we sell the whole stack. Same way Microsoft doesn't sell Word and Outlook separately. The savings come from bundling.

If you hired separately
$0.0k
6 separate vendors, 6 invoices, 6 sets of reporting
Bundled with us
$0.0k
One team, one invoice, one report. Same scope.
You keep
$0.0k
Year 1 savings from bundling

What you'd pay each vendor on their own

We benchmarked against typical 2026 mid-market pricing for each service. Aggressive on the low end of each range.

SEO consultant / agency
$1,500 – 3,000 / mo
$0
Paid ads manager
$1,000 – 2,500 / mo + 15% of spend
$0
Email marketing manager
$500 – 1,500 / mo
$0
Social media manager (full service)
$1,500 – 3,000 / mo
$0
Content writer (4 blogs/mo)
$500 – 1,500 / mo
$0
Reputation / review management
$200 – 500 / mo
$0
Total if hired separately
$0
All bundled with us → one retainer
$0
You save → $81k / year
~78% less than the unbundled equivalent

And if you bundle reservations too...

Same $3.50/reservation Campspot charges. But the website ($64.99/mo) and the AI guest chatbot ($99/mo) get added to the bundle — at no extra cost.

Branded website
$64.99 / mo
+$0 bundled
AI guest chatbot
$99 / mo
+$0 bundled
Additional bundled value if you switch reservations
+$0 / year

The Microsoft 365 model: Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive, Teams would cost $50–80/user separately. Bundled? $22/user. The savings come from bundling, not from any one component being cheap.

What MCG's study tells us

We read every page of the feasibility study.

The numbers in this proposal are grounded in MCG Hospitality Development's 122-page analysis — not generic campground benchmarks. Here's what we're building against.

0
Total sites
55 premium · 11 standard
0.00 acres
Property size
8110 Sidbury Road
0%
MCG Year-1 baseline
Blended occupancy target
$0
Premium nightly rate
$1,300 monthly · 55 sites
$0.00M
MCG Year-1 model
Total gross revenue target
0%
Modeled 5-yr IRR
Assumes Year-5 sale
Direct competitors (per MCG §3.3.1)
  • Wilmington KOA Holiday · 6.7 mi · 85 sites · RV Life 8.9 · seasonal sites full with waitlist
  • Oceans RV Resort · 20 mi · 228 sites · RV Life 9.5 · $57–$105 daily · newer build, 3–4 mi from ocean
Target segments (per MCG §3.5.2)
  • · Transient Cape Fear / Wilmington vacationers
  • · Long-term and monthly residents
  • · Triangle drive market via I-40
  • · UNC Wilmington students, parents, alumni
  • · Snowbird overflow from saturated KOA
The honest math

MCG modeled 45% in 2023. The market is softer now.

MCG's study was modeled at the post-COVID peak. RV shipments are still ~30% below 2022 highs even after a 2025 recovery, and many new parks are underperforming their 2023 feasibilities by 10–15%. A realistic Year-1 baseline today, with no active marketing, is closer to 38%. Drag the slider to see what marketing closes.

Marketing-driven occupancy lift
+5%
+0% (no marketing)+7% (hits MCG)+10% (upside)+15%
No marketing, today's market
38% occ · ~$890k
MCG's 2023 target
45% occ · $1.12M
Realistic upside w/ us
48–55% · $1.20–$1.37M
Your occupancy with marketing
43.0%
vs MCG's 45% target — still short
Extra site-nights booked
+1,205
across 66 sites · year 1
Revenue marketing brings in
+$117k
above today's no-marketing baseline
Return on $22.5k services
5.2x
(2.5x on $46.5k services + ad spend)

The honest take:MCG's 45% number was modeled when the camping industry was at its post-COVID high. Without active marketing, today's realistic Year-1 baseline is closer to 38% — which puts you ~$200k below their target. Marketing closes that gap. Our expected case(+7% occupancy lift, putting you at 45%) doesn't beat MCG — it gets you there. The slider beyond +7% is real upside, not just safety.

Explore the plan

Six ways to go deeper.

Click into any one of these. The pitch deck is built for our live walkthrough. The deep dives are for when you want to verify the work behind the proposal.

The budget

$20k to us. $33k to vendors. $53k all-in.

Other proposals you've seen wanted $85k–$100k year-one budgets, much of it committed to ad spend before any data existed to know what would work. This one is structured the opposite way — and we've split what you pay us from what you pay vendors so you can see exactly where every dollar goes.

You pay RoverPass
A

Services — month-to-month

Phase 1 — Setup
$0
One-time. Initial brand identity (logo, color palette, typography, brand voice guidelines), schema fix on existing site, Google Business Profile buildout, 14 directory listings, CRM provisioning, tracking infrastructure (GA4, GTM, CallRail, server-side container), email + lead-capture setup. Website build itself is free — AI does the heavy lifting.
Phase 1 — Pre-opening retainer
$0
$1,500/mo × 3 months. Founders List, drone content, waitlist campaign.
Phase 2 — Operating retainer
$0
$1,500/mo × 9 months. SEO + content, paid ads, email, social media, reviews, all reporting.
Ad management
Included
Included in retainer. No % markup on spend.
RoverPass year-1 total
$0
You pay vendors (we manage)
B

Pass-through — no markup

Media spend (Google + Meta)
$0
You pay vendors directly. Metered ~$2,000/mo. No commitment, no floor.
Backlink program (Alexander, Portugal)
$0
$1,000/mo × 9 months. You pay him direct. Zero markup from us.
No third vendor needed
Hosting, email, analytics, SEO tools — all in our retainer.
No fourth vendor needed
Content, design, ad creative — produced in-house with AI tooling.
Vendor year-1 total
$0
A + B · All-in year 1
$0

Everything you need to fill 66 sites — built, run, and reported on by us. No additional vendor fees. Month-to-month after pre-open. Cancel with 30 days notice.

What you've been quoted elsewhere
Agency #1 · full Y1 program
$0k
Agency #2 · ads alone (no services)
$0k
This proposal · ads + services all-in
$0k
For the price of what Agency #2 wanted just for ads, you get our full services + ads + backlinks.
Beyond the basics

Three add-ons we'd recommend for a high-end resort.

Optional. Not part of the $20k core program. We subcontract these to local Wilmington vendors — photographers, drone operators, Matterport-certified scanners — so the numbers below are estimates based on typical market rates. Firm quotes come before any booking. We'd vote drone first since you can amortize the asset across every ad campaign for the year.

Add-on / 01

Property Photography

Professional twilight + golden-hour shoots, lifestyle scenes, amenity close-ups. Reshoot quarterly so the property looks fresh across seasons.

  • Full property + amenity shoot (50+ edited images)
  • Twilight / golden hour session
  • Lifestyle shots with talent (couples, families, dogs)
  • Edited JPGs + RAW files delivered
  • Quarterly seasonal reshoot
Est. $1,050 / shootQuarterly · 4 shoots/yr
~$4,200/yr if you do all four. Subcontracted to a local Wilmington photographer — we'll get firm quotes before any booking.
Add-on / 02

Drone Cinematography

4K aerials of the property, surrounding waterways, and the Wrightsville/Carolina Beach drive. One signature property film + clips for ads, Reels, YouTube pre-roll.

  • 60–90 second cinematic property film
  • 4K aerial stills (20+ keepers)
  • 10 short vertical clips (Reels / TikTok / Shorts ready)
  • B-roll for paid ad rotation
  • Annual refresh
Est. $2,800 one-timeOne-time + annual refresh
Subcontracted to a licensed Part 107 drone operator — quote varies by scope
Add-on / 03

360° Virtual Tour

Matterport-style walkthrough of the property — guests pick the exact site they want before booking. Embedded on your site, Google Business Profile, and every listing.

  • Full property 3D scan
  • Individual site previews (interactive site selection)
  • Embedded on website + GBP + all listings
  • Hosted indefinitely (Matterport account)
  • Annual rescan after Phase II amenities ship
Est. $900 one-timeAnnual rescan
Subcontracted to a local Matterport-certified vendor + $99/yr hosting
Bundle all three

Full visual identity package — coordinated production

Drone film + 360° tour + quarterly photography, all coordinated in two production days on-property. We'd run them in September 2026 (during construction wrap) and January 2027 (after opening) so everything is ready before peak season. Bundling saves on travel + setup time since the local vendors are doing one trip instead of three.

Est. $7,900 / yr
All three · annual · subject to vendor quotes

We're your full marketing team — social media is included in the core program. These add-ons are production-grade visual assets that let our team produce best-in-class creative across paid ads, email, social, and the website.

One more lever · full proposal coming separately

The Microsoft 365 of campground software.

Today you're on Campspot. We respect that — you've made it work. The full reservation-system pitch is its own separate proposal coming your way, but here's the preview: RoverPass charges the same per-reservation fee Campspot does. The savings come from bundling — the same way Microsoft 365 costs less than buying Word, Excel, and Outlook separately. Everything below would cost real money standalone. Bundled into RoverPass: free.

Same $3.50/reservation. Plus ~$2,000 in bundled tools.

Think Microsoft 365: if you bought Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams separately, you'd pay $50-80/user. Bundled? $22. Same math here. Your reservation per-booking fee stays the same — but instead of paying $64.99/mo for the website and $99/mo for the chatbot, both are bundled in. No setup fees, no integration fees.

Native website integration — no patchwork

The website we're building (already free in the core proposal — AI does the work) gets a direct, supported integration with RoverPass. Availability, rates, booking flow — all native. With Campspot, we work around the gaps with embedded iframes and UTM passthrough.

AI chatbot for guest questions — included

24/7 AI-powered chatbot answers the questions guests would otherwise tie up your phone with: availability, amenities, rates, directions, pet policy, big-rig fit. Bundled at no extra cost.

Full marketplace distribution · 15% commission only on delivered bookings

Your inventory surfaces on the RoverPass marketplace and gets distributed to AAA Trip Canvas, Reserve America, Hipcamp, and our other booking partners. We charge 15% only on bookings the marketplace actually delivers — you don't pay anything on bookings that come through your own website, email, or returning guests.

Closed-loop attribution becomes accurate

Every ad click, every booking, every dollar — one system, one data set. Today with Campspot we patch attribution with UTM passthrough and Zapier hooks. With RoverPass, the attribution chain just works.

One vendor, one invoice, one team

Marketing and reservations from the same company. You call one number when anything goes sideways. No finger-pointing between your reservation platform support and your ad team.

If you bought each piece separately

Same $3.50 per reservation Campspot charges you today — but instead of paying separately for the website + chatbot, everything's bundled in. Think Microsoft 365: each tool would cost more standalone than the whole bundle costs together.

RoverPass branded website (multi-page, hosted, no setup fee)
$64.99/mo × 12
$0
AI guest chatbot (24/7 booking + FAQ)
$99/mo × 12
$0
Marketplace distribution to AAA / Reserve America / Hipcamp
15% commission only on delivered
Bundle value · all included when you switch reservations
$0

Migrating your data: about 2 weeks, coordinated with us. Existing reservations, guest emails, payment methods, and history all carry over.

Your phones, your email list, and your social media presence stay yours. We're swapping the reservation backend, not your identity.

30-day money-back on the switch. If RoverPass isn't an upgrade for your operation within 30 days, we migrate you back to Campspot and we eat the cost.

Want the exact platform-fee math against your last 12 months of bookings? Mention it on our next call

What we're aiming for

The targets that guide our work.

These are the milestones we'll be tracking and reporting against every month. We share results openly — both when we're on pace and when we need to adjust. Marketing is iterative; we'd rather set honest goals and have real conversations about progress than promise outcomes we can't fully control.

Milestone / 01
By Aug 2026

Building toward 1,500+ qualified email leads pre-opening, with 200+ tagged for snowbird / long-stay follow-up.

Milestone / 02
By Feb 2027

Aiming for top-5 Google ranking on 'Wilmington NC RV resort' and a handful of long-tail variants. Targeting 30+ Google reviews at 4.6+ avg.

Milestone / 03
By May 2027

Pushing for UNC Wilmington page in top-3 results for parent-visit queries. UNCW Graduation weekend filling fast.

Milestone / 04
By Jun 2027

Targeting marketing-attributed revenue around $100k (conservative case) and paid-channel cost-per-booking under $40 once campaigns mature.

Why RoverPass

Four reasons this is different.

01

AI-leveraged delivery, agency-quality output

A 25-person agency runs on 40-hour weeks billed at $150/hr. We run on AI agents producing content, ad copy, SEO, and reports continuously, with humans steering and QC'ing. That's why we quote $20k where others quote $85k for the same scope.

02

Camping industry, not adjacent to it

RoverPass operates the marketplace that distributes campground inventory to AAA Trip Canvas, Reserve America, Hipcamp, VRBO, and others. We see thousands of properties. We know what messaging converts in this category.

03

No ad-spend lock-in

Other agencies want $85k committed because their fee scales with it. Ours doesn't. We start small, measure, and triple down only on what's working. Cancel anytime with 30 days notice.

04

We read your study

Every number in this proposal is grounded in MCG's actual recommendations and the competitive analysis they ran. We're not building you a generic campground marketing plan.

Next steps

Let's fill
66 sites.

  1. 01Sign a one-page month-to-month agreement by May 31, 2026.
  2. 02By June 7, 2026: kickoff call, brand voice intake, domain handoff, ad accounts provisioned, integration call with your social partner.
  3. 03By June 30, 2026: new website live, schema fixed, Google Business Profile live, 14 directory listings live, first ad campaigns running, KOA waitlist capture campaign in market.
  4. 04Backlink builder intro to Alexander (Portugal) — this week. Engage him independently when you're ready.
Reply to ravi@roverpass.com
Ravi Parikh · Founder, RoverPass · Austin, TX
Proposal validity 30 days · Prepared May 15, 2026 · RoverPass