Island Creek
Back to proposal
Strategy · the full plan

The complete strategic playbook.

The five things we'd bet on, the five audiences we'd target, the four-phase timeline, the four services we'd deliver, and the content engine that runs underneath all of it.

Five strategic angles

Where we'd spend the money.

Every campaign in this proposal is built off one of these five observations. They came from your study and the live SERP — not from a marketing playbook.

01

The KOA waitlist is the headline.

Wilmington KOA Holiday's seasonal sites are full with a waitlist — MCG documented it. That's not a marketing claim; that's a market fact. Provable, unserved long-stay demand exists within 6.7 miles of your front door. We capture it before opening day.

Signal
Seasonal sites: FULL
02

You're undermarketed against Oceans.

Oceans RV Resort sits 20 miles away at $57–$105/night on a newer, beach-adjacent build. You're at $130 for a comparable amenity package in a stronger geo. The premium is justified — we just need the SEO and reviews to validate it. Headroom in Y2 to lift rates further.

Signal
$130 vs $105
03

Wilmington-Hampstead Bypass is a free SEO surface.

NCDOT is building a bypass 0.25 mi from your front door. No one is ranking for 'Sidbury Road RV resort' or 'Wilmington-Hampstead Bypass RV park' yet, because the asset doesn't exist. We claim those terms before competitors notice. Free real estate.

Signal
0.25 mi away
04

UNC Wilmington is an underserved niche.

Just hit a record 19,895 students (Fall 2025) — and the first-year class is the biggest ever. Move-in (Aug), Family Weekend (Oct), Graduation (May), Homecoming. Parents fly in and need somewhere their RV-equipped friends and relatives can park. Not one of your competitors has a dedicated UNCW page. We'll build the landing page and the seasonal ad pushes.

Signal
19,895 students
05

MCG was 2023 numbers. The market has softened.

Their feasibility 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%. Today's realistic Year-1 baseline for a new park without active marketing is closer to 38%, not 45%. The honest pitch isn't 'we'll beat MCG' — it's that marketing is the difference between hitting MCG's number and missing it by ~$220k. We're downside protection on your $4.4M development, not a nice-to-have.

Signal
$200k+ at risk without us
Who we'll target

Five audiences. Five funnels.

Each of these gets its own ad campaign, its own landing page, and its own email sequence. No generic 'come camp at Wilmington' messaging.

Mid-Atlantic snowbirds

November–February

Who: Retirees, 55–75, leaving NJ / NY / PA / OH / MI for winter. They want coastal warmth without driving to Florida.

Why we win: Wilmington is 8–15 hours from their homes — half the drive to Florida. KOA can't fit them all; their seasonal waitlist proves the demand.

Expected revenue share
~10–15% of revenue at full saturation

Cape Fear & Wrightsville Beach vacationers

March–October peak

Who: Families and couples driving in from Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Richmond, DC. Beach-focused, multi-night stays.

Why we win: Largest single segment. Five minutes to the beach, 15 to downtown — they don't need to drive once they arrive.

Expected revenue share
~50% of revenue

UNC Wilmington parents & alumni

August (move-in), October (Family Weekend), May (graduation)

Who: Parents of UNCW's 19,895 students (Fall 2025 record) + the alumni network. Six high-intent windows per year.

Why we win: Not one of your competitors targets this segment. You're 12 minutes from campus. Easy win.

Expected revenue share
~8–12% of revenue once captured

Long-stay roadtrippers & workampers

Year-round

Who: Full-time RVers and remote workers staying 1–3 months. Higher LTV than weekend travelers.

Why we win: KOA's monthly section is full with a waitlist. Snow's Cut RV Retreat owns this market with thin content. Beatable.

Expected revenue share
~20–25% of revenue

KOA waitlist overflow

Year-round, peaks Nov–Feb

Who: Travelers who tried to book Wilmington KOA and couldn't.

Why we win: The most pre-qualified leads in the market. Geo-fenced ads run within a mile of KOA's address.

Expected revenue share
~5–10% of revenue — small volume but the highest conversion rate
The four-phase plan

The strategy changes by phase.

What works pre-opening doesn't work post-opening. What gets you to 45% blended doesn't get you to 70%. Below: the channel mix, the tactics, and the KPIs for each stage — with industry benchmarks from operators who've actually done this.

Jun – Oct 2026 (pre-opening)

Pre-opening

Goal: Build a 1,500+ qualified-lead waitlist and establish SEO authority so day-one organic search is non-zero.

Channel mix

Budget allocation across channels for this phase.

Meta lead-gen ads
40%
Industry CPL $3–8 for email capture in coastal-leisure category
SEO foundation + landing
25%
Google needs 4–12 weeks to crawl. Start now or lose 3–6 months of compounding.
Brand + photo/video
10%
Drone construction content, time-lapse, founders story
Chamber + local PR
10%
Wilmington Chamber + Cape Fear Tourism — ribbon-cutting is free press
Email infrastructure
10%
Welcome email open rate industry benchmark 68.2%
Branded Google defense
5%
Defensive only — no inventory to sell yet

Specific tactics

  • Branded waitlist page with 'Founders List' positioning: priority site selection, exclusive opening events, locked Y1 rates
  • QR-coded construction signage driving drive-by interest into email capture
  • Weekly drone + time-lapse content reposted across Meta, YouTube, and the blog
  • NAP citation seeding across 14 aggregators pre-launch (RoverPass marketplace, Campendium, The Dyrt, Good Sam, RV Life, Hipcamp, AAA Trip Canvas, Roadtrippers, Allstays, RVshare, Outdoorsy, Wilmington & Beaches CVB, capefear-nc.com, wilmington-nc.com)
  • Coastal-NC micro-influencer FAM trip 2 weeks pre-open (5–8 creators, 10–100K followers, RV-LIFE/family-travel niche)
  • KOA waitlist capture campaign — geo-fenced Meta + Google around KOA's address driving to Island Creek's long-stay landing page

KPIs

  • ›1,500+ emails captured by T-30 days
  • ›200+ tagged as snowbird / long-stay segment
  • ›Cost-per-lead $3–8 on Meta
  • ›Branded search impression share >85%
  • ›30+ GBP photos uploaded pre-open

Mistakes we won't make

  • Launching the production website only at opening day — kills 6 months of SEO compounding
  • Heavy Google Ads with no inventory live (branded defense is the only Google line item that makes sense here)
  • Generic 'Join our list' CTA — Founders List framing converts 4–5x better
See the full ads playbook
What we deliver

Four service lines. One operation.

SEO, paid ads, newsletter, and web ads — all running off one strategy, one reporting surface, one team. No agency-stack ceremony.

Service / 01

SEO & content

We rank Island Creek where KOA can't.

  • Foundation: technical SEO audit, schema markup, GBP buildout, 14 directory listings
  • Content engine: 4 blog posts/month against the 5 KOA gaps (monthly, snowbird, UNCW, big rig, pet-friendly)
  • Local pages: 'RV park near Wrightsville', 'Cape Fear RV resort', 'Sidbury Rd Hampstead RV', etc.
  • Review velocity: 30+ in 90 days via automated post-stay request workflow
  • Backlink program: pass-through to Alexander's Portugal agency at $1,000/mo, no markup
Benchmark
12-month target: top-5 SERP for 'Wilmington NC RV resort'
Service / 02

Paid ads

Google + Meta + Microsoft, metered to performance.

  • Pre-open: Meta lead-gen for waitlist + branded Google defense only
  • Soft launch: Google Search + PMax for non-branded commercial queries, geo-targeted to Wilmington + 4-hr drive market
  • Stay-length segmented campaigns: separate budgets for snowbird/monthly vs. transient/weekend
  • Industry CPA $25–40/booking — we start at $1k–$2k spend and triple down only on what's working
  • Retargeting + lookalikes built off the email list — recover 5–15% of lost traffic
Benchmark
Target CPA <$40 on paid channels by month 4
Service / 03

Email & newsletter

The highest-LTV channel in hospitality. We treat it like one.

  • 5 audience segments: transient, long-stay, snowbird, UNCW parents, past-guest — each on its own track
  • Welcome series, post-stay sequence, win-back, snowbird re-engagement, seasonal pushes
  • 2 newsletters/month plus event-triggered sends (rate changes, weather, milestones)
  • Subject-line A/B testing every send · industry welcome open rate 68.2% benchmark
  • Past-guest seasonal campaigns: 30–50% of Y2+ advance bookings come from one well-timed send
  • Founders List nurture during pre-opening converts directly into opening-week bookings
Benchmark
Email list 3,000–5,000 by month 12 · 25–35% of bookings via email by year 2
Service / 04

Social media

Full-stack social. Strategy, content, posting, community.

  • Daily organic posts across Facebook + Instagram (Reels, Stories, feed)
  • Quarterly content calendar tied to the blog cascade and seasonal pushes (Azalea Festival, UNCW weekends, snowbird arrival)
  • Community management: replies, DMs, review handoff — all within 24 hours
  • Drone footage repurposed across every channel · short-form Reels + TikTok-ready cuts
  • Paid amplification on best-performing organic posts (separate from our conversion campaigns)
  • Influencer + UGC: 5–8 mid-tier creator FAM stays/year, branded hashtag, monthly photo contest
Benchmark
Y1 honest target: 1.5–3k Facebook, 1–2k Instagram, 2–3% engagement, 5–8% of bookings
Content we'll publish

48 blog posts in your first year. Every one of them earns its keep.

Every post targets a specific search someone is making right now. Together they build the kind of organic traffic you don't pay for. Here's a sample of what we'll publish for you in months 1–4 alone.

Blogs / month
4 per month, every month
Newsletters / month
2 per month, segmented by guest type
Social support
Daily across Facebook + Instagram · we own posting, copy, and community management
Review response time
Every Google, Campendium, RV Life, and Yelp review answered within 24 hours

The five themes we'll own

01

Long-term & monthly stays

Capture the demand KOA can't serve. Snowbird, workamping, monthly tenants.

02

Wrightsville & Cape Fear beaches

Beach proximity is your biggest geographic advantage. We own this lane.

03

UNC Wilmington visitor calendar

Six annual windows where no competitor markets. Dedicated pages + ads.

04

Big rigs & premium sites

Your 100-foot pull-throughs are an actual differentiator. We make it findable.

05

Quiet & pet-friendly positioning

Anti-KOA wedge grounded in your real property (wooded acres, dog park, off-highway).

Sample blog topics (drawn from your real Month 1–4 calendar)

01The Complete Guide to RVing in Wilmington, NC
02Long-Term RV Stays on the North Carolina Coast: A Snowbird's Guide
03UNCW Family Weekend, Graduation, Move-In: Where RV Travelers Stay
04Big Rig RV Parks in Coastal NC: What 40-Foot Coaches Need to Know
05Best Beaches for RV Travelers Near Wilmington, NC
06Coastal NC vs Myrtle Beach for Snowbirds: 8 Real Differences
07Triangle to Wilmington: An RV Weekend Itinerary
08Wilmington With Dogs: 12 Pet-Friendly Spots Within Reach

That's 8 of 48. See all 48 with titles, word counts, and pillars below.

See all 48 blog titles
What you actually get

Everything you receive, in plain English.

No mystery. Here's exactly what shows up at your door each month for the $20k you pay us. Print this; check it against what you actually receive.

Before doors open

Pre-opening (Jun – Oct 2026)

  • Initial brand identity — logo, color palette, typography, and brand voice guidelines
  • A new 10-page website built specifically for Island Creek
  • Facebook + Instagram business pages set up + branded (or migrated from existing)
  • Listed on 14 RV-traveler websites — Campendium, The Dyrt, Good Sam, Hipcamp, AAA Trip Canvas, and 9 others
  • Google Business Profile fully built — 30+ photos, services, hours, Q&A pre-loaded
  • Email waitlist program targeting 1,500+ qualified signups by opening day
  • 4 blog posts published while you're still building (so Google indexes them before opening)
  • Construction-progress social content (Facebook + Instagram) — weekly updates, drone footage
  • Facebook + Instagram ads driving waitlist signups
  • A dedicated 'Skip the KOA Waitlist' geo-fenced campaign capturing their overflow
  • Full tracking setup — every booking traceable back to its source
  • Press kit + ribbon-cutting coordination with Wilmington Chamber
Every month after opening

Operating (Nov 2026 – May 2027)

  • 4 new blog posts per month, all about Wilmington and your park
  • 2 email newsletters per month, segmented across 5 audience tracks (snowbird, beach, UNCW, past guests, waitlist)
  • Daily Facebook + Instagram posts — Reels, Stories, feed — all on-brand and tied to the content calendar
  • Community management on social — every comment, DM, and tag responded to within 24 hours
  • Google Ads — managed daily, scaled only on what's working
  • Facebook + Instagram ads — same daily management
  • Every Google, Campendium, and Yelp review answered within 24 hours
  • Weekly Google Business Profile post with fresh photo + offer
  • Monthly performance report with the numbers that actually matter
  • Quarterly 1-hour strategy call with Ravi
  • Seasonal campaigns: UNCW Family Weekend, Azalea Festival, snowbird Q4 push, etc.
  • Ongoing directory listings maintenance — photo refresh quarterly

Not in this list: your reservation system (Campspot — you already have it), your phone line, and any third-party tool subscriptions over $5/mo. We'll always tell you before signing you up for anything.