How do you guys look for RV Parks?

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
In your area and market, long termers appear to be the norm. That means construction workers( as I used to be) If that is your business model, hiway signage and the like is a waste, contact with the unions like mine 'UA' may be a way to go. Construction workers wont care about fancy amenities unless they are geared towards the family at 'home' while he works.
When I was in the trade, we found camps by word of mouth or at the union hall.
You do yourself disservice by trying to fill your camp with cheap rates. Never do you want to be the cheapest place, that is for the dump that attracts schoolies and that ilk, will chase away higher quality folk. Pay no attention to the reviewers who only seek out deeply discounted camps. Thats not your model.
Access points for wifi do not matter unless you also have the bandwidth to carry the load. This is NUMERO UNO! for travelers and residents alike today.
If you feel you are in a location to attract short term, ie overnight or weekly travelers, then you have to approach it a lot differently. You will need pull throughs, a dump station, propane dispenser, laundry, etc. all in the premium area of the camp, not the dumpster area.
Now that we travel a lot for recreation, not for work, word of mouth is still tops, but when we lack that we use the Good Sam Travel Guide, back it up with rvparkreviews, facebook and google earth. Even our GS Magellan GPS knows every camp in the book just ahead. For an overnight it will show us all forms of camps, wallys, anything.
Never been surprised when using those tools. They are at everyones fingertips, even when on the road an hour away.
Work on google. facebook. our 8356 likes for our 99 site camp tells a lot. watch tripadvisor, rvparkreviews, use their comment features to refute or thank the review.
Engage a consultant if you are not experienced rvers yourselves to maximise your camp. I can recommend some.. Beyond a doubt concencus amongst travelers is space. And they will pay more for it.
You are asking the choir here, not the congregation.

I agree whole heartedly with everything SD said, except for the part about responding to reviews. While a thank you for each response is nice, it will put you in a position where you must respond to any negative reviews or it will look like you just cherry pick.
I don't believe in responding to bad reviews, and there is plenty of professional research to back me up. It is a situation you cannot win. You either have to confirm the information or call the reviewer a liar. Neither of those two options are good. Yes, there are times you could explain the reasoning behind a policy or action, but again, what do you do when it is really just an unjustified rant? It's too easy for responses to negative reviews to come off as either an empty bobblehead response of "yea, yea, yea. I am saying I hear you, but I am really ignoring you" or confrontational.
Pretty much everyone on planet earth has come to the understanding that nearly every business will have an unhappy customer or two, and those businesses will have a few bad reviews. It is just par for the course. Don't extend the reach of those few idiots by prolonging the conversation. Run a good business, and the reviews will take care of themselves