The official start of Spring was marked by the vernal equinox on March 20, and RV dealers are preparing to fully begin a busy 2026 season.
Founder and principal at Wheeler Advertising, Ron Wheeler, is offering three tips for dealership owners to remember as the calendar inches closer to April.
Wheeler said a trend he is seeing in the early months of 2026 is an increased demand for used RVs.
“It does seem like there are a lot of used shoppers in the market again,” Wheeler said. “It seems like it is probably because interest rates haven’t come down. I thought they were going to come down more already or at least be on the trend, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Anecdotally, Wheeler said he received an advertisement from a major dealer chain that was “all about buying somebody’s RV or selling them a used RV.”
He said the ad indicates the dealer chain invested advertising dollars into moving used RVs and is a sign of their growing popularity.
“We’re seeing a lot of leads are coming in for used product, from our clients” Wheeler said, “more than I would have thought so far for the year.”
On getting people into the dealership, Wheeler said paid Google search is still the most reliable method to reach potential customers.
“We are seeing about 38% of the leads across the board coming from paid search,” Wheeler said. “Google paid search.”
Direct clicks and organic search traffic are still bringing in customers, Wheeler said, but those are usually repeat visitors.
“That paid Google search is still a pretty reliable tool for advertising to gain leads,” he said. “If you want to get leads and capture somebody that’s not your customer already, you certainly need to do it.”
Getting online shoppers to the dealership website is only half the battle. Having a functional, aesthetically pleasing website is crucial to converting sales.
“I just think that a lot of times people really need to take a hard look at their websites,” Wheeler said. “It seems they’re operating … they just do not convert very well.”
While the addition of AI-powered tools is the current trend, Wheeler said there are plenty of ways dealers can clean their websites without a large investment.
“I think people have been lulled into a bad position on their websites. They need to really look at that if they want to capture some business,” Wheeler said. “You’ve got to win that battle of consideration online, or you’ll never see them on the lot. I think it’s easy to forget about it as a dealer, but it’s definitely worth the investment.”
By offering a variety of new and used RVs, investing in paid online search and a few website tweaks, Wheeler said dealers can improve their online marketing and attract more customers.
Wheeler has been a speaker at RVDA for more than 30 years and at NADA for more than 18 years.
