The RV Industry Association has launched a new website aimed at being more user-friendly and personalized to those in the RV industry no matter what level they are on the totem pole.
“It’s a lot more reflective of the $50 billion industry rather than the old website where you couldn’t really tell what RVIA did,” said Sarah Neely, senior manager of communications and marketing. “And another way we’ll be able to reach the up-and-coming leaders is the analytics we’ll have.”
Frank Hugelmeyer, RVIA president, James Ashurst, senior VP of marketing communications, and Matt Wald, VP of strategic initiatives, helped lead the charge on an initiative the entire association team wanted. After its board passed a hefty digital modernization budget, work on the website began.
The organization really wanted to hone in on making the website user-friendly. As well as community-friendly, info-friendly, and overall navigational so that people could find what they want and quick. To that end, the old website had more than 19,000 pages on it, while a lot of that were news stories and press releases, RVIA found plenty of areas to streamline.
Taking a website relocated to the late 1990s and giving it a refreshing spin to become an eye-candy hub for the industry was a team effort that took a year to bring to fruition. For one, there’s no multiple sign-on pages to go through. As a member, you sign on once, and can explore the rest of the page.
Homing in on its community, RVIA will utilize its Twitter account to keep the industry current on all developments.
“The new website is the most visible communication method that we have. So, this is a way we can present our story to both members and external stakeholders.”
It’s easier to see who RVIA represents and what the industry is about with readily available infographics and data.
As a next step, RVIA plans to take that user data and analytics to tailor experiences to individuals, like a news feed based on a member’s role in the industry (supply, manufacturing, dealer, etc.). This approach also helps to track one’s career and nurture leaders to spearhead aspects of the industry in the future.
“The leadership in a lot of companies have been around for a very long time so they know the value of the RV Industry Association,” said Neely. “But we do have an entire generation of new leaders that are coming up, and we need to make sure that we are engaged with them and that we provide the information they want to see.”
No matter what occupation someone has in the industry, they can become a member as long as they are affiliated with their company (i.e., an email address containing their company’s website). The idea, Neely said, is that this will help in conveying that RVIA is meant to enhance the familial aspect of the industry in driving to its shared goals.
The old website had “prime contacts” getting all the information. But now RVIA is making a greater push to, as Wald told RV PROin an earlier story, go “10 deep” into a company. Meaning that reaching executives is one thing but engaging with potential leaders who can spend a lifetime as an RVIA member, can lead to a number of industry-wide benefits.
Neely said that this launch is merely phase one of a plan to do more individual customization.
“In the next phase, we’ll also be expanding on the education section and be doing a lot more with the event section,” she said. RVX, the assocation’s new annual trade show, will maintain its own website for now, but will most likely be integrated into RVIA’s homepage in the future.