Your 2027 Marketing Plan Starts in November: A Q4 Checklist for Southeastern Lodges and Outfitters
Most lodges and outfitters write next year's marketing plan the way they pack for a trip they have taken a hundred times: from memory, in a hurry, the week before. That works until it does not. A plan built on a hunch about what booked last year will happily repeat last year's mistakes.
November is the right month to do it properly. The 2026 season is still fresh, the 2027 season is not yet pressing, and the reports you need still hold the data. This post is a working checklist. It tells you which reports to pull, which traps to avoid in each one, how to decide what to keep, fix, or cut, and how to set a budget, a calendar, and three numbers to track in 2027.
One note on scope. We are not going to hand you industry benchmarks for budget or conversion, because we have not found a public Southeastern dataset for them, and we will not make one up. Where this post names a target, it tells you to calculate it from your own books.
Step 1: Pull the Right Reports in November
The point of the data pull is simple: find out what actually produced inquiries and bookings in 2026. Four places hold most of the answer. Each one has a quirk that can quietly bend your numbers, so export with the quirks in mind.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
This post assumes your property already tracks the actions that matter. If it does not, start with our GA4 setup walkthrough for outfitters and come back. Once it does, export two views for the full 2026 year plus the same dates in 2025 if you have them.
The Traffic acquisition report. According to Google Analytics Help, its session-scoped dimensions include Session source, Session medium, Session source / medium, and Session campaign, and it reports Key events and Session key event rate.
The same report filtered to your key events (phone taps, form submissions, booking-button clicks).
Two things to know. First, Google renamed what it used to call conversions to key events, a change announced in a Google blog post dated March 21, 2024. A key event is an action important to your business that shows up in your Analytics reports. A conversion is the version tied to Google Ads. Second, Google's help page on user versus traffic acquisition says sessions follow the non-direct last-click model, and the default key event lookback window is 90 days. A trip someone researched in August and booked in October may not credit the source you expect.
Your booking engine, by source
Your booking software knows things GA4 cannot, because it sees the reservation itself. In OwnerRez, for example, the Inquiry/Booking Volume report (under Reports, Analysis and Statistics, Booking Statistics) can group by listing site and compare against a prior year. Its inquiry and booking counts can be filtered by inquiry or booked date, or by dates of stay. Other booking systems have similar reports; ask your vendor where theirs lives.
The trap: OwnerRez defines "direct inquiries and bookings" as those with no listing site. That is not the same as "started on my own website." Unless you configured a custom source, a booking from a phone call, a repeat guest, a Facebook message, and your website form can all land in the same direct bucket. Before you quote a direct share to anyone, check what your system puts in that bucket. This is based on OwnerRez's help page as read in October 2026; confirm against your own system's current documentation.
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile Help says performance data is available only for verified profiles, and you have to be signed in to the Google Account that manages the profile. The report can show searches, views, directions, calls, website clicks, messages, and bookings. Three details matter for a lodge:
Calls are counted as clicks on the call button, and a phone number has to be on the profile.
The bookings metric counts only bookings managed through a booking provider. A blank line is not proof that nobody booked.
The booking-clicks metric applies only to hotels, so a hunting lodge or cabin should not read much into it.
Also, if you link your profile to GA4, the Google Business Profile report collection there keeps only the last 6 months, according to Analytics Help. A longer date range does not extend it. For a year-over-year view, use the profile's own Performance screen.
Google Search Console
According to Search Console Help, the Performance report defaults to the past three months. That is a poor window for an annual plan, because it misses most of the booking year. Change the date range before you export, and export both Queries and Pages.
Search Console can also split branded from non-branded queries. Google's help page says that filter starts with data from March 11, 2025, and it is not available to sites with low impressions. So you cannot rebuild branded history from before that date. If your site is small, expect to read the query list by eye and mark the branded ones yourself.
The one-page pull sheet
Here is the original piece of this post: a single sheet that keeps those four quirks on separate lines instead of blending them into one export. Label every number with where it came from and what window it covers.
GA4: full year 2026 by source and medium, key events by channel. Window: all of 2026. Note: last-click, 90-day lookback.
Booking engine: inquiries and bookings by source, compared to 2025. Note: what does "direct" include in your setup?
Business Profile: calls, website clicks, directions, from the profile's Performance screen, not the 6-month GA4 view.
Search Console: queries and pages for the full year. Note: branded filter only from March 11, 2025.
Step 2: Keep, Fix, or Cut
With the pull sheet done, sort every marketing activity into one of three piles. The test is not whether it feels productive. It is whether it shows up in inquiries or bookings, by the source your booking records give you.
Keep: it produced inquiries or bookings you can trace, at a cost you can live with. Protect its budget.
Fix: it sent real traffic or attention but the path to booking leaks. A page that gets visits but no key events, a Google profile with calls but no photos from this season, an email list nobody has written to since spring.
Cut: it produced neither traffic nor inquiries after a fair trial, and you cannot name a reason it will in 2027. Cut it and move the money.
Be fair about timing. Give slow channels like search content and email a longer look than a one-week ad, and write one sentence per activity explaining the call you made.
Step 3: Lock Your 2027 Season Dates and Booking Windows
Your calendar is only as good as the dates under it. Start from your own records: when did inquiries for each trip type arrive in 2026, and how far ahead of the trip did they book? Those two answers define your booking windows. Then build the campaign calendar backward from them. Our annual marketing calendar shows how to do that for whitetail, waterfowl, and fishing, so we will not rebuild it here.
A caution on borrowed calendars. Some national marketing guides time their campaigns to western tag-draw results. That is not how a Southeastern private-land or lodge booking window works, so do not paste one onto an Alabama or Georgia season.
Then check the official dates:
Deer and turkey dates for 2027 come from your state wildlife agency's current digest or season page. Do not publish dates until the agency does, and confirm with the agency before you print them in an ad or email.
Waterfowl has a federal layer. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under a final rule published in the Federal Register on August 31, 2026, the Service now issues a Migratory Game Bird Hunting memorandum with the authorization conditions once every 3 years, on or before February 28, while still making annual harvest decisions and updating the memorandum sooner if its frameworks call for changes. States set their seasons inside those federal conditions. The Service's August 2026 announcement said the 2026 memorandum sets conditions for the 2026-27 through 2028-29 seasons. This is a process change, not a printed 2027-28 calendar, so confirm the current memorandum and your state's selections before you promise anyone dates.
If you guide on public land, remember that rules differ by agency and by tract. Confirm with the managing agency what is allowed and what permits are required before you plan or advertise any trip there.
Step 4: Set the 2027 Budget by Factor
Skip the hunt for one magic percentage. Budget follows your situation, and the factors are worth naming. We cover them with ranges in our marketing budget calculator post; here is how to apply them in November.
Stage of the business. A new operation building awareness spends differently from an established one that mostly rebooks.
Vertical. Whitetail, waterfowl, fly fishing, and saltwater have different booking windows and different customers.
Seasonality. Money has to land before your booking window opens, not during the season itself.
Size of operation. Capacity limits how many extra inquiries you can use.
Aggregator commissions. If a share of your bookings comes through a listing site that charges commission, count that cost as marketing spend and compare it to what direct channels cost you.
Then work from your pull sheet. Start with the Keep pile, fund the Fix pile with a defined fix and a date, and treat anything new as a small, time-limited test with a stated success measure. Hold back a modest reserve for things you could not predict.
Step 5: Pick Three KPIs and Calculate Your Own Baselines
You do not need a dashboard of thirty metrics. For a lodge or outfitter, three numbers do most of the work. We have not found a public Southeastern benchmark for any of them, so the right target is your own 2026 result, improved on purpose.
Direct share: the share of inquiries or bookings that come to you without a listing site, measured the way you decided in Step 1. Define the numerator before you track it.
Inquiries: the count of real inquiries per month, by source. Count real trip requests, not every contact-form message.
Rebook rate: the share of 2026 guests who book again. As a simple example with round numbers, if 40 groups hunted with you and 10 booked again, your rebook rate is 25 percent. Those are illustrative numbers, not a benchmark.
Write the 2026 baseline for each beside a 2027 goal and a review date. A goal without a date is a wish.
The Q4 Timeline
Here is the whole job spread across the weeks, so it fits around a working lodge.
November
Week 1: Export the four reports. Fill in the pull sheet. Note anything that looks wrong rather than fixing it yet.
Week 2: Sort every activity into Keep, Fix, or Cut. Write one sentence of reasoning each.
Week 3: Pull your 2026 inquiry and booking dates by trip type to find your real booking windows.
Week 4: Check your state agency pages for 2027 dates that are already out. List the ones still pending.
December
Week 1: Build the budget from the factors above and your Keep, Fix, and Cut piles.
Week 2: Draft the 2027 calendar backward from each booking window.
Week 3: Set your three KPIs, baselines, goals, and review dates.
Week 4: Step away. A plan reviewed with fresh eyes is a better plan.
January
Week 1: Review the plan once, fix what is unclear, and share it with whoever helps you run the business.
Week 2: Schedule the first campaigns and any content that has a long lead time.
Week 3 and beyond: Start the monthly check. Our GA4 monthly ritual takes ten minutes and keeps the plan honest.
When you want to go further on measuring return, our guide to tracking leads, bookings, and lifetime customer value picks up where this checklist ends.
A Word on Advice You Find Online
Search "outfitter marketing plan 2027" and the results lean toward agency pages and generic plan questions. In one signed-out Google check on October 13, 2026, the related questions were about marketing-plan components in general. A tactic like a holiday incentive or a January 1 deadline might suit you, but it is one person's idea, not proof. Test it against your pull sheet first.
Work with Pine & Marsh
Pine & Marsh is a marketing agency built for the Southeastern outdoor industry. If you would like a second set of eyes on your 2026 numbers and your 2027 plan, book a discovery call. We will talk through what you are seeing, where the data is thin, and what is worth doing first. What you've built deserves to be found.
Start the conversation at pineandmarsh.com/contact.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which reports should a lodge export in November before writing a 2027 marketing plan?
Four: GA4 (Traffic acquisition by source and medium, plus key events), your booking engine's inquiries and bookings by source, your Google Business Profile performance data, and Search Console queries and pages. Export a full year, not the default window, and note what each tool does and does not count.
Why is Search Console's default date range a weak window for an annual plan?
According to Search Console Help, the Performance report defaults to the past three months. That misses most of a booking year, so change the date range before exporting. The branded versus non-branded filter also only includes data from March 11, 2025.
How is direct booking share different from a booking engine's no-listing-site bucket?
In OwnerRez, as one example, "direct" means an inquiry or booking with no listing site. That can include phone calls, repeat guests, and social messages, not just your website. Unless you set up custom sources, do not treat that number as your website's share.
What should a November review keep, fix, or cut?
Keep what you can trace to inquiries or bookings at an acceptable cost. Fix what draws attention but leaks before booking. Cut what produced nothing after a fair trial and has no clear reason to do better in 2027.
Which federal waterfowl change belongs on a 2027 lodge calendar?
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a final rule published August 31, 2026 changed the process so the authorization conditions are issued once every 3 years, on or before February 28, with annual harvest decisions still made. States set seasons within those conditions. Check your state agency for actual 2027-28 dates.
Which marketing numbers can a lodge set from its own books when no public benchmark exists?
Direct share, monthly inquiries by source, and rebook rate. Calculate each for 2026 from your own records, then set a 2027 goal and a review date. As of October 2026 we have not found a public Southeastern benchmark for any of the three.
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