It’s been a while since I put together a “what I’d do” post, but with a long list of ideas flying through the ol’ noggin’ this week, I think there’s a quick idea I’d like to pass on.

One of my favorite ski-related stories I’ve followed during the last half-decade is that of Salt Lake City-based Bluehouse Ski Company. During their early days, I loved the scrappy, personal style of marketing they applied to their extremely lean operation.

For example, this is one of my all-time favorite pieces of marketing:

There’s a lot of talk about influencer marketing, much of it laden with buzzwords and marketing vernacular. The best way I can describe this potentially powerful tool is this: give the right people a reason to talk.

Two Pieces
That simple statement comes with two parts: defining/finding the “right people” and giving them something to talk about. For just a second, let me focus on that second topic.

There are many ways to get people to talk. I’ve heard that Aspen’s Klout Perk of a free lift ticket and burger at Ajax Tavern earned them more reach than the X-Games did last year. The reason to talk was a freebie.

Powder Magazine’s Ski Town Throdown gained them 50k fans with very minimal talking on their part. Resort’s talked because there was a competitive/reward aspect to the promotion.

Bluehouse’s Method
In the video above, Bluehouse gave people a reason to talk simply be being different and surprising them. There’s no way they could hand deliver EVERY pair of skis, so the fact that they did to someone makes that guy or gal feel awesome.

That’s something you want to talk about.

What I’d Do
What I’d do is take a play right out of the same book by hand-delivering a few, select season passes next year. A few ideas in terms of generating this list might be:

• Klout score
• Consective years w/ a pass (5 or 10yr club)
• Prominent people
• Unique stories from deserving people (maybe accompanied by a refund of their pass price)

I’d add an extra, fun twist as well. If it’s a 10 year pass holder? Bring them a “birthday” cake in the same of a pass. If it’s someone else, like Bluehouse, make a giant Publisher Clearinghouse-sized season pass complete with their picture.

Get the PR crew involved and see if a local news crew wants to come as make a delivery to someone with a special story. Create a video of each deliver and end each with “will you be next” to motivate purchases throughout the Spring, Summer and Fall.

Reward loyalty, create content around unique stories, surprise pepole, and give them a reason to talk. That’s what I’d do.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.