Season Passes (All)
Some really intriguing season pass tactics are going down at Powder Mountain right now.
BLANCHARD
I think pass sales are one of the most interesting, unique marketing aspects of the ski industry.
Watching it evolve has been fascinating as multi-resort passes have grown, rollover days experimented with, soft-deadlines balanced, crazy-low prices implemented, and quantity limits tested.
This year, Powder Mountain is doing something as unique and innovative as I’ve ever seen.
#1) Quantity Limit
First, they are only selling 3,000 passes. Period.
It’s part of a new tagline of “Preserving the Powder” and, in that context, is a very clever move.
It’s a concept that sits somewhere between Deer Valley’s daily skier cap and Epic’s hard-end to pass sales.
#2) Renewals First
We’ve seen quantity limits before, but here’s where it really gets interesting.
People who owned passes a during during any one of the last three season have 10 days to order their passes before everyone else.
#3) Showing Total Sold
Even more intriguing is the fact that PowMow is updating sales totals as they go.
The Mountain Collective kept things vague to maintain the urgency created by uncertainty…
…but this approach gives a view into pass sales that most skiers probably aren’t used to. And, so being, it’s hard to tell what effect it is/could having on them.
#4) Still Price Tiers
Whether sales forecasts said passes wouldn’t be gone by June 1 or just old habit, a price increase could still happen if passes remain at the end of May.
The table looks like any other year.
While this may look like a lack of confidence in their limits, I really like that they have some backup excuses to push marketing messages and create urgency in the case pass sales aren’t moving along too quickly at that point.
Very Intriguing
But the one thing gets the wheels turning the most is the duo of renewals go first and limited quantities.
This year renewals only accounted for about 30% of sales (so far). But imagine a few years from now or imagine if the passes sell out really quickly once they’re open to the public.
Next year you’d have more urgency for the renewals because of the urgency that would follow. The faster they sell out each year more more momentum and urgency they carry into the next, slowly creating a group of 3,000 skiers who not just buy every year, but do so extremely quickly. And, so being, self-generate an exclusive club of powder skiers that gets harder and harder to join.
There’s a long way between here and becoming the Lambeau field of skiing and passholders, but man, the potential is really intriguing.
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.
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