Back when I first started SlopeFillers I used to share lists of topics I hoped to study, learn about, and eventually master.

This included things like pricing, product strategy, and branding.

But despite feeling more and more novice the deeper I get into the world of resort marketing, I haven’t shared one of these lists publicly for a while. So today, I am.

#1) Social “Lurkers”
I recently shared how many people are active in terms of posting, but I’m hoping to learn more about the rest. Are there lurkers who still see your tweets?

#2) Impact of Weather
One thing I’m hoping to understand better is the tradeoff skiers make between weather risk and advanced-purchase risk.

#3) Video Play Counts
With each platform (YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc.) measuring play counts a little bit differently, I want to better understand how 1,000 plays on each stack up in terms of value.

#4) Psychology of Trail Counts / Acreage
I keep hearing skiers talk about getting “bored” at smaller mountains. I want to better understand the psychology behind why when the data show most skiers ski the same runs/lifts over and over.

#5) Pricing Strategy
It was on my first lists and it’s still there: I simply want to get better at the dynamics of pricing strategy.

#6) Content Curation
One big one I want to learn is if there’s a place for resorts to do more real content curation and less creation.

#7) Bloggers
I’m a blogger, yet I often feel less-than-confident as I talk to and deal with other bloggers in a marketing or partnership situation. I want to get more views and better education on this outreach.

#8) Resurfacing Old Content
Just like you, I have a lot of old content that still carries value. I want to learn ways we both can extract that value.

#9) Email as Distribution
On that note, I’m intrigued by ways email is being used as a content distribution channel and I want to better understand the best practices within that.

#10) Paid Social Reach
I’ve dabbled, but many of you are pros. Through both more experimentation and learning from you, I want to better understand the ins and outs of paid social promotion.

#11) Press Releases
It’s something I’m not the best at but can be huge when done right. I want to learn more about what goes into a really successful press release and release distribution.

#12) Web App Lessons
Web apps and SaaS have become a massive, well-tuned industry. I feel like there is a lot we can learn from that movement and, as you guessed, I hope to learn it.

#13) Scaling Great Service
Some resorts, even tiny operations, have it dialed. Others simply lack an semblance of guest concern. I want to better understand how/why which is which.

#14) Print Media
This list is clear evidence of how web-heavy I am with my efforts. I really want to better understand what resorts are doing that’s working in print media.

#15) TV Commercials
Same with TV. I know resorts put out commercials, but they are so hard to find when ads are so hard to see outside of a specific market. I want to understand who is doing TV and how they’re succeeding.

#16) Why People Ski
I feel like we all think we know why people ski but the deeper, hidden reasons are just that, hidden. There’s some powerful stuff in our motivations to shred, and I want to learn more about them.

Have any personal learning goals you hope to tackle in 2016?

Let’s hear ’em!

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.