Reach. It’s a buzzword, yes, but it also has a valuable meaning. In the ongoing effort to have more reach via twitter, Facebook, YouTube, search rankings, etc., Killington has decided to reach further, to cell phones.

Yesterday, i noticed this tweet:

Intrigued about the details, I got in contact with Killington’s PR guy, Tom Horrocks. I asked a few quick questions. Simply put, it’s brand spankin’ new. They’re promoting it via social media right now as well as on their snow conditions page and they are using it initially for their opening day buzz and announcement (which, by the way, is today, congrats!).   In fact, their first text went out yesterday.  It makes sense to try and I’m interested to hear how it goes for them.

A few texting services I’ve heard of are:

• http://www.sumotext.com/(one of the best)
• http://www.optit.com/
• http://www.eztexting.com/
• http://trumpia.com/

The thing I haven’t heard of is other resorts using text updates although I am sure they are out there. If you know of any others, please let me know

UPDATE (11/3/2010): It looks like Northstar-at-Tahoe has an awesome SMS system setup using TxtWire (see comments for more). Okemo also has a clever one setup using MsgMe (also, see comments below for details). Mt Bachelor used a program a few years ago but abandoned it due to lack of participation.

UPDATE (11/4/2010): Brundage in Central Idaho has been running a successful 5″+ alert campaign through SMS for about 3 years now. Details in comments area below.

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.