There are many reasons mega passes (or whatever we want to call Epic/Ikon) are so powerful, but one of the most critical given the last stretch of winter is that tricky combination of weather and risk when buying a pass.

Buy a pass at one mountain and there’s, let’s say, a 25% chance you’ll get a lousy winter.

But buy a pass good at ten mountains in ten different areas dispersed not just East and West, but North and South? Well, suddenly the chances of every resort on your pass having a lousy winter goes to just about zero.

Surprised
Which is why I was a bit surprised by the thought that followed seeing this tweet from the Powder Alliance:

Did you know that the Mt. Hood Fusion Pass includes a free Powder Alliance membership that allows you to ski free at an additional 17 resorts! Enjoy 51 days at 17 other premier winter destinations. Get the best deal if you purchase by Nov. 4th at https://t.co/NcgZBRptK0 pic.twitter.com/hi9cT71kIH

— Mt Hood Skibowl (@skibowl) October 15, 2018

Quick sidebar: I actually never found the snow report sign up form mentioned in the image, so I’m referring to the concept only below.

That thought, focused on the call to action in the image rather than the text, was:

“Yeah, if part of the reason I’d buy a pass like that is so I always have somewhere with good snow on my pass, why haven’t I ever seen a mega pass powder alert before?”

Let me be clear, I’m not saying they don’t exist (they very well could), I’m simply curious why they haven’t been pushed hard enough for someone like me – in both Epic and Ikon markets and constant watcher of all things resort marketing – to see it.

In my mind, it’s as strong of an email campaign to tie to these passes as there is.

Always Good News
Think about it, if you have an email that’s forecasting powder days across a dozen mountains, you’re almost always going to have good news. You know how Warren Miller used to say something to the effect of:

“It’s always snowing, somewhere, right now?”

Yeah, these passes can almost say the same thing during the winter.

Highlights That Area of Value
And so being, it really highlights that aspect of value in these passes for everyone on that list. If you’re sending, say, a weekly powder alert email when a resort on your pass is forecasted to get 6”+, people on that list are going to see a steady rotation of powder alerts from dozens of different mountains all over the country, reminding them that this pass gives them access to that non-stop supply of powder even if their backyard or local mountain is more rocks and grass than snow.

Great for Nurturing Leads
Any what better way to nurture leads than to have a branded powder forecast they can sign up for. Whether it’s folks that bought a non-pass product to one of those mountains or a true prospect, a regular alert is considered a service but for all the reasons above gets them more and more in tune with the opportunities created by becoming a passholder.

Skinning the Cat
On a simple level, every mountain on a pass could simply show a quick snapshot of forecasts and conditions at all other mountains below their own at the bottom of snow report emails, or maybe they just agree to all retweet each others snow report posts each morning on Twitter or perhaps it’s the last 30 seconds of the snow phone recording if you’ve still got that going.

However the cat is skinned, I think there’s a big opportunity here for multi-resort passes to drive home the value through a service-oriented message like a snow report.

Props to the Powder Alliance for seeing that and, as far as I can tell, pushing it first.

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.