For the last few months our family has been into Wordle. Even the kids are into it…well…a little TOO into it.

It’s a fun little addition to the morning routine.

After also falling in love with Worldle, the kiddos and I decided to spend a cold, lazy Saturday morning making a state-guessing version. It didn’t take me long to realize I could turn it into a resort logo guessing variation.

So, I did.

I tweeted it out a couple times, posted on Facebook and LinkedIn, and…well… that was it. No email campaign, to blog post, nothing in the nav. And what happened?

My traffic doubled for the next 48 hours.

Code as Content

I write about my marketing journey offline as well, and in one of those entries I wrote this:

“If there’s one idea I like to turn to over and over. One that capitalizes on the solve part of their problem principle in a way that’s both effective but also evergreen, it’s this: Code is content.

Don’t just write a post about beginner SEO, build a tool that helps solve one challenge they’ll face. Don’t just write about bitcoin trends, build a live tracker folks can follow. Don’t just write about social media trends, build a tool that visualizes them in real-time.”

Unlike blog post topics, there isn’t quite the endless list of tools or games to build, but every time I’ve had a good idea for a tool – whether it’s been here or on my side hustle or for Inntopia – it’s paid off big time.

Early Days

This was a big part of my strategy in the early days of SlopeFillers, if you’ll remember. I wrote a lot of content, yes, but I also wrote a ton of code.

Content built with code adds interactivity. These are things that can be used over and over again without any additional work. They’re great for SEO. And, at times, they’re easier to create than a long-form content piece. The most important thing, however, is to be sure it ties back to your brand. Don’t just make a game for the sake of a game, make a game – or tool or widget – that builds on the relationship between you and your audience.

This isn’t a strategy most resorts turn to, but, played right, I think it has more legs than folks give it credit for.

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.