When I was a kid, I participated in a school-related program called Odyssey of the Mind. Our task was to build a machine that moved different sized boxes and letters into specific parts of a 40′ x 40′ square. The catch, only the machine could be inside that area.

Our solution was a conveyor with bars above, angled and positioned to catch progressively smaller objects and slide them to one side of the conveyor, carefully segmenting the objects placed into our machine.

I’m tell you this story for one reason: this may be what your Spring pass sales are doing to your skiers.

The Data
The initial question I had was this: does the time of year (eg, Spring vs Fall) impact the likelihood a skier will renew their season pass? Here’s what I found:

The easy answer is that, yes, it does impact renewal rates. But it got me thinking, what if speading out pass sales effectively segments your skiers by their level of dedication? The guys/gals that know without a doubt they’ll be skiing next year, order immediately. Those unconvinced their skiing desire will be worthy of a pass come November, wait until then to buy.

Like our conveyor, each deadline and promotion is like a teacher standing in front of a class and saying, “who’s gonna ski 15+ days next year?”

The Follow Up
Remember, this is my theory and I want to see if I’m right. So, I’m already starting to pull more data that correlates when someone buys their pass to how many days they ski that season.

If the theory holds, this may be a simple way to segment skiers by the invisible fire that burns in some skiers’ bellies. I’m excited to see what I find.

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.