“As a lover of simplicity, I like to highlight resort marketing that is both effective but incredibly simple in execution. This is one of those examples.”

My dad has something that he calls a “Barstow List”. A collection of friends he’d love to drag along were he to drive the 8 hours from Salt Lake City, UT to Barstow, CA again (you can guess why he created the list in the first place).

The people on this list aren’t necessarily celebrities, but rather interesting, intelligent people who are also great conversationalists who would make you want to drive a little slower to prolong the pleasure of their company.

These people have great stories to tell.

Need Stories, Just Ask
When looking for stories about your mountain, there are a handful of ways to approach this task. Shawnee Peak, ME took the simple one: they asked.

Which Shawnee Peak Employee would you most like to ride a chairlift with?

— Shawnee Peak Maine (@ShawneePeakME) February 19, 2013

Their Facebook post with the same message produced a “Barstow List” with dozens of names and reason for each choice. From what I saw, they could even skip the high-priced sweepstakes and hold a contest where the winner gets a chair ride up with everyone’s favorite liftie.

However they use their newly acquired storylines, I love the simplicity is asking your fans for ideas.

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.