For a couple of my teenage years, my family would use our fall break from school to spend a couple days in Jackson Hole. Whatever cheap hotel we chose, they were all on the side of town nearest to Snow King.

I’d often wander over, hike to the summer, inspect the snowmaking equipment, and wander through the lodge. For whatever reason, those memories are some of my favorites so on days like today when I’m letting my brain explore ideas to write about, I often think of Snow King.

And, just as often, I may visit their site. This time, however, I was greeting with this.

As you know, I live in Utah, so the fact this was geo-targeted quickly piqued my interest. Click on the link and you’ll find a special offer for mountain residents living in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Idaho.

Eager to explore this a bit more, I started asking some of my fellow Inntopians to take screenshots as well. Donnie Clapp in Texas got a more generic message after he turned off his ad blocker (an interesting side-effect of using a very common platform for popovers, Qualtrics in this case).

The rest of the gang came out like this thanks to my fellow remote employees and Donnie remembering that a VPN could provide more locations :)

• Montana: Nothing
• Steamboat, Colorado: Nothing
• Denver, Colorado: Nothing
• South Carolina: Nothing
• California: Generic popover (25% off)
• Chicago: Nothing
• Denver: Nothing
• Florida: Generic popover (25% off)
• New York: Nothing
• London: Nothing
• Silicon Valley: Nothing

Modern technology, pretty fun for a nerdy marketer. A few thoughts based on the results.

First, I love that Snow King is giving the geo-targeted messages a go. The more specific the group you talk to, the more relevant those messages can be. I may have ended up digging into this for marketing reasons, I noticed because it spoke to my home state.

Second, I think it’s fascinating what is being targeted. Probably some not-very-granular insight into Snow King’s key markets, but could also be attributed to a lack of accuracy with IP location databases (which can be hit or miss, but seem to be getting better). Either way, I dig the fact it’s just just a blanker “everybody gets the same thing” offer. Smart move.

Third, I’m excited to see where this technology goes, especially in ski. We have very different messages between drive and fly markets, locals and destination skiers, so there are certainly some exciting places to take this if it proves to move the needle.

Some may argue with the medium (popovers), but I love the innovation on the message. Good stuff, Snow King.

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.