People love amazing photos. It inspires them to visit, reminds them of past trips, and provide a quick pause from…well…everything.

It’s why Instagram feeds are full of amazing photos.
It’s why YouTube videos are getting more and more cinematic.
It’s why Facebook and Twitter posts do so well with a glossy pic.

And then, there’s email.

Email + Content?
We know a lot of things about email.

• It’s incredibly resilient in terms of performance
• It’s great at getting people to click and buy
• The ROI beats the pants off virtually all other channels

So what does a campaign look like that combines the power of great photos with the effectiveness of email?

Purgatory
The other day, I got this an email in my inbox from Purgatory with the subject line:

“See Last Night’s Sunset”

This is a subject line that seemed primed to pull that 1-2 punch I mentioned above, so let’s follow where it led me.

1) A Simple, Four-Part Email
When I opened the email, I wasn’t overwhelmed with a dozen options. The first block promoted all of summer, the second block promoted what I opened the email to see – sunsets – with a link to “see photos.”

An event calendar and promo box rounded out the template (and notice which offer that promo box is highlighting).

2) A Short Blog Post
Notice four things about this blog post.

1. There’s a lodging search box above it
2. They haven’t over-thought the content, it didn’t need to be long so they kept it short
3. It highlights their Room to Roam special (the same one their email template did)
4. It features an inline gallery, which keeps the visitor close to the CTA.

Content + Email
I love this simple combination of content/social strategy with the effectiveness of email.

The content was simple, beautiful, and neatly aligned to their key message (the Room to Roam special) at every step of the visitor’s journey to increase the likelihood that folks would come for the content and stay for some shopping.

Nice work, Purgatory.

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.