“This week is website week. We’ll be covering everything from case studies to owning your channels and what you can do to be ready come redesign time. Enjoy.”

With resort websites on the griddle this fine, Wednesday mornin’, I figured I’d serve up some right fresh cookin’ from a few non-resort kitchens.

These ideas take different amounts of innovation and technology to git goin’, but hopefully they’ll also git the wheel turning about what could be so as the tech matures, you’ll be rip roarin’ and ready to go.

I have no idea where that intro came from. Onward!

Freeskier: Nibbles & Bits

WHAT IT IS
A sort of mini-blog that lives on their website. Used for fun/important bits of info that aren’t worthy of a full article or post.

WHAT IT DOES
It gives them more reasons to send people to the site and lacks the obligations of length or review processes of other posts. See an cool bit of content? Embed as a “bit”, publish, and push to social media. Extra traffic for you with very little effort.

Groupon: Finish Personalizing

WHAT IT IS
A progress indicator and smart wording for new signups/leads to motivate profile completion after providing basics like an email address and location.

WHAT IT DOES
Getting more information about guests isn’t too hard. Their transactions, and the data gathered along the way, can speak volumes to who they are. Leads, on the other hand, are another story. With many leads coming through a “sign up for deals” flow right on the resort’s website.

Rather than just ask for a long list of info like many resort sites do, I think Groupon has the wording right when they say:

“We can give you better deals if we know a bit about you.”

The progress bar motivates action and helps build out a profile for new leads to help convert more of them into paying customers.

Hotels.com: Three More Nights

WHAT IT IS
An rewards system progress indicator that lives on every page of a resort’s site.

WHAT IT DOES
Rewards systems work by motivating people to buy from the same place repeatedly to earn/unlock a benefit. However, most rewards systems live on cards that spend 99.9% of their lives in a customer’s wallet.

Having a visual reminder that shows up every time I’m on a resort’s webpage keeps those benefits in mind and motivation high to add one more “punch” to their card.

That’s It
I said simple and I meant it.

Too often we look for what Marketing Experiments calls “radical redesigns” to improve our websites. Yet, none of these are radical and, with a little tech, can generate more traffic, turn more leads into sales, and drive more incremental sales from customers. Each of these could have been added long after the original design and build was complete.

Sometimes, making a better site requires an overhaul. But sometimes it doesn’t.

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.