skip to main content

Perspectives
TwoTwo Tuesdays: Resort Print Ads and Marketing Team Changes

divider image for this post
GREGG
BLANCHARD
   

Again, a big thank you to everyone who answered the question from the last round. Today, TwoTwo Tuesday’s roll on with another question / survey result. Let’s start with the results from two weeks ago.

Round 3 – RESULTS: Aside from on-mountain marketing, does your resort do any print advertising? Why/why not & where?
YES: 100%
NO: 0%

“Still doing print for some local newspaper and newsletter, plus endemic print ads. Still feel that print helps make a well rounded marketing mix hitting people in different ways at different times.

Our resort focuses our marketing efforts on families and first time skiers/riders. Most of our print advertising budget goes to smaller family magazines and circulars in the region (coupon books, travel guides, local circulars and community newspapers/newsletters). We are able to reach more people for less and connect with the market that comes to our resort more effectively. No sense is spending big bucks for a full page ad when you can get multiple ads/multiple designs through out the season for the same prize with more reach.

Yes we are in the local newspapers very regularly.

In local and regional newspapers to reach people who are within driving distance and have the ability to make spontaneous decisions to come visit but who are not necessarily our engaged customers already.

Print is still a viable display medium to capture those that do not engaged in digital advertising.much harder to track and determine effectiveness over CPC.

Local newspapers – our local papers are very well-read by both locals and visitors alike. Posters in coffee shops – cause they’re fun to do and they get seen and are good awareness pieces small publications in the closest city – for our fall season’s pass sale we went with student newspapers and free pubs that are well-read on public transit we also did a local direct mail campaign for our season pass sale last fall – tried it because we hadn’t done one in quite sometime- great results on sales as well as anecdotal response on the campaign branding.

We’re stepping away from a lot of print advertising, but not all of it. We pretty laser-sharp where we spend our print advertising dollars these days, focusing on area and regional winter guides and industry magazines/publications. We still print brochures, although we’re considering cutting way back on our distribution. I’d be curious if other ski areas are doing the same.

We do some local & region niche publications, in most cases for full or partial trade. We spend very little actual cash on print.

Yes we are in the local newspapers very regularly.”

Round 4: Will you be expanding, shrinking, or keeping your marketing team as-is next season?

PS – This is my early list of future questions. Let me know if one sounds more intriguing than the others.

  • Do you list your resort’s lodging on OTAs like Trevlocity, Hotels.com, etc.?
  • Does your ski area have/use a specific hashtag?
  • Is growing your resort’s email list a priority?
  • What’s more important to you, watching ADR or RevPAR?
  • Does your resort sponsor athletes?
  • Is any of the marketing communication to your guests automated?


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.

Get the weekly digest.

New stories, ideas, and jobs delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.