A little over a year ago I was sitting at dinner with a handful of NASJA folks included Gunstock’s Bill Quigley.

Bill, among other things, said something that keeps coming up as I dig deeper into successful marketing strategy. My brain stored what he said as such:

“When it comes down to it, you’ve just gotta go where your customers are.”

What’s even crazier than how obvious it seems is how often we as marketers do the opposite. The numbers says people love something. That, in effect, that’s where they are. But because WE think it’s uncool, we make fun of it instead of capitalize.

Much More
And while it certainly applies to distribution and lift tickets and ad buys, I think you’ve already considered its implications with the product as well.

For example, living outside of the Vail Valley again has reminded me that most people aren’t anti-GMO and most people don’t insist on everything organic. In that sense, I’m tempted to write off those dietary habits as fads or, at the least, a trend not worth watching.

But skiers aren’t most people. And those Colorado mountain towns, with their concetrated skier population, do a great job of magnifying what resonates with core skiers and, in effect, helping us marketers to see where they are.

And Even More
But more than that, it shows us where skiers with money are.

An interesting side-effect of things like the farm-to-table movement is that, because of the price, it naturally filters out those who can’t afford it. So when I see stuff like this:

We're adding a brand new festival to our lineup this Summer! Introducing Farm Fresh Fest coming August 29th-30th. pic.twitter.com/2grQ7zxMXK

— Wachusett Mountain (@Wachusett) May 10, 2015

I have to give a silent round of applause and say, “well done, Wachusett, well done” because they’re taking their summer products where their most valuable skiers are.

Simple and Clever
It’s a clever, one-time combination of farmers’ markets and the usual festivals resorts put together.

It caters not only to the direction skiers are going, but offers an olive branch to a quickly-growing culture of organic food fans who aren’t yet skiers or may ski a different resort that doesn’t yet cater to their kind.

However you slice it, it’s a simple, well-played approach. Good stuff.

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.