It has been said that if the National Ski Areas Association did no other marketing of the sport except to disseminate among member areas valuable ideas they can use in selling new business, it will have done its job. This book is a reminder of the strength underlying such a marketing philosophy. It gathers together successful promotions that have been tried by ski areas and pinpoints what they accomplished.
Physically, “101-Plus Great Marketing Ideas” comes in a three-ring binder so that future ideas can be added. Apparently some more did arrive before publication, because the book already gives 105 case histories from the marketing files of the nation’s ski areas. The project had been assigned by NSAA to Ski Area Management and the book was prepared by that publication’s executive editor, Janet Nelson, under NSAA’s direction. This new publication is being sent free to association members, with additional copies available at $25 each. non-members can order it at a cost of $100.
If you want to crib a good selling idea from another ski area (and that’s the idea of the book), the organization of the contents makes it easy to do. Ideas are grouped in 10 categories.
Attracting New Skiers describes 11 promotions areas have used to attract mostly never-evers to take up the sport. Most of the ideas are variations of pricing and packages—lessons, equipment rental and lifts—used to attract newcomers. The usefulness of the book is in gathering all these variations in one place.
Building Midweek Business is a surprisingly varied section of promotions ski areas have employed to sell Monday-to-Friday skier days. They range from discount coupons with an ad in the Los Angeles Times that built 12 percent more skiers midweek at Snow Valley in California to a unique way of tying lift ticket prices to hours of the day skied at Bromont, Quebec. Other effective promotions include special days for children when schools are closed by snowstorms and the sale of a season pass good on one day of each week all season.
Creating Package Plans offers an abundance of pricing ideas tied to skier services. Quadna Mountain Resort in Minnesota, between Sunday and Thursday, for example, gives free skiing, cross-country, indoor tennis and sauna on the day following an overnight stay at any of the area-owned or managed lodges. In one season, it sold almost 1,000 more nights of lodging at $60 per room.
Encouraging Repeat Business provides ideas on getting the customer to buy more skier days. Eight of the 12 ideas are price-related, but more significant perhaps is evidence that ski areas are finally understanding the value of creating lists of customers to whom they sell more skier days by direct mail followup. It is remarkable how long it has taken for ski resorts to pick up on a system of marketing used, for example, by the most successful retailers indoor tennis operators.
“101-Plus Great Ski Marketing Ideas” also covers the selling of off-peak vacation periods, creating more services to enhance the ski experience, targeting special categories of skiers, developing new marketing tools, overcoming problems and working with non-ski partners. Oddly enough, few ideas are offered on working with ski shops.
For strategy-minded marketing directors, incidentally, the book provides a remarkable overview of the strengths and weaknesses of current ski area marketing. For example, the industry’s most innovative thinking seems to come in attempts to sell mid-week business and more skiing frequency. When it comes to fostering new skiers, the creative process is limited mostly to variations of package prices. And the results, measured against the nation-wide notion that we need to create millions of new skiers, are minor. Gains range from a few hundred to three thousand skiers, not all of them necessarily newcomers.
Measured against an objective of generating more skier days, it would be intriguing to see how much more effectively NSAA might spend its limited marketing funds by expanding on the content of this new book. For example, future editions could include visual samplings of promotional materials. A traveling seminar, equipped with audio-visual aids, could supply information across the country.
Even as it stands now, though, “101-Plus Great Ski Marketing Ideas” represents a promising and highly useful start in helping an individual ski area to sell effectively. Multiplied by the efforts of 400 areas, the results could be nothing short of powerful.
—John Fry
Clearly, after 16 years, the efforts of 400 ski areas fell rather short of “powerful.” In fact, we seem to have ended up right back where we started.
While there is nothing off-target with NSAA’s “new” handbook of best practices, a review of 40 ski area programs that are successful in attracting and keeping skiers (for full story, see page 77), it is ultimately an old concept that has been repackaged. And it is not to belittle the excellent new package to say that many of the ideas are, understandably, updated variations on old themes.
So, why have we come full circle? Sixteen years ago we faced a flat market and knew something had to be done. Books were put together, marketing campaigns launched, seminars were presented, yet the needle has not budged.
Over these same 16 years we have seen some areas close while others flourish and all of it accomplished without a single increase in skier numbers. Instead, and unfortunately, it was done by recarving the pie.
Maybe it’s time we stop looking at the same numbers every year with renewed resolve to do something about them, and actually do it. The current NSAA, while presenting the same numbers as 16 years ago, might have improved the scenario by also throwing in the fact that these numbers will actually decrease dramatically over the next 15 years unless we achieve our retention and introduction goals. Is it enough of a wake-up call? Or, will this handbook go the way of “101-Plus Great Ski Marketing Ideas?” If it does, look for a new version in 2017—but don’t expect the message to be much different from the first two versions.
—Jennifer Rowan
