Each fall skiers get the pre-season itch to get back on the boards. It doesn’t matter how bad the previous season was, all they remember was that one great day of good snow, excellent weather, marvelous friends and all they think of is skiing. So, they turn to reading about skiing, and skiers devour every word, memorize every picture, listen to any scant words of commentary.
It is the perfect time to try and get your message across to the skier. Every new lift, every new trail, every new coat of paint on the chipped surface of his favorite bar is news to the pre-season skier.
A vacuum is created and for the most part newspapers have rushed forth to fill it with that wonderful, money-making Fall idea, the Ski Supplement.
Ski Supplements to newspapers are good for everyone. They are good for the skier since they bring him the ski news he hungers for at the moment. They are good for the newspaper, since the supplement normally picks up new accounts for advertising, accounts that are not found on the pages of the paper daily, and new business is good business. The supplements can also be good news for ski area operators, lodge owners, any businessman who benefits from the ski industry.
As supplements keep getting larger, the number of news columns available in them increases in a ratio with the increase of advertising. The need for material to fill the ski supplements has increased greatly in the past few years, and many ski areas have quickly moved to take advantage of this essentially free space.
Some supplements require that an area take an ad in order to get a story printed about their area. Check closely to determine if this supplement is included in a newspaper that has a coverage area hitting your market of skiers. If it does, perhaps an ad is called for, but operators must remember that many times it is required of them to furnish the story as well.
Other supplements separate the advertising from the editorial copy, but ski areas still have an excellent opportunity to get news of improvements, changes, anything about their areas into print, by making sure the material reaches the ski editor.
Many operators direct most of their attention at the major metropolitan markets. Attention to the major markets is certainly necessary, but the newspaper serving the smaller cities and suburbs where the area also draws skiers, can reach a great many persons on a different level than the major metropolitan daily. Don’t overlook the newspapers in your area, while sending press folders and releases to writers 100’s of miles away.
Every operator should be familiar with all the ski writers in his entire market area. They should call them, write them, make sure they get releases, and be sure they have material for the all-important ski supplement.
Ski supplements need good copy, but they also need good pictures. Good ski pictures will get used. Editors like ski pictures and many that don’t get into the ski supplement will wind up on regular pages of many newspapers during the season especially early in the season.
On the other hand, bad ski pictures, photos filled with too many people, obviously posed shots that try to appear candid, just bad photo-journalism, is worse than not sending a picture.
Getting news and pictures into ski supplements is especially important, since many skiers keep the supplement around most of the season, referring back to it for ideas, checking its maps, seeing who has snowmaking, a nursery, or any one of hundreds of items that might suddenly become important some Friday afternoon in January.
Even if a newspaper does not publish a supplement, many writers begin ski columns early and need early season material, most of it about areas and any changes they may have made.
The space in ski supplements is there, many ski areas are taking advantage of that fact and getting a lot of free space. Every area, no matter what its size or location, should make sure some of that valuable free space comes his way.
