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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Web Renders Traditional Marketing History, Say New England ProsBy Craig Altschul 
Ski Butternut's Matt Sawyer agrees. "The Web has allowed us to be much more in control of our message. Viral marketing, like having a strong presence on MySpace and Face Book, is very important to the younger market segment." The Industry Report checked in with these two venerable, but smaller, New England resorts and their veteran marketing executives to see how things have changed in their decade-plus on the job when it comes to luring the paying guests. Both are in Massachusetts, with Boston as Meyers' prime market, and New York as Sawyer's. Meyers began his career at Stratton Mountain, Vt., while Sawyer jump-started his at then-new Whitetail Resort in Penn. Both agree the biggest change caused by the onrush of the Internet is a shift in advertising from far less print (almost none) and much smaller brochures. Wachusett's primary collateral piece used to be a 28-page, four color brochure. It's just a four-panel piece this season. Sawyer says older mass marketing venues like newspapers, radio, and TV are receiving much smaller buys from Butternut "partly because their penetration in being victimized by numerous Web-based options, and partly because we have downsized our overall budgets." Public Relations efforts have evolved as well, to the point where the traditional ski writer of yore is of little relevance. "The number of calls from newspaper ad sales reps has increased, but when I ask them if they have a ski column, they don't know. I tell them to call me back when they have one." They seldom call back. He notes the ski writers today are, well, "mature." Meyers points to how the Web has changed the way reporters (not only ski writers) get their news. "I haven't done a printed press kit for at least five years," he says. He just targets his releases electronically to the writers potentially most interested. He cited his major story last year was on a ski train from Boston and this year's piece on fueling snow cats with biodiesel as examples that got solid pick-up via electronic targets. The competitive trends among the small-to-medium resorts got both marketers' attention. "I see much more price competition," Sawyer said. "We used to be able to compete that way, but today, the bigger areas, aggressive for more visits, are making numerous price-oriented offers to guests. We have to keep dialing in on our true market and feeding the funnel." Meyers believes the trends are created by the Web. "We can pre-sell and the customer can pre-buy like never before. Being based in a high Web-user market like Boston makes the opportunity even more dramatic. "Another trend is the customers' demand for service. Our ski area can't grow in size, so the only way we can grow is in service. So, we've based an entire marketing campaign on 'the eight-hour vacation.' This kind of experienced-based marketing can create word-of-mouth that can far exceed traditional marketing." Biggest challenges they face? Start with the weather, or as Meyers puts it, "pray, pray, pray, and pray." The "backyard syndrome" has always been a deal breaker for the closer-in ski areas. That hasn't changed. "We can have edge-to-edge coverage and it can be green grass 20 minutes away in Worcester. We have to constantly reinforce or snow guarantee." Sawyer cites the myopic view many New Yorkers have that "when it's raining in the City, many who live there think it's raining all over the world." He says the other huge challenge is balancing the weekday and weekend crowd numbers. "I see so many guests who appear overwhelmed when they get here on a holiday weekend, and few ski areas can put their best foot forward at those times." He believes one of the other huge challenges is competing for "time poor" families. "Our kids are into so many activities they don't have time to go skiing or snowboarding." Both Meyers and Sawyer are happy to still be doing what they love. "I wake up every day and feel so fortunate I can work in this environment. I love the energy, the long hours, and the low pay. Did I say that?" Yes, Meyers said that. Sawyer? "We're marketing fun. We have to keep it fun." « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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