Robbie Hickman of Virginia Beach, Virginia writes:
“After having been involved in the ski travel industry, I’m starting my own group ski travel business called Snow Adventures.
“So far, business is good, but I’m looking for inventive ideas for marketing. My business focuses on but isn’t limited to school groups, church youth groups, corporate outings and the military. Our groups primarily visit the ski resorts in the mid-Atlantic, however I just booked a group for Vail, Colorado. I have relied on direct mailings and cold call selling but would like to expand my marketing approach. Can your Hounds help with marketing and publicity ideas?”
Hi Robbie,
Have you thought of quick easy promotion by stickers?? we do custom made vinyl stickers for cheap, and we have a ton of businesses that use us for promotion and marketing projects. If your company has a catchy slogan, a unique web address, or any thing you want printed we can create and send out to you in 2-3 weeks, a quick, affordable, and effecient way to STICK in your customers/markets head. email me at brian@stickerjunkie.com for special bulk order prices or also for any special discount prices going on. Hope this can help
Hi Robbie,
Love the pictures and layout of your website. Even makes a Floridian want to swoosh!
You are obviously a seasoned professional in the group travel arena. Being married to a former youth pastor, I know you’re an absolute godsend to the groups you lead. You need to get the word out on your valuable service!
I have a couple of ideas that might be helpful to you. First, I noticed a number of grammatical errors on the “Our Service” area. Fixing these small problems will give your site a more professional look. If you’d like some help with that, just let me know.
The other idea is that you could contact publications like Group (www.groupmag.com) and sites like http://www.youghpastor.com with press releases or to advertise with them.
Hope these ideas are helpful. Think snow!
I specialize in PR and marketing for travel-related organizations. At this stage in your company’s development, here are my suggestions:
1) your web site is not at all search engine friendly. A quick search engine optimization project will help you within weeks, and continue boosting your business for many years.
2) test Google Adwords ads for terms like “group travel” plus any variant of “ski”.
3) fix all typos on your site.
These are short-term projects. In the long term, I’d build a custom media list relevant to your service offering, and I’d begin issuing news-worthy press releases to that list, perhaps quarterly. Your goal here is to build name recognition at the appropriate media outlets. Once you have name recognition, you can begin getting to know a few key journalists, for whom you’ll hope to become a trusted resource. Naturally, this is more of a long-term proposition.
If you have follow-up questions, feel free to contact me through my website, http://mccoll.net .
Best regards,
Michael McColl
—
McColl Communications
Marketing and PR for the Travel Industry
Hi Robbie,
Have you considered offering reduced or complimentary press trips? There are numerous companies that cater to writers on assignment who would love to come out and ski then offer great stories to a variety of magazines and newspapers, even trade pubs. GoTravelNews is one source, good luck!
Loretta
Hi Robbie,
My idea is to organise and promote a ‘Snow Adventures Olympics’. It’s a competition where you have different teams competing against each other eg the school kids versus the military team in different events which are both fun and serious. As well as drumming up some business through the event I’m sure you could use some of the photos for press releases to promote your business or better still invite the media down.
Good luck!
Sally – England
Robbie,
It’s easy to find those who like to follow the snow. Contact the largest ski club organizations (the two biggest ones are in Kansas City and Atlanta), present your ideas and put trips together. Another idea is to find a demographic niche (such as twenty-somethings who work in high tech industries) and put together a trip for them. Go to http://www.jigsaw.com for names and email addresses of those at companies you can contact. Lastly, become very effective at using the telephone to make connections. (As a Publicity Hound note, you may want to check out my book: “Selling to Anyone Over the Phone” for new ideas.) Good luck and have fun while on the slopes!
Renee Walkup
Robbie,
Your service sounds like a prime winter break activity for college students. Start by identifying ten large campuses and employ a student to post flyers and organize groups in exchange for a free or reduced trip. Position your resorts as the Cancun of winter break and offer themed group trips like “extreme snowboarding”.
Robbie,
Your website features lovely pictures–they will definitley get people excited about skiing!
Research various ski publications and pitch an article to them that features some valuable infomormation on skiing techniques, locations, etc. Then, in the bio, mention your company and include your contact info. (People who like skiing will obviously be reading these publications.) Also, since you’re starting up this business, pitch something to magazines that cater to entrepreneurs. Write a column providing tips for other like-minded business people to get their new companies up and running. Then, as in the ski publcations, put your contact information in the bio.