Three Aspen, CO booster organizations have pooled their resources to create a seven-figure marketing budget for the ski resort town. By working together, they are avoiding duplication, and taking advantage of some economies of scale.
A fair share of the money will go to direct response television ads for the time being, but the groups are also relying on the Internet and highly targeted electronic mail. The Aspen Chamber Resort Association, Stay Aspen Snowmass and Aspen Skiing Co. will work together on some efforts and coordinate their individual campaigns.
Not that Aspen is a hard sell: The resort area has seen a 6% decline in tourism, while the rest of Colorado has experienced drops of between 8% and 12%. The worst hit came after Sept. 11, when visits fell by 9%, according to Paul Rossi, director of marketing for the Aspen Chamber Resort Association.
Rossi's organization reduced its marketing budget by 10% this year to $400,000. Just over $300,000 of that was eaten up earlier in the year by an unsuccessful direct mail and Web site effort by an outside agency.
“The results were less than favorable,” Rossi said. “We had two [mail] campaigns with zero follow-up.”
After the first 125,000-piece effort went out in February, the association killed the second mailing and has since pulled its effort in house, and will be using online marketing for the remainder of the year. The group gets its marketing dollars from a tax levied on lodging.
The association teamed up with two other organizations and made a joint buy of 3.3 million banner impressions on America Online for $42,000. Had they bought the impressions separately, they would have been able to afford only 2 million.
An initial test of 367,000 exposures yielded clickthrough rates of 6% in Dallas and 7% in Los Angeles. An upcoming 3.2 million-impression buy will roll out this month, targeting consumers in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Chicago and Denver, although some of the inventory will be set aside for the Gay and Lesbian Ski Week in late January.
The remainder of the Chamber Resort Association's online budget is slated for Freeskier.com (a magazine and Web site aimed at powder enthusiasts) as well as deals with Orbitz, Travelocity and several last-minute booking agents. As with AOL, any buys they make will be co-op buys with the other two marketing partners.
The Aspen Skiing Co. and Stay Aspen Snowmass will each conduct direct response television campaigns. They'll also send both postal and electronic mail.
The Aspen Skiing Co. has placed a lot of effort in building its database during the past five years. It now consists of 1 million names of current customers, tourists who haven't contacted it during the past two years, and some inquirers.
In addition to capturing consumers' interests and demographic information (either through its Web site, Aspensnowmass.com, or when they purchase lift tickets) it has also gleaned e-mail addresses for roughly 10% of the file, all of which are opt-in.
While most of Aspen Skiing's efforts still rely on traditional mail, e-mail has proven useful in generating quick responses to new initiatives. It also will conduct five or six traditional mail initiatives starting this month and lasting throughout the season, according to director of marketing Jeanne Mackowski. Most of these will focus on “front range” skiers — those who live in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction.
“We're sending out the right amount of mail and e-mail,” she says. Last year was a test year, in which the company determined what the right number of efforts was, both online and off. This year, Mackowski is looking to segment its mail pieces more finely, targeting families, or younger skiers, for instance, with different messages.
She's also getting more aggressive about asking for “added value” with Aspen's media buys, requiring that vendors throw mail or e-mail lists into the purchase.
With the smallest portion of the marketing budget, Stay Aspen Snowmass increasingly will rely on electronic marketing, according to vice president for marketing and sales Ann Wilkinson. Its one planned nod to traditional mail will be a postcard to 10,000 former guests who live in the San Francisco area. United Airlines recently announced that it would begin service between Aspen and San Francisco, and Wilkinson wants to time her efforts to coincide with the 2003 Gay and Lesbian Ski Week.
But Wilkinson will be kept in the loop of any marketing efforts the other two do: Stay Aspen Snowmass serves as the response coordinator for airline and accommodation reservations for the area, and as such has built its own file of customers.
All three entities coordinate their efforts to avoid over-soliciting a given target, thereby reducing the likelihood of wasted efforts.
