Customer Stories
Eldora Mountain may not have the global name recognition of other Colorado destinations, but the resort’s family-friendly vibe and accessible location make it a top choice among the communities that dot the state’s northern Front Range. Yet even with their affordability and access, the ski area struggled with the same, seasonal problem many resorts do as the weather slowly changed from winter to spring.
Here’s how Julie McHale, Marketing Manager at Eldora, described this challenge.
“March is a tricky month for Eldora. We see our best skiing conditions in March, but once the hiking and biking trails dry out closer to Boulder and Denver and temperatures warm along the Front Range, our visitation quickly starts to drop. We also don’t have lodging to draw the spring break crowds that other resorts use to keep visitation high in March and April.”
Last season as they faced yet another round of this frustrating, seasonal cycle, the team at Eldora began to look for ways they might curb this trend and keep their skiers engaged deeper into the winter season.
An important point to make is that Eldora, like other mountains in Colorado, has a strategy that is largely built around season passes. In their case this is split between their traditional Eldora passes and their participation in the multi-resort Ikon Pass. As the end of February approached they sat down with their Inntopia Account Manager, Lindsay Haller, to brainstorm ways to keep these passholders engaged.
“Lindsay has worked with so many resorts and has been around the industry for so long, she knew what could help us in our situation. The concept we came up with was a loyalty program that rewarded skiers with perks the more they skied in March. Because Inntopia can easily automate email campaigns based on scan data, the program could be run entirely via email.”
The idea was simple; Eldora would create a series of tiers that skiers could reach by skiing more days in March. Reaching each tier would unlock a fun perk and automated emails would keep skiers aware of and moving toward the next tier. These emails would be built in Inntopia Marketing Cloud and automatically triggered as each skier’s March visits total grew.
When I talked with Lindsay about the strategy, one of her favorite parts was the Inntopia Marketing Cloud reports they relied on as they planned each tier and perk.
“We wanted to design tiers that would keep motivation high for every skier as their visitation increased. The analysis and reporting features inside Inntopia Marketing Cloud really helped us make data-driven decisions as we decided how far apart to space each tier and how big the reward should be for reaching each one.”
With just over a week left in February, Julie began working on the necessary email templates while Lindsay started creating the automations in Inntopia Marketing Cloud. Within a matter of days Linday and Julie were ready to flip the switch on the program.
One of the automated emails an Eldora or Ikon passholder would receive once they visited the resort a certain number of times during March.
One of the biggest questions with a campaign like this is whether the resort is simply rewarding skiers for existing behavior or actually changing behavior and driving more skiers to the mountain. Even with a series of March storms that would certainly boost visitation on their own, Julie and the team at Eldora were able to analyze the results and confirm that this campaign was changing the behavior of their skiers for the better.
“As we dug into the data we saw lots of signs it was working. For example, we found groups of skiers who had only visited twice during March 2023 who had visited 6-8 times during March 2024. Redemptions were also high which was supported by anecdotal feedback from skiers. Our goal was to keep skier visitation high as spring approached and this campaign did exactly that.”
Results and strategy aside, Julie was quick to point out how helpful Lindsay was in this process.
“Her knowledge and experience helps us figure out what makes sense for a resort like ours. She is a rockstar. We’d talked about loyalty programs before but never had executed. We simply couldn’t have done what we’ve done without the help of Lindsay and Inntopia.”
While the team at Eldora was happy to see how quickly the first version of this campaign came together, they’ve taken advantage of the offseason to slow down, analyze the results, plan for next season, and implement a few key changes that are sure to make this concept even more effective for years to come.
Learn more about Eldora Mountain:
https://www.eldora.com/
Learn more about Inntopia Marketing Cloud:
https://corp.inntopia.com/marketing/
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