The average businessperson travels with three wireless-enabled devices, providing inroads for digital marketing at nearly every moment of the day. But what about brands whose customers are as likely to be found offline in the backcountry, skiing, hiking or otherwise enjoying the great outdoors?
It turns out that cross-channel marketing can be equally effective for companies whose customers go off the grid. Take Vail Resorts, which operates 11 mountain resorts in seven states. Each winter, visitors from around the world flock to destinations like Vail, Colorado, and Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly to ski powder-strewn slopes and glades.
Vail Resorts knew it needed to stay connected to these customers, even while they were schussing knee-deep in snow, soaking in summit views or shivering on a chairlift. The solution, explains the company’s former senior manager of Web analytics, came from the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Vail Resorts used Adobe tools in the creation of EpicMix, an app that enables users to access snow reports, track and share skiing stats and photos and compete with other users. The app employs a radio frequency chip embedded in ski passes to record daily and seasonal on-mountain metrics, such as vertical feet skied and number of lift rides taken. Skiers can easily view their stats and post achievements and photos via social media channels, either while they’re still on the mountain or once they’re warming up by the fireplace apres-ski. In its first year, 15 percent of Vail Resorts guests activated an EpicMix account—representing nearly 100,000 people, 275,000 social posts and an estimated 35 million social impressions. Now in its fifth year, EpicMix continues to evolve, adding crowdsourced lift line wait times for the 2015-16 season.
Other companies have similarly benefited from cross-channel marketing in reaching customers more at home on scenic trails than on city sidewalks. One is Wolverine Worldwide, an outdoor apparel company whose portfolio includes Merrell and Chaco, two footwear brands tailor-made for the outdoorsy set.
While mobile is always critical to digital marketing, it’s especially so when connecting with customers whose active lifestyles mean they’re less likely to be parked in front of a stationary device. For insight into customers’ mobile habits, Wolverine turned to Adobe Analytics. The software revealed that the company’s income from purchases made on mobile devices more than doubled year over year, from 5 to 11 percent of revenue—underlining the importance of streamlined, mobile-optimized versions of the brand’s websites.
The software also helped Wolverine automatically identify customers who had abandoned their shopping carts; these would-be shoppers were then targeted with tailored email messages and offers, boosting both email open rates and revenue.
One given about the adventure traveler demographic is that while these people may venture off the grid from time to time, they usually come back and share their experiences via social media. Recognizing the significance of site traffic directed from social channels, Wolverine grew its presence in that arena, accruing more than 1 million Facebook Likes for Merrell. Similarly, Vail Resorts used social to promote season pass sales thanks to Adobe tools, resulting in a 200 percent growth through social channels.
Though an off-the-grid clientele may present unique marketing challenges, opportunity often disguises itself as an obstacle. By deploying a dynamic, cross-channel strategy that embraces mobile and social, marketers can generate creative solutions—and real results—for companies willing to follow customers off the beaten path.
