Spirit Mountain is the local Duluth,MN ski area that is working on becoming a success year round. From their summer slide coaster to their winter skiing activites, this place is making a comeback. They also have a new website redesign as well as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube feeds to get viewers into their site. On their landing page they have a survey box that is most likely used by marketing. The time I visited the site the survey ask a pretty generic question about what you were looking towards most for the upcoming winter and there were three options:
sleeping in
not mowing the lawn
skiing and snowboarding...
I do not believe the data received from this survey helps marketing with any statistics with the actual data but it does enhance customer value. According to Roberts book Internet Marketing, anything that can enhance customer value is a plus. This survey causes the individual to stay and interact with the site. The more time they interact, the better.
I like the simplicity of the site and the easy navigation. They have good graphics and minimal scrolling which is positive for them. In the book SEO Made Simple, Fleischner expands on the benefits of linking your site to other sites to increase search engine hits. Spirit Mountain could link with local sports stores, the tourism bureau, lodging facilities which would all boost each others online presence. Spirit could also use a blog with daily updates to activity on the mountain and weather conditions. It would be beneficial for them to offer a place for users to upload photos of their time on the hill. These suggestions are of minimal cost but can draw in a stonger tourism dollar.
I like your suggestion for Spirit Mountain to use Fleishner's suggestion and have more reciprocal links to local stores and tourism sites. Also a great suggestion for them to start a blog and allow people to post photos. Everyone loves to share a photo of a great trick... or a complete wipe out! Potentially a great way for them to drive more traffic to the site and at the same time increase their search rankings.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I like seeing local businesses succeed!
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of your suggestions! I think Spirit Mountain would benefit greatly from starting a blog. The only problem that I could see would be keeping it up to date with relevant information. By that I mean the nature of their business is seasonal. Although with the introduction of the alpine coaster that could prove for some good posts in the summertime, or a countdown to the skiing/snowboarding season too!
ReplyDeleteStarting a blog for them would be relatively easy, but I think it would be really important for them to have a seamless blog right on their site, so it looks like the user never left. That and having someone keep the site up to date would be a little more spendy. But I would imagine they already have someone updating their Facebook site huh?
Great post!