Skiing, Snowboarding, and Small Business Success with Online Marketing

Winter sports adventures don’t have to stop once the snow melts. At Skieasy Indoor Ski and Snowboard Centre London at Duke’s Meadows Centre, guests worldwide can try skiing year-round on an Infinity Slope — it’s like the ski version of a treadmill.

However, having an indoor ski slope option for this snowy weather sport presents both challenges and opportunities for the business. While demand at Skieasy increased significantly during the global COVID-19 pandemic from skiers who couldn’t travel to ski, keeping people interested in skiing lessons before and after winter is a challenge. 

“The pandemic actually gave us way more clients than we would have thought because people did feel like they needed some refresher,” shared Lena Niedlielin, Centre Manager at Skieasy.

To spread the word about Skieasy and support its continued growth and expansion to a second location, Lena leverages Constant Contact to increase awareness of Skieasy, build a community, and support the growth of the business using online marketing tools.

“People want to ski, and that’s what my mission is: making sure that everyone who even wants to try, if they’re going to enjoy it, has an opportunity to ski or snowboard,” she said.

Connecting with target audiences to market a unique business

One of the challenges Lena faces in marketing Skieasy is making people aware that the option to ski indoors and take skiing lessons in a controlled environment is available year-round. The second challenge is promoting skiing and snowboarding as a sport and ensuring customers get the best experience at Skieasy to become more prepared for their outdoor skiing and snowboarding trips.

“Marketing is one of the most important tools to get that exposure, get that recognition, and have more and more clients who want to learn how to ski,” she explained.

Lena uses a multi-channel marketing approach, including more than one marketing channel in her digital marketing strategy. With email marketing and social media marketing, she reaches Skieasy’s target audiences with relevant information about promotional offers and business updates.

Marketing emails that turn customers into a community

Using Constant Contact to send emails to the Skieasy email list is important during the winter season to keep the business at the top of customers’ minds, earning their business as repeat customers and building connections with them to form a community that lasts throughout the year.

It’s been a game-changer for Lena during the summer season.

“During summer, this is around 60 to 70% of our sales,” she said of the centre’s email efforts.

Building interest with clear, consistent communication

To keep her email subscribers interested in Skieasy, she uses Constant Contact to consistently send email newsletters with interesting and relevant information and gather feedback about the communications they receive.

She sends one to two email newsletters per month, with no more than three pieces of information per email. And the results show how effective this approach is: an average of 59% of email subscribers open Skieasy’s emails—that’s 22% more than the average for the industry.

Lena asks for feedback from her email list to balance the frequency of her emails and ensure they are relevant and engaging. 

Proactively soliciting feedback helps her maintain a strong relationship with Skieasy customers, allowing her to tweak her email marketing strategy and email content to what works best for them.

Segmenting emails to keep their interest in off-peak season 

In Skieasy’s emails, Lena includes timely information about discounts and offers for new and returning customers. To tailor each email to those two types of audiences, she segments her lists based on where they are on their journey with Skieasy. 

By tailoring messages to these specific groups, she is able to create a personalized approach to email marketing, controlling the frequency and relevancy of her communications to email subscribers to keep them interested in hearing from Skieasy year-round.

“I have different groups of mailing lists on Constant Contact, so there is a certain selection between the information we want to communicate with just a certain group,” she said.

Using reporting tools to replicate wins and refine what didn’t work

Email reports

Viewing email reports that show how many people opened and engaged with the marketing emails allows Lena to replicate wins and refine messaging that didn’t work. Open rates and click-through rates help her gauge the effectiveness of her email marketing campaigns. 

The open rates tell her how many people opened the emails in their inboxes, and the click-through rate tells her how many people clicked through the calls to action throughout the emails. Lena tests different email send times and content types to find what works best to attract engaged email subscribers who become loyal customers.

“The open rate is very useful to have an idea of how many people are receiving the emails, if it goes to the spam box, or if they’re not interested at all,” she said.

Heat maps

To dive a little deeper into how subscribers are engaging with Skieasy’s emails, Lena checks the results of each email using the heat map feature. The heat map shows where people spend the most time engaging with an email in their inbox by highlighting which links they clicked.

For example, she learned that placing a “Book Now” call to action button higher up in her emails rather than towards the end of the email was less effective because it did not give clients enough context about the promotional offer.

💡Drag and drop a button element into your email to drive your email subscribers to your website to complete an action like “learn more,” “buy now,” or “book now.”

“Heat maps are one of my favorite features,” she said. “It’s such a key to create the next campaign and increase the possibility that we reach out to new clients and make them book the lessons with us.”

Nurturing community beyond the inbox

Along with email marketing and social media marketing, Lena increases awareness about the business through local events and community partnerships. 

At ski industry events, like the London Snow Show, she educates event attendees about Skieasy’s indoor skiing and snowboarding offers. 

She doesn’t stop networking there. Using flyers with QR codes, she encourages attendees to scan to sign up for the Skieasy email newsletter, creating a direct line of communication for future offers and updates.

To expand their community-building efforts, Skieasy also partners with other companies in the industry to cross-promote and help support one another’s growth by broadening their audiences, further strengthening the skiing community.

“We partner with loads of other ski-related companies, trying to promote each other and support each other,” she said.

Succeeding year-round with online marketing

With the help of online marketing tools, Lena has created a consistent, engaging email marketing strategy that has kept the Skieasy business going after peak season ends.

“It would be extremely difficult to create a network of loyal customers and operate well over summer without Constant Contact.”

– Lena Niedlielin

Listen to Lena discuss Skieasy’s marketing successes on the full episode of Be a Marketer: