Situation
Intrawest had gone through significant restructuring and had moved from Vancouver to Denver when I was asked to join and help bring consistency and a discipline to the marketing departments at their various resorts. After reviewing the situation, I discovered that there was a wide range of commerce engines, in the call centers and online, the websites were using an old CMS that needed to be replaced, there was no system for capturing names in the call centers and an antiquated email system and a lack of social media strategy and presence.
Task
- Revamp and modernize all marketing systems and standardize all key metrics and implement and new commerce system both online and in the call centers.
- Establish a consistent and agile meeting cadence with marketing teams and metrics that would allow for fact-based decision making to drive advanced sales.
Action
- Implemented a new CMS across all resorts and new architecture that emphasized eCommerce over a brochure based website, which was a significant change.
- Implemented a CRM system in the call centers that allowed for capture of prospects and understanding of repeat customers.
- Implemented a marketing automation system which allowed resorts to implement lifecycle marketing and nurture campaigns.
- Implemented social listening and a social strategy that developed online communities and developed online evangelists.
- Implemented a new commerce engine for all resorts which improved conversion rates online.
Results
- Call center conversion rates improved from 20% to 35%. eCommerce conversion rates improved from .8 to 1.3%.
- Advanced Sales grew from $110M to $160M.
- Email grew from 1.5M to 3.5M in just 1 year and the social community grew from 65K to over 500K.
Contact Chief Marketing Outsider Ian Arthur
