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TT sits down with - Milena Regos of Diamond Peak
Editor's Note: Every Friday, Tahoeticker sits down with a Basin personality of interest. This week, Milena Regos, marketing director of Diamond Peak talks online vs .traditional media — Diamond Peak's message and how its helped the small, 'family' resort turn a profit in the darkest of hours for the ski biz — and what timely 'tweets' can do for you and your business.
Tahoeticker: You've been director of marketing for IVGID/Diamond Peak how many years?!
Milena Regos: I accepted the position of a Marketing Director for Diamond Peak Ski Resort in Oct 2001 so going on 8 years. Throughout the years, I have been given more responsibilities with the golf courses, the Chateau/Aspen Grove and Tennis/Recreation Center.
MR cont'd: Earlier this year, it was decided that I will concentrate my efforts mainly on Diamond Peak Ski Resort and golf staff will handle the golf courses and facilities in an effort to streamline the operations. I’m still in charge of the overall Incline Village brand, web and email marketing and customer surveys.
TT: ...During your tenure, Diamond Peak has enjoyed some of its most successful seasons and kept in the black while other Basin resorts have struggled mightily — to what do you attribute this?
MR: Diamond Peak is a small ski resort that depends on pure skiing and snowboarding to generate revenue without the help of lodging and retail. Finding the niche for Diamond Peak by being Your Tahoe Place for kids and beginners resonates strongly with our market, speaks to our brand and puts us apart from every other resort in the Basin.
MR cont'd: A strong marketing campaign in combination with good snowfall creates a good recipe for success for Diamond Peak. I believe this marketing campaign will carry the resort for many years to come.
TT: ...You were an early adopter of social media ...and DP/IVGID are probably Basin leaders in tweets ...was this something you just took to right away — or was there a conscious effort to get the word out through new media/social networking?!
MR: As a marketer I saw a huge potential for brands to engage with customers on social media and open up a dialogue that is not possible with traditional media. As a brand you have to go where people are. Today, people are spending more time on social networking than on their emails.
MR cont'd: Now is the time for companies to figure out how to use social media effectively if they want to stay competitive and stay in business. Fortunately for me, IVGID’s General Manager Bill Horn saw the potential in this strategy. I had his buy-in to engage in social media. To simplify the process, I volunteered to conduct a workshop for IVGID employees to explain the benefits of social media and created a social media policy for the company.
TT: DP has had some pretty aggressive ad campaigns in the recent past. Though you're active online you also still invest in print/billboards — more traditional mediums — in 2009-'10 ...where is your marketing dollar best spent?!MR: Online marketing and social media are excellent tools to communicate with your customers. They are also very measurable and that’s one more reason marketers love these mediums.
MR cont'd: With the recession, many companies have been cutting traditional media and spending more on online advertising dollars. You have to look at web marketing and social media as one of the tools in your tool bag and not the only way to reach your customers. Traditional media still works and plenty of surveys show higher advertising recall from traditional media than online media. I depend on customer surveys, advertising awareness polls, ROI reports, and direct communication with our customers among other things to find out what’s really working.
TT: >ooks like you're filling a new niche w/ www.outandaboutmarketing.com
MR: I had a hard time finding information online that was specific to tourism, travel, recreation and outdoor when I was researching Web 2.0 and social media marketing.
MR cont'd: I could find a lot of information on big brands but that didn’t help me much. I started Out&About Marketing to gather resources, articles and links with emphasis on tourism that relate to social media and overall marketing strategies. Social media is very new, it changes all the time, and it’s very time consuming for people to learn how to do it. I want to be able to help people with my experience and knowledge and show them or coach them on what’s really working and what’s not so they can avoid costly mistakes. That’s the reason I started a blog and added some static pages where I can place information that has longer shelf life and may be useful to people in the tourism industry that are eager to reach out to their customers.
TT: So what do you see as the future of marketing/ski industry in the Basin ...and how can Tahoe (looking big picture now) reinvigorate its brand?!
MR: I would really like to see one uniform effort to market Lake Tahoe as a destination. People from outside of the immediate area don’t know the difference between South Shore and North Shore.
MR cont'd: We need to market the destination as one big lake and not get too immersed in our little communities. They don’t mean much to visitors. Without the visitors, we won’t have a vibrant local community. Social media may be the way to open up this effort.
TT: Great —any other thoughts?! Or, if someone wants to talk to you about getting their name out, what's the best way to reach you?
MR: With Out&About Marketing, I’m doing something I’m very passionate about and I know it works from a marketing perspective. I’m spending as much time on social web as humanly possible after my full-time job and my love for the outdoors. People can reach out to me on Twitter at @milenaregos, or via various social networks that you can find on my Web site at http://outandbaoutmarketing.com and at 775 771 6863.
MR cont'd: I hope Out&About Marketing will become the place for information on social web and cool web marketing for travel, tourism and recreation not only for Lake Tahoe but internationally. I have great plans for Out&About Marketing that expand well beyond the current website so the best way to stay connected is to subscribe to the RSS feed or the email newsletter. I also want to thank TahoeTicker for this interview and for the great job you are doing getting the news out to the world. There is also a link to Tahoeticker from Out&About Marketing. Thank you once again!
First Friday at Brickelltown is back... just in time for fall
9/02/10, 8:18 am, By Alanna Hughes
- 4 p.m. Friday in Brickelltown
- Bring your cruiser bike (cheaper/better peeps than Burning Man)
Ski Porn season kicks off at Squaw Sept. 18 with Standard premiere
8/31/10, 9:22 pm, By S. Cowley
- North Shore-based snowboard heavies preimere 'The Storming' Saturday, Sept. 18
- Monster'll be there too...
Sorry Burning Man - it's all about the Ski Loft Tent Sale
8/30/10, 7:52 pm, Staff Report
- 8 a.m. Friday
- Bring all your pennies... (what's left of 'em)
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Basin Bargain Basement - The bargain of bargains
8/29/10, 8:59 pm, By A. Pridgen
- $105k for starter condo in KB
- Yes, we toured a similar unit in '06 for more than $300k ...actually, maybe it WAS this unit
Bomber pre-season ski sales from local manufacturers
8/25/10, 7:50 am, Staff Report
- From Praxis Powderboards to Moment Rubys ...to a surprise entry
- It's time to buy local... buy new
Skiing is no more
8/22/10, 11:47 am, Staff Report
- RIP Skiing Magazine
- ...Are you next, SKI?
Date set for 7th annual Downtown Truckee Wine Walk And Shop
8/22/10, 9:25 am, Switchback PR
- Filling up that fall calendar yet?!
- Well, here's where to start
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Squaw to host SATELite Festival in September
8/22/10, 7:28 am, By A. Richmond
- New outdoor(ish) event pronounced 'satellite' ...not 'Sate-lite' like we orig. thought
- ...Not 100 percent sure what it is — but ncludes wine, so we'll be there
Tahoe Mountain Sports gets you warm for Ski Loft tent sale
8/20/10, 6:44 pm, By Lis Korb
- First come tent sales... then ski porn premiers
- Then (gulp) snow... are you ready?!
Legendary Incline bear featured in WSJ
8/18/10, 8:31 pm, Staff Report
- Free BUBBA
- That's right - It's our fault... not the bear's... but is that what the Journal thinks?!
Trail Building Backcountry Camps
8/17/10, 8:49 pm, TRTA
- Get on those trails
- ...and get your build on Saturday and Sunday (and again Labor Day weekend)
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Win an iPad from IVGID
8/15/10, 7:03 pm, Staff Report
- Golf, ski, beach, compute
- repeat
Squaw creates new top marketing position... sale rumors spark again
8/10/10, 8:18 pm, Staff Report
- Wait, Squaw CREATED a position...
- Ok, something's definitely going down... (25-year industry vet Scott Clarkson tapped as VP of Marketing and Sales)
Jim's trip ...halfway... round The Rim
8/07/10, 1:16 pm, By. A. Pridgen
- Hammerel raises triple his goal amt. to benefit the TRT
- ...and tears up his knee
Volunteer trail-building workdays with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association
8/05/10, 7:45 am, TRTA
- You heard about Jim Hammerel's mission to speed-traverse the TRT
- Now you can pitch in too
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Goodbye Norm
8/03/10, 8:08 pm, By A. Pridgen
- The Godfather of Incline, Norm Rosenberg, passes - he was 92
- Incline's left-leaning champion leaves legacy ...starting with the library
Test drive a Tesla... before it's too late
8/01/10, 9:30 pm, By A. Pridgen
- Tesla, the Palo Alto-based electric car company has gone through more than $300 million VC $
- ...but still hasn't tapped into Uncle Sam's reserves for the Model S - go check it out at the Hyatt
Sugar Bowl dining room and Belt Room Bar open for business
7/30/10, 10:22 am, By John Monson
- Good grub, great views
- And nothing beats Belt Room post PCT
Ultimate Frisbee - ultimate course
7/27/10, 8:56 pm, By A. Richmond
- Squaw opens disc golf course
- Signature hole (no. 4) has 1080' downhill... wow
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Squaw's MTB park open for first time since '03
7/23/10, 7:22 pm, By Amelia Richmond
- 2k feet of single-track
- 'K, we're in
Remembering Kenny Guinn
7/22/10, 10:08 pm, Staff Report
- The man who created the Milennium Scholarship and SNPLMA passed away Thursday
- Guinn, who oversaw Nevada during its most prosperous years, was 73
Lokal boy makes good - former PlumpJack star Edge shines in Sonoma
7/20/10, 6:23 pm, By A. Pridgen
- Rick Edge takes saucy edge down to downtown Sonoma
- Lokal is the (new) place to be and PlumpJack alum makes it so
Tahoe skier visits were estimated to be up 17 percent last winter
7/19/10, 8:40 am, Staff Report
- Numbers of skiers on the hill increased - but overall spending stayed modest
- Cheap passes the plan again for 2010-'11
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Cushing steps down from Squaw post ...rumors of sale sparked
7/13/10, 6:06 pm, Staff Report
- Former Intrawest exec takes over
- ...Rumor mill turning overtime: is Cushing family getting ready to bounce?
TRPA's Asian clam bake
7/11/10, 9:19 pm, By Jeff Cowen
- $1.4 million effort to eradicate invasive species from the lake...
- And it involves (no joke) laying a rubber mat on the lake's floor... hi-tech
Kids' zip line at Squaw ...Boo ya
7/08/10, 5:12 pm, By A. Richmond
- KT zip line
- What about for the grown-ups?!
Just like that ...red flags are up
7/06/10, 6:22 pm, Staff Report
- Three-year anniversary of Angora looms ever-present
- Thunderstorms Wednesday/Thursday portend danger
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Nevada County approves PR firm's contract the same week it OKs budget cuts
6/30/10, 9:19 pm, Staff Report
- Wait a minute - you're saying Tahoe will spend more than a million dollars this year on, sloganeering...
- Meantime, budget cuts include child care, welfare-to-work and MediCal programs ...nice
Truckee's Lautner drops a PCT hiking book
6/28/10, 8:55 pm, Staff Report
- 32 eco-friendly trips on the Sierra stretch of the PCT ...with GPS coordinates
- Two thumbs up - pick it up...
Lake Tahoe Based Russian-American Partnership turns 20
6/24/10, 11:27 am, By TBI
- Tahoe-Baikal Institute celebrates two decades of watershed protection and cultural exchange
- Political and economic ups and downs notwithstanding
Tour de Nez photo gallery
6/22/10, 8:20 pm
- The weekend that was from Reno to Northstar
- And lots of Nash
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Rebuild the Rim Trail every summer Saturday
6/11/10, 9:07 pm, TRTA
- Start summer right by giving your most precious gift
- ...Your time
TRPA tries to clarify
6/01/10, 8:30 pm, By Dennis Oliver
- So, what, if anything, does this have to do with Boulder Bay?!
- ...More importantly how 'bout that casino (strip club?) corridor...
Opinion ...TRPA ensures Tahoe times they area a-changin'
5/22/10, 8:35 pm, By Ann Nichols
- Density to increase under proposed TRPA regional plan
- But, will they build it (or will they come?)
TAUs on the table from TRPA
5/14/10, 10:08 pm, Staff Report
- If you don't understand the headline
- ...Go the the May 26 meeting and you'll see puh-lenty
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Cal Neva now in TRPA doghouse
5/09/10, 6:49 pm, Staff Report
- TRPA will handle foreclosed property with kid gloves over more than a decade of flunking its eco report card
- Time to blow everything up but the casino floor, Sinatra Showroom, the lakefront cabins and the Indian Room
Celebrate National Trails Day with the Tahoe Rim Trail
5/06/10, 5:33 pm, TRTA
- Build a trail
- ...Get a free lunch
Save Martis Valley - one click at a time
5/04/10, 7:13 pm, By Renee Deinken
- Well, it's not like Martis Valley is in any danger of getting developed by broke-ass East/West
- ...But still good to preserve; Check out the new site
LTVA spends almost a mil. on slogan ending in preposition
5/02/10, 8:21 pm, By A. Pridgen
- That's right, your new slogan to lure Affliction-wearing d-bags to Stateline's new strip club
- ...'Get your vacation on' (ohh noo). Inside: Our five (free) slogan suggestions ...Holla
REI Cookware - Ticker
- REI Cookware specials
Cost of doing nothing too high for Tahoe
4/29/10, 8:22 pm, By Joanne Marchetta
- If you can make it through TRPA director's tome...
- We'll have resident feedback for you Friday
No downhill slide for Diamond Peak
4/09/10, 7:00 am, Staff Report
- While others founder
- ...DP in the black and breaking ground on new $4 million admin/ticket/locker/child ski center building
Foreclosed Cal Neva casino goes dark ...for good
3/24/10, 10:32 pm, By A. Pridgen
- One year after 'no-sale' at a foreclosure auction and interim management team shuts down Nevada's most legendary casino
- ...Sad, sad day... Casino doors to shut March 31 - rest of Basin gaming on life support
And yes ...the KB roundabouts were originally scheduled to be complete this summer
1/27/10, 9:35 pm, Staff Report
- Tahoe Regional Planning Agency board votes unanimously (again) to approve three-lane/roundabouts in KB
- ...Yes, you've heard that (here) before
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