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Regos

7/31/09, 9:01 am, By Andrew Pridgen

TT sits down with - Milena Regos of Diamond Peak

By Andrew Pridgen -

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!

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