After one of the wettest falls on record at VentureWeb’s base in Squamish, BC, we were most pleased when the temperatures dropped and all that precipitation finally started falling not as raindrops, but as light fluffy snow. It has been an amazing start to the winter here in BC.
The change of seasons also marks the ramp up in operations of our clients in the “have a good time in the snow” industry. VentureWeb works with some of the best heliski, cat-ski, backcountry lodges, and ski manufacturers around: Genuine Guide Gear, Mica Heliskiing, Stellar Heliskiing, Backcountry Snowcats, Tyax Wilderness Resort and Heli Skiing, and Island Lake Lodge.
Seeing as we all have pow on the brain at the moment, we thought it would be a good time to profile some of our winter-fun clients and the work we’ve been doing with them recently.
Genuine Guide Gear
G3 is a manufacturer of industry-leading backcountry ski and snowboarding gear, and VW has been their digital agency since 2008. We built their website and e-store, investing considerable brain power into the development of a multi-region e-commerce platform (with regional detection functionality so that users are automatically directed to the appropriate store) and heavily leveraging the Shopify SPI to provide a much richer experience.
The results have been very positive. G3 has done a fantastic job with their content marketing, creating a series of educational videos with backcountry skiing and snowboarding tips and tricks as well as regular blog posts about their athletes’ adventures. And the work is paying off, with G3 reporting very strong e-commerce and retail sales this winter season.
Backcountry Snowcats
Backcountry Snowcats operates a cat-ski operation in the South Chilcotin mountains just north of Whistler. After the heavy early season snowfalls, they’re now getting into a big winter of pow-ripping good times. VentureWeb has been working with Backcountry Snowcats for several years to help spread the word, and just before Christmas we launched their all new website and online booking system.
The website features a revised site architecture and greatly improved navigation and menu system so that users can easily move around the website and find the information they’re looking for. VentureWeb also produced all new content for the site, writing new copy and collating and optimizing new imagery. In conjunction with the site launch, the marketing team optimized the site for search engine ranking and developed a social media campaign to raise awareness and drive traffic to the new website.
The new site has seen a significant increase in traffic compared with the same period last year, and there’s also been a huge increase in number of bookings completed.
Stellar Heliskiing
Stellar Heliskiing is in the business of helping people make their pow-shredding dreams a reality. Stellar is a heli skiing operation in the powder skiing mecca of the Kootenay region of British Columbia. We’ve been working with them from their early days, and it has been so rewarding to see the business grow exponentially each year.
This winter season, Stellar and VentureWeb have partnered together to make a big push on content and social campaigns to raise brand awareness and drive bookings. VentureWeb has strategized on how to make best use of the high quality content (like this video) coming out from Stellar. We’ve developed a content strategy, distributed the content through their social media channels and landing pages on their website, and worked with Stellar and their partners to build Stellar’s Instagram following.
The results have been very encouraging. In the period from start of October to end of December 2016:
- Traffic to the website from Facebook has increased by 4,813%.
- Traffic to the website from Instagram has increased by 100%.
- Stellar’s Instagram following has increased by 340%.
- Reservation leads were up 60% compared with same period last year.
- Overall traffic to the site is up 193% compared with the same period last year.
