I’m not sure that there would be much return on investment by cold-advertising.
But that’s not to say that one cannot market themselves. At our little hill here in NM, all 12K plus thousand feet of it
we get an international crowd and many, many return guests. One of the best marketing investments is a simple business card, but you can do other things as well, like send the guest a thank you note after they skied with you and then send them another one in the fall, hoping you will visit again then adding a call to action, like bookings are filling up fast they should reserve a spot now (a fact during busy holidays/weekends).
Some of our seasoned staff are booked all day every day for so much of the season they welcome some of the slow days that allow them to free ski, for them there is little need to advertise. The gold standard here is to get private requests which ups your hourly rate at least $10.00/hr before tips.
And how do you do that? By creating an experience that the guest values and wants to repeat again. It’s certainly more art than science, and no doubt some Instructors are just better at it. I’m a huge proponent of the “people-teaching-technical skills,” concepts that the PSIA has embraced. The challenge is getting our part timers/seasonal staff enough exposure to the training and to be honest some experienced staff to buy in.
All ski schools face the challenge of staffing enough for the season peak times by bringing on new staff and getting them trained then keeping them busy in the slower times. So what does all that mean for the public who doesn’t know who might be a good fit? A lot of times you just have to ask around, starting with the ski school booking people. They should be able to guide you. I know when booking private’s we try to ask a lot of questions so that we can find you a good match, harder to do when we are super busy.
The other thing is to book group lessons, they are relatively cheap compared to private’s, and you might happen on an Instructor you click with. I often see some of our newer often uncertified staff pull private requests out of level 1-4 groups because the guest really liked them. Sometimes the newer Instructors, particularly at the beginning levels or especially with children for some reason are more in tune with teaching at that level than many full cert”s.
I think some of the best advice I got starting out was that we teach FUN, skiing just happens. Of course there is a lot that goes into making that happen, but if you provide that positive experience, well that’s the best advertising.