SIA caught up with Katy Rullo, former events manager and Kjerstin Klien, communications coordinator at Willi’s Ski and Snowboard Shop, to learn more about their Winter Divas Program. Winter Divas is a free club for ladies that offers a range of experiences and events throughout the season. Checkout Katy’s event wrap-up below:

Willi’s started the Winter Divas Program because we noticed that while most of our purchasing customers are women, and many of them were mothers, we did not see those women at the slopes. Women are the HIGHEST demographic for making purchasing decisions and actions and LOWEST on the mountain. When you see that trend you have to ask WHY? We tried to think of a way to make it easier for women to get to the mountain and take some of the “stress” away. From this, the Winter Divas Program was created.

The first season of our ladies ski and snowboard club was a great success. Winter Divas far exceeded our expectation with 177 members already signed up and more join every day. We kicked off the season with a wine and cheese reception at Helen’s Restaurant and picked up steam as the season progressed. We were able to shine a spotlight on our new Monroeville store by hosting a “Holiday Shopping Spectacular” complete with hors d’oeu•vres, cocktails and trunk shows and one lucky lady walked away with a voucher worth $500 in Obermeyer clothing.

We all know how important the female segment is to our business. They influence 95% of household purchases, 92% of vacations and 80% of sporting goods and apparel purchases. I set up the program in the hopes of giving this powerful customer base what they want and I think that we hit the mark on each of these goals:

• Connections with the brand
• A holistic approach to marketing
• Community and shared values
• Brand experience
• Insider information
• A process of discovering brands

Winter Divas met every Wednesday from January 5th through the end of ski season to enjoy each other’s company. I gave the group focus by setting up special guests to ski with the ladies every Wednesday. Guests included our hard and soft goods managers, Alex Moser (Director of Marketing) and Dick Barron (Director of Skier Services) of Seven Springs, and instructors from Seven Springs Ski School. We also had a yoga lesson for skiers one week and free polish changes from the Trillium Spa. Each week at least 20 ladies showed up and I was able to raffle off great prizes from Gordini, Chaos, Emu and Swany.

In addition to our regular Wednesdays, we were able to offer some fantastic special programs. K2 came up to the mountain on a Sunday and provided women specific clinics and demos and we offered the ladies a discount on preorders of skis; we also raffled off a pair of K2 skis. Spyder and Volkl hosted “Ski Your Tiara Off”, a race clinic in honor of Julia Mancusso signing with them again. Every participant left with a bag of goodies from Spyder and Volkl and one lucky lady walked away with a pair of skis. Spyder and POC made many of the Divas happy with giveaways.

We used Facebook and our email marketing program to communicate with the women and we discovered that they really enjoyed the interaction. At this point in the season, the Divas are using Facebook to connect to one another and set up their own events. I’m thrilled with the ability that it has provided me to actually interact with this very important customer base. The Divas are a fabulous focus group and we invited them to our Retailer Demo Day to get their feedback on next season’s skis. You are all invited to take advantage of their insight as well. Please let me know if you are interested in coming to any of next season’s Winter Diva Wednesdays or creating an event for the group.

The key benefit to a retailer for a program like Winter Divas is the opportunity to develop a real relationship to a key component of their customer base. Businesses always talk about customer service but until you really connect with a customer you can’t possibly know what they need from you. Winter Divas is only one of our programs – we actually have a very successful program for each of our key demographics and they all come down to one thing – connecting, at a deeper level, with the people we are serving. See you next winter!