When it comes to developing a satisfactory winter season for your business, you can't wait to see if it snows heavy to invest in bringing customers in your door. You need to toot your horn and get out there with value and information propositions today. Here is why:
1. There is a 50/50 chance this will be a good snow year, according to forecasters. These are the odds, and they could be a lot worse if an el Nina was hanging on in the North Pacific.
2. There are 20-30,000 people living within 25 miles of your business. Combined, they spend a lot of money, all the time, even during this time.
2. Gas prices are way down and there are 11 million consumers in comfortable driving distance from North Tahoe. A lot of them are going to take vacations this winter. A satisfactory slice of them can belong to you.
3. Consumers everywhere are as worried as you about the economy, so they are shopping for the most attractive deals they can find. In particular, they are looking at the Web, including the videos that now dominate it.

The Market
The people who can potentially make your winter season successful form three rings on a bulls eye. All you need to do is hit the target, not the center.

The biggest ring starts on the outside, the perimeter. It includes all the people who live near your business. The second dark ring in includes day and overnight visitors to Truckee and the North Shore--the people who are already here on a given day, weekend, or extended vacation. This ring also includes second-home owners. The third ring, quite small, is the bulls eye itself. It has 2,158 very rich people who want just what you sell and are dying to find your place, if they only knew about it. They are scattered all over the world.

Don't worry about the bulls eye. Just hit the target this winter.

Attract Locals
It's no secret that the stores and hang-out spots of Reno and Carson City are frequently filled with people from up the hill, even amidst the steady drumbeat of calls here to "shop and buy local." The drumbeat appears to be falling short. Locals go down the hill for things they could get at home. Truckee-Tahoe business leadership is required to reverse the trend. For example, facts on actual money saved, if any, after driving two hours per round trip, need to be gathered and aired. Comprehensive, cooperative advertising and promotion may need to be considered. Centerpieces for the "table of opportunities" right here, right now, may need to be developed.

Former Customers
Next, extend contact your former customers. Hopefully you have their addresses. Let them know you value their business, and offer them something special. Coupons, for example, are surging in popularity. They could help you promote loyalty (repeat business) during the winter ahead, and next summer, too. In a recent consumer poll, 72% of the people surveyed said they were using coupons more than they did six months go, to make their money go further

Prospective Customers
Thoughtfully boost your program(s) to get information to really high-potential customers--the ones who have already arrived on the Tahoe scene for a day, over night, or an extended stay. Like locals, they are in your backyard looking for what to do and where to do it.

This means you discard any thought of mass marketing, of throwing a Hail Mary into the Bay Area or L.A. markets in hopes that it will be caught by a Tahoe fan. Use just one arrow at a time and do precise, targeted marketing.

Push Value
Finally, offer incentives. Everyone is becoming value oriented. (Aren't you?) The trend will most likely continue. Boom times, in the style of recent years, are not just around the corner. The economic quagmire is too deep, the systemic problems too great, and the politics-as-usual too ingrained at the moment. So sharpen your arrowheads, your pencils.

Odds favor the thinking, aggressive, businessperson. Like professional sports, business is a zero sum "game." When one team wins, another team loses. And vice versa. People are already here, and more are coming to the winter wonderland that is Lake Tahoe and Truckee. Make them offers they can't refuse.