Alterra Mountain Co.’s Molly Holmes on How to Build Customer Relationships Through Exchanging Value

Ben speaks with Molly Holmes, Director, CRM Marketing at Alterra Mountain Company, a family of ski destinations and experiences. They discuss Molly's love of data and the importance of using data to drive creative campaigns, why customer relationships are built on an equal exchange of value, and the danger of drowning in too much data. They also discuss the challenges of privacy regulations, effective CRM channels, advice for new marketers, and how AI tools will free up marketers for more orchestration in the future.

Topics discussed:

• How Molly started her career in economics and studio art, and how she's stayed at the intersection of art and science in her various marketing roles in the ski and hospitality industry, now the Director of CRM Marketing at Alterra Mountain Company.
• Why Molly gets excited about data, how it can be used to create impactful campaigns, and why customers are much more comfortable giving their data today.
• Why retention and lifecycle marketing is like building a relationship where there's equal value exchange on both sides, and how Alterra Mountain Company goes about providing that value to customers.
• Why ways to track via a third party are becoming less reliable and effective, and why many companies are turning to zero- and first-party data instead.
• The challenges of data at scale that can easily overwhelm you, and how to create smart, simple campaigns instead.
• What channels Molly sees as most effective or that have great potential, including email, apps, SMS, and even direct mail.
• Advice to marketers that includes keeping things simple and the importance of measurement.
• What the future of consumer marketing will look like, and how AI-powered tools will allow marketers to orchestrate more.