It doesn’t get more authentic than the great outdoors. Matthew Polstein and Tallie Martin of the New England Outdoor Center (NEOC) like to preserve that authenticity in their marketing.
Matthew founded NEOC over 40 years ago, offering guests in scenic Maine rafting and snowmobiling, plus lodging and an event center with scenic views of Mount Katahdin. Marketing Manager Tallie says it’s not always about making the hard sell in email communications, but connecting with the customer.
“I'm seeing a higher click rate, and a higher opening rate for what I write in a newsletter. I'm like, Hey, this is what's up, here's what we're doing, here's what's relevant, here's what happened last weekend, here's what we're looking towards,” she says. “People are opening that rather than buy this, do this, come see that.”
On this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast, Tallie, Matthew, host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator at Constant Contact, talk about seasonality, timing communications to purchases, and using AI in email composition.
Meet Today’s Guests: Tallie Martin and Matthew Polstein of New England Outdoor Center
☕ What Tallie does: Tallie is New England Outdoor Center’s Marketing Manager. In addition to managing social media and other marketing initiatives, she guides and teaches canoeing and kayaking at the center.
💡 Key quote: “It's all authentic marketing. It’s not pushing people in an inauthentic way. It's organic.”
☕ What Matthew does: Matthew is the President of New England Outdoor Center. Operating for over 40 years, NEOC offers rafting, snowmobiling, lodging, and a world-class business center and wedding venue.
💡 Key quote: “None of us stand alone. To small business people we often feel like we do, but we really need to make sure we take care of them, build a network of staff and supporters around us. It’s so important to have a community that incubates and grows your business.”
If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/bam and follow the simple instructions.
Chapters
It doesn’t get more authentic than the great outdoors. Matthew Polstein and Tallie Martin of the New England Outdoor Center (NEOC) like to preserve that authenticity in their marketing.
Matthew founded NEOC over 40 years ago, offering guests in scenic Maine rafting and snowmobiling, plus lodging and an event center with scenic views of Mount Katahdin. Marketing Manager Tallie says it’s not always about making the hard sell in email communications, but connecting with the customer.
“I'm seeing a higher click rate, and a higher opening rate for what I write in a newsletter. I'm like, Hey, this is what's up, here's what we're doing, here's what's relevant, here's what happened last weekend, here's what we're looking towards,” she says. “People are opening that rather than buy this, do this, come see that.”
On this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast, Tallie, Matthew, host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator at Constant Contact, talk about seasonality, timing communications to purchases, and using AI in email composition.
Meet Today’s Guests: Tallie Martin and Matthew Polstein of New England Outdoor Center
☕ What Tallie does: Tallie is New England Outdoor Center’s Marketing Manager. In addition to managing social media and other marketing initiatives, she guides and teaches canoeing and kayaking at the center.
💡 Key quote: “It's all authentic marketing. It’s not pushing people in an inauthentic way. It's organic.”
☕ What Matthew does: Matthew is the President of New England Outdoor Center. Operating for over 40 years, NEOC offers rafting, snowmobiling, lodging, and a world-class business center and wedding venue.
💡 Key quote: “None of us stand alone. To small business people we often feel like we do, but we really need to make sure we take care of them, build a network of staff and supporters around us. It’s so important to have a community that incubates and grows your business.”
If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/bam and follow the simple instructions.
What is Be a Marketer with Dave Charest?
As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Dave Charest:
Today on episode 65 of the Be A Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a founder that dropped out of college, and over 40 years later, still hasn't looked back. And I'm sharing why none of us stand alone as small business marketers. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:
My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact. And I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon. No hype.
Dave Charest:
Just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help. Before we get to our conversation today, I wanted to remind you that none of us stand alone as small business marketers. I was reminded of this fact at an event Kelsey and I were at recently.
Dave Charest:
We had struck up a conversation with a new business owner, and she was an older woman who had just started her business thanks to the encouragement of her kids. And she went on to tell us that the event really highlighted the need for participating in the business community. And so I wanted to remind you to get out there and meet other business owners. Although it may feel like it at times, you're not alone when it comes to running your business or trying to figure out your marketing. I know you'll find that other small business marketers are not only eager to connect with you, they're also happy to share what they've learned.
Dave Charest:
Even today's guest reminded us over 40 years in business is due to a great band of people pushing and pulling as hard as they can to move the company forward. It was a good reminder for me, and I hope a good reminder for you. So if you're feeling alone, make sure you seek out local and online resources and communities to gain the camaraderie, knowledge, and inspiration to push you to the next level. And, of course, remember that you can come to the Constant Contact community to connect with other Constant Contact customers like yourself. Okay.
Dave Charest:
Enjoy today's episode. I am here with Kelsi Carter. Hello, Kelsey Carter.
Kelsi Carter:
Hey, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:
I'm good. Thank you. So, Kelsi, I'm excited to talk about our guest and show this interview that we had here today in this conversation, because what people probably don't know about you, and I was surprised to find out when I learned it myself, was that you're quite the outdoorsy type of person. Aren't you?
Kelsi Carter:
I am. I do love the outdoors. Just growing up in New England, it's kinda just born into you.
Dave Charest:
I bet then you were kind of excited to have this conversation that we had with, our guests today. Yes?
Kelsi Carter:
Absolutely. I can definitely tell you a little bit more about them because I'm very
Dave Charest:
Please do.
Kelsi Carter:
Very thrilled. Today, we have Matthew Pol Stein and Talley Martin from the New England Outdoor Center joining us. They're located in the beautiful state of Maine. It's a destination resort that's evolved from its origins in white water rafting, canoeing, and kayaking into a comprehensive retreat offering lodging and dining and a variety of outdoor ventures. They recently even opened up an event space where you can have your wedding.
Dave Charest:
Pretty cool, like, all the stuff that that this has evolved into, and you'll hear more about this in our conversation today. But I think we should also mention too that the Small Business Administration honored Matt, the president of NEOC, as a a 2024 National small business person of the year for the state of Maine. And this is kind of a big deal. I mean, the businesses that receive this honor are evaluated on certain criteria, such as staying power, growth in the number of employees, increase in sales, net profit, net worth for 3 prior calendar years, all of this stuff, response to adversity and and even contributions to community oriented projects. And what I love about this is that Matt actually grew up immersed in the natural beauty of Maine in the world of that competitive kayaking and all of that.
Dave Charest:
And so through our conversation, we also learned that Matt made this bold decision to kind of take a break from college. Never looked back from that. Still kind of taking that break. Right? This is what we're like 40 years later, which was interesting because he wanted to become a guide in terms of rafting and all of those types of things, but his parents were both professors.
Dave Charest:
And so you can imagine that that was somewhat of a difficult conversation to have. But he did this at a time where, really, the state was got about about to regulate access to the rivers. And so that would mean it would be hard for businesses to kinda get the allocation of the space on the busy days. And so he really needed to take that moment to jump ahead and and go forward. And as I mentioned, 40 years later, this business has kind of evolved into a full fledged destination resort.
Dave Charest:
And so we talked to Matt, of course, and then, you know, you mentioned we talked to Tali Martin as well. Won't you tell us a little bit about Tali?
Kelsi Carter:
Yeah. So Tali, she actually brings this fresh new perspective. She actually joined the team back in 2016. And while she was actually still in college, she saw the chance to combine her education with real world experience through an internship and marketing at the resort. And just like Matt, she did not wait to jump at that opportunity.
Kelsi Carter:
She's now the business' marketing manager, but not only that, she guides and teaches canoeing and kayaking to students through a program called the Maine Outdoor Education Program that they run. She wears a lot of hats, which I'm sure a lot of business owners are very familiar with. But both of their commitment and dedication have really contributed to the explosive growth that the business has seen over the years.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. So, look, 40 years, amazing. Any business kind of reaching that, level and that longevity is really amazing. And the reality is, right, a business really doesn't survive that long without making adjustments and and looking for things that may be competitive advantages and opportunities for growth. So let's go to Matt where he explains more.
Matthew Polstein:
From our start, we sort of stumbled into the idea that having a broader amenity base was an important competitive element in the main rafting industry. We all rafted the same river. You know, we might have different colored rafts, but they weren't that different. And so to distinguish yourself from our competition, if you had an amenity base lodging of some form, a nice campground, good food, you could market that over just, you know, the same old we all run the same river. And so we bought an old hotel, was sort of run down over in the Forks on the Kennebec River, and we ran that for a while.
Matthew Polstein:
And then we kept that hotel, and we bought another property, which was a beautiful old bin inn called the Sterling Inn. It was called the Sterling Hotel. We rebranded it the Sterling Inn and completely renovated it and ran it as a bed and breakfast. And nobody in the Rafting Industry was running something that looked like a bed and breakfast. The clientele at that time was predominantly men, usually men looking for a pretty aggressive experience in the river.
Matthew Polstein:
And the bed and breakfast really expanded our market into couples and and more women and then families with children. And it helped us start to understand how your product mix could influence your customer as much as as anything else. And so our diversification really started with that. And and once we saw how that was making us a strong player in the rafting industry, we worked hard to expand that advantage in building additional lodging and more unique food and beverage opportunities, adding a brewery and a pizzeria to our portfolio, as well as a restaurant we've run for oh, probably 25 years now, the River Drivers restaurant, which has really set a much higher standard for food quality than the industry was typically used to providing.
Dave Charest:
So, Matt, what would you say are the challenges of I mean, you've been doing this for over 40 years now. What are some of the challenges that you've run into to just keep this thing
Matthew Polstein:
going? Well, on the service delivery side, I would say our biggest challenge, and it's a challenge that's I don't think it's unique to the nation, but it may be more acute here in Maine is attracting and retaining great employees. You know, Maine is 1 of the oldest states in the nation, if not the oldest average agent. And we've had a lot of out migration for our youth. So we spend a lot of time and energy trying to make the same attractions that bring guests here available to our staff.
Matthew Polstein:
We're looking at building staff housing right out here on our resort property so that that people can be close to the trails and the water that they like and we like and our guests like. We've had to grow and evolve like everybody else has as the the world moved away from print advertising to the digital world. And Tali has her hands wrapped right around that issue. But our we were a company that because of our lodging and the spectacular natural settings we were in, we started marketing place more than ourselves. We felt that we were in a place that people wanted to be.
Matthew Polstein:
And if we could show that place to them and they came here, then those that like the amenity base we had and the activities we're in would naturally hire us to or book those spaces to enjoy their visit here with them, and that's worked well for us. And so in recent years, a challenge for us has been navigating this social marketing as opposed to, you know, ad buying and printing a lot of brochures and things that we distributed all over the place. So we do very little of that now, and our focus is generally around search engine optimization, pay per click, mailing, and social media sites where we continue to manage and try to grow the relationship we have with existing and future customers. I
Dave Charest:
think this is a good transition into talking a little bit about the marketing then here. So I guess, how do you all work together just in terms of, like, developing your plans for what it is that you're gonna do from a marketing perspective? What does that look like?
Tallie Martin:
So developing our marketing plans has been really interesting, especially since I stepped into this role first, like, full time in 2020. So what I've seen as, like, our trend over the years is that we were best off to move forward with the organic foot versus, like, purchasing stuff on, like, specifically Facebook and Instagram, like, buying likes, buying followers. So going forward with, like, organic stuff, it really produces quickly, like, what works and what doesn't. And touching off of, like, what Matt says with marketing this space versus, like, our activities and amenities. You know, we play around with that.
Tallie Martin:
So we trickle in our 4 season resort lodging, 4 season activities, and what you can specifically do during that. The people who come here are coming here for a purpose. And so a lot of the times people come here, they show up, they booked lodging, and we end up finding that. What can we do in terms of, like, our guerilla marketing, which is technically the old school way for cost plus conversions as well as, you know, how can we, you know, track them digitally.
Dave Charest:
Got it. Got it. Got it. So can you walk me through maybe, like, what exactly you're doing then to to market the
Tallie Martin:
business? Yeah. So we use Facebook and Instagram as our 2 largest social media platforms.
Matthew Polstein:
We
Tallie Martin:
do have a YouTube channel as well that streamlines all of our webcams here, which do attract a lot of people, especially when the northern lights are going crazy. We still do use brochures. We haven't necessarily created anything new, but we do still have that. So that would be a touch point for Guerrilla marketing. We have ads that we put out in local visitors guides.
Tallie Martin:
We use our email campaigns with Constant Contact. I think that is everything.
Matthew Polstein:
We do have a partner that helps manage a pay per click campaign. Of course.
Dave Charest:
PPC. Yes. So anything else paid wise? So you're you're not really doing the social advertising at all anymore, or is that something you still continue to do?
Tallie Martin:
We don't put spent dollars behind, social media advertising.
Dave Charest:
Got it. Matt, to you, where does marketing rank in in your list of priorities?
Matthew Polstein:
It used to be high, but I found with the growth of this business, it's, it's really something that I've had to rely more and more on Tali to work with. And she and I, you know, we talk about strategies. And as we've mentioned, you know, what's going on around us drives our communication pattern, whether it's with direct mail or or what we're posting on social media. I mean, 1 of the, you know, I hate to say this because Google and Meta, they're all always listening. Right?
Dave Charest:
But 1 of
Matthew Polstein:
the reasons that we don't push money as much money as others might towards paid social media marketing is the content that our area provides is so compelling that it gets tremendous traction. You know, that's 1 of the beauties of not printing a, you know, printed piece of material that we put in the mail, but being able to to send out a digital newsletter or digital brochure, we can put substantially more active and dynamic content that's drawn from current events, the eclipse, the incredible northern lights that we've been experiencing here over the last couple of weeks. We actually, you know, we're we're a little less surprised than others because we see the northern lights a lot here. And, as Tali mentioned, you know, we've invested in things like we have a Starcam, which is specifically engineered webcam that's designed to shoot at night, and it shoots over Katahdin. And we have hundreds of thousands of people when there's a big aurora borealis event or aurora event.
Matthew Polstein:
We have hundreds of thousands of people who look at that. We have weathermen from all over the northeast who link to our webcam page, which, of course, promotes our business and show images of it and and give us, you know, mention during their weather forecast when when interesting things are happening outside or when it's snowing. They'll, you know, go to our webcam to see how heavily it's snowing in Northern Maine. So we've tried to do more with that and do more with direct mailing electronically, obviously, not not through the post office to to grow our business.
Tallie Martin:
Right. And I saw this with Gabby is that, like, what I found great success in with our constant contact since I've taken it over fully in the last year is that people I'm seeing a higher, like, click rate and a higher opening rate for when I write it like a newsletter. I'm like, hey. This is what's up, and here's what we're doing. Here's what's relevant.
Tallie Martin:
Here's what happened last weekend. Here's what we're looking towards. People are opening that stuff rather than being, like, buy this, do this, come see that.
Matthew Polstein:
Sure. Yeah. We highlight trail conditions for snowmobiling and cross country skiing. We don't just highlight things that are directly on or around our own property. We highlight the whole region.
Matthew Polstein:
So we're constantly promoting this region because, again, this region has a a super strong draw and we fit a space within that draw. There are hotels in town that fit a different space. And, you know, our goal is just to keep enough people moving in this direction to hopefully keep all of us full and busy.
Dave Charest:
Sure. Yeah. Well, so well, talk to me a little bit about that then. When you think about the activities that you are doing from a marketing perspective and the way things come together, I guess, how do you guys think about success, and, like, how do you start to measure that?
Matthew Polstein:
Well, you know, I'm a numbers person, so I'm always looking at, you know, our sales trends, what we're seeing for growth, for better or worse. Our capacity to grow has been hospitality industry, we spent 3 months wondering if we were growing out of business. And then we're almost instantly overwhelmed by customers that were seeking the type of product that we had, which was, you know, we had cabins, not hotels. You didn't have to ride in an elevator with other people. You could stay with your own group, or you could go outside and be as close to or as far away from other people as you wanted to be.
Matthew Polstein:
And, you know, with the perception and I think the reality that outdoor activity and fresh air and sunshine was the least risky thing you could do, We started you know, we'd always been growing 5 to 10% a year, but for 3 years, we grew about 30% a year. And, it overwhelmed our bed base. It overwhelmed our restaurant, which is why we opened the pizzeria to help manage that traffic flow. And we're now moving into a cycle where we're going to be building, we're watching and adding on. So our, you know, our measure of success is in part numbers of guests visiting, revenue per available guest across the the face of our company.
Matthew Polstein:
And, where we have opportunity to build more, we'll certainly be building more. And, we're pretty confident that our capacity numbers won't change. That, you know, we we run 90, 95 percent capacity in our lodging for the months of June, July, August, and September, and close to the same in January, February, and March if there's decent snow on the ground. So we definitely need more beds to put people in. And and hopefully within a year and a half, we'll have more of those.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. Talia, do you have anything to add to that?
Tallie Martin:
No. I would back that up completely. What I've just noticed in terms of, like, any change of, like, off of the number situation is that I think with COVID and, like, with, you know, for example, a season like last summer as we kind of lightly touched on prior to recording where people are a little bit hesitant to see, like, the cream rises to the top proof in the pudding. They're like, am I gonna book this? I'm gonna wait to see, and then they book.
Tallie Martin:
So we're still getting the same numbers, and it's just taking a little bit of time at some points in the seasons because I think people are just kinda saying, like, am I gonna do this? I wanna see that it's gonna snow. I wanna see that it's gonna be clear weather.
Matthew Polstein:
The, you know, the consumer's desire for instant information and turn on a dime decision
Dave Charest:
Yeah.
Matthew Polstein:
I I don't think I've ever seen as acute an example as the eclipse where we, put together a a festival around the Eclipse with multiple bands and food in all 3 of our our food service centers, you know, available to all of the people in our property. And we we set out to sell 600 tickets to, come to this event. About a week and a half out, we've sold about 350. And then in the last 5 or 6 days, we sold 100 more tickets and ended up selling 650 and and actually exceeding what our our gold had been. People that bought in that last weeks, as we found out, these weren't people from our neighborhood.
Matthew Polstein:
These were people coming from the Philippines, from Oh, wow. From California, from Florida, from the Dakotas, from Chicago, from DC. And many of these people had actually booked multiple airline tickets to different locations and waited to see what the weather was gonna do. So if there isn't a better example of the consumer's willingness to be sort of strategic and where they're going for their vacation, We've heard from the Maine office of tourism that they could see trends around weather where traffic would move towards Vermont or Maine depending on which 1 was gonna be sunny or rainy.
Dave Charest:
It was going. But
Matthew Polstein:
I've never seen anything quite like that. There are a lot of people out there looking for great hospitality and recreation and food experiences, and our ability to get good information to them quickly and shortly before they may wanna travel seems to be more and more important.
Dave Charest:
I guess, how do you plan for that? Right? I mean, that's an interesting insight to to see and a trend to start to, like, kind of piggyback on. And so, like, how do you start to work that into the things you're gonna do to take advantage of those situations?
Matthew Polstein:
Well, it can work for us, and it could work against us. Obviously, if the weather is not ideal, we may lose business or people may wait till the last minute and then not book for this. So we're trying to balance that by we built an event center that was completed last spring that can hold, corporate business meetings, weddings, family reunions. It, handles about a 150 people. It's an absolutely gorgeous venue that, has beautiful views of iconic Katahdin, our highest mountain here in the region.
Matthew Polstein:
And we do our best to sell that, which can often fill our lodging. And that's not weather dependent. People, once they've committed to an experience in that facility, they'll they'll come with us. And we will, as a hedge against, the impacts of climate change and seeing less snow, we will sell more events in the winter, which we used to be sort of shy about about selling events in the winter because we had a big snowmobile demand and we didn't want to turn them away. But as a hedge against not having the snow for those snowmobilers, we will sell more of that type of activity.
Matthew Polstein:
And, you know, our building out our business from just being an activity focused business to being more of a resort focused business has allowed us to have food as an amenity that that makes people happy when they're here. So if the weather's not perfect, you know, they know they've got good dining experiences that they can engage in. We're trying to help our broader community build out interesting attractions and amenities, more in the way of things like museums. Our area recently had a national monument established just a few miles away from us, and there's a visitor contact center that's going to open up there in August. That's going to be an absolute must visit destination of its in its own right.
Matthew Polstein:
The monument's quite incredible as is Baxter State Park, which is also right off outside our door. But this visitor contact center will be a place that people can go to when weather is not perfect and have an incredible experience learning about the culture, the heritage, the history of this region with the heavy emphasis on the Wabanaki, the Indian tribes that have have, called this place home for longer than we have.
Dave Charest:
Tali, what do you find most challenging about marketing?
Tallie Martin:
Well, I would say probably the fact that our specific marketing does go along with, you know, the fact that we rely on what the season holds for us. And, you know, it's hard to to look ahead and say, like, alright. This is how it looked last year, which was premier. Is it gonna look this way this year? I would think that that's mostly my challenge, especially with, like, specifically the springtime, the month of April.
Tallie Martin:
So, like, that downtime is a difficult area for me to wrap my mind around marketing. I've actually I said with Gabby, you know, have seeked out chat gbt to be like, alright. Let's get the creative juices flowing. I'm I'm hitting a wall here. And it's kind of the same when it turns to, like, November.
Tallie Martin:
It's like, alright. Well, how do we get that going? And what Matt kinda touched on here is that what we can get going is the fact that we have, you know, this gorgeous world class event center space and, you know, the wedding industry in this area. The wedding industry in Maine is a $1, 000, 000, 000 industry. The wedding industry here in the Katahdin region is growing rapidly, and we have our finger right on the pulse of that.
Tallie Martin:
So that's the kind of, like, the ebb and flow of challenges that I deal with.
Matthew Polstein:
From my perspective, having become a dinosaur in the marketing world, 1 of the challenges that I I think we face is the the pace at which marketing is evolving and staying current and staying up to up to speed. I mean, AI in and of itself is an incredible beast to get your arms around. And how can you get your arms around something that's moving at a 1000000 miles an hour? Yeah.
Dave Charest:
I mean, if you
Matthew Polstein:
got your arms around it today and you look away, it's different tomorrow.
Dave Charest:
Exactly. Yeah.
Matthew Polstein:
That's an issue. Google and, you know, Meta, they change their algorithms and they they constantly tinker with, you know, how you where you appear, how you perform, what's important in your site. And so we're not in an urban area where there's a lot of people with a lot of experience in that regard, and we're left to fend for ourselves often or seek support from people that are are distant to us, which is you know, again, there's a lot of ways to communicate these days, but those things create some challenge for us.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. A couple of things to kinda piggyback off that a little bit. I guess, 1, what are you doing to try to keep pace with that? I guess, it's the first question, and I'll go to the other 1 after that.
Tallie Martin:
Yeah. Trying to keep pace with that is just really grasping it. I mean, even today, I got on this computer, which I use my laptop sometimes, and it's telling me, like, do you wanna try out the new Photoshop beta? And I'm like, wait a second. I thought I was already using that, which it has generative AI features.
Tallie Martin:
So, you know, anytime I see an AI feature, I'm always a little bit like, do I wanna engage this? I mean, constant contact's a good example. I touched on that as well with Gabby is she's like, you know, you should really try this out. It might make the workday a little bit easier. Definitely did.
Tallie Martin:
It's the same with, like I said, it just gets the creative juices flowing when when you start to hit a little bit of a wall. I don't know that I'm at the 100% speed as somebody would be in, again, like, more of an urban area.
Matthew Polstein:
Sure.
Tallie Martin:
But I'm trying to continuously keep up with that as we move along.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. So 1 more question, and then I wanted to get into some of the specific stuff and you've been touched on some of the the things you've been seeing with using the AI within constant contact proper, but how far in advance are you thinking? Are you guys putting together a marketing calendar? How far in advance are you thinking through that? What is, I guess, the cadence and what is the with which you work when it comes to the marketing efforts that you're doing?
Tallie Martin:
So I work off of a marketing calendar with Asana. And, you know, sometimes I put in key stuff throughout the year that I'm like, alright. Well, this is what we used last year. These are relevant stuff to keep in touch with. But in terms of, like, I don't know, moving forward with making sure that everything's aligned, it kind of, like I said, transitions through the seasons.
Tallie Martin:
It's really, you know, we kinda move, like, biweekly, I would guess, at good pace, lining stuff up biweekly, scheduling out content.
Matthew Polstein:
Got it. It's it's a great question, David. It's a it's a challenge in our industry if you don't have a calendar to work from. Right. We know when our snowmobilers start to think about snowmobiling because we can see the hits in our you know, the snowmobile pages and our website starting to go up.
Matthew Polstein:
The social media contact starting to go up. And, you know, we have enough experience year to year to work with that. But weather trends change that. The economy changes that. Again, I the good news is the digital world allows us to react quickly if we are paying attention and and actually have the time to react when we need to.
Matthew Polstein:
Our business has grown so much in the shoulder seasons that we used to have a period of time in the spring and the fall where we could recover from the business we did.
Dave Charest:
Downtime. Yeah.
Matthew Polstein:
Plan for the business that we were about to do. And we're finding those times are growing shorter and shorter. You know, 1 of the big promises of AI is that it's gonna give us all more time. It's gonna help us think these things through faster. And it it can.
Matthew Polstein:
Clearly, it can.
Dave Charest:
Yeah.
Matthew Polstein:
The challenge for us sometimes is finding the time to evolve with the technology as fast as it's evolving and and make sure we're using it as as well as we could. To the point about how we use Constant Contact and our mailing. You know, there were attributes of Constant Contact that we, you know, we didn't use. We hadn't explored. And it was great talking with folks from Constant Contact who could say, hey.
Matthew Polstein:
Have you tried this? And here's how you might use this to help make your job easier, and and it has.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. Well, I wanna dig into some of this stuff here, but I'm curious, Matt, from you. Like, how did what brought you to Constant Contact to begin with?
Matthew Polstein:
I mean, from my memory, we've been using them forever. That's that whole last couple of years here in the digital world.
Dave Charest:
I think yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Polstein:
And so, you know, I think at the time from an email management standpoint, Constant Contact's been, from my perspective, the primary player in that arena forever, and and we started doing mailing. So, you know, for our entire history as a business, Constant Contact has been a partner to us in, in managing our communication digitally with our guests.
Dave Charest:
Gotcha. So you mentioned things like I mean, you've got these different audiences that you're marketing to, and I think you guys are doing a really great job of thinking that through from a segmentation standpoint. And, of course, to your point earlier, Matt, it gets a little bit more difficult to do those things as those audiences increase, right, in terms of, like, when you need to talk to. But maybe talk me through kinda how you start to think about that and maybe some of the audiences that you start to think through, specific messaging or timings and things like that that you may wanna do from a marketing perspective, if that makes
Matthew Polstein:
sense? Historically, we have a robust reservation system that allows us to to either code or automatically codes unique phone numbers that are tied to marketing campaigns. So we know where people come from. We and we know what they do when they come with us, if they were a rafter or a snowmobiler. And so we're able to then create targeted responses, either personalized or direct bounce back responses to each group based on what their their digital trail of interest has been with us.
Matthew Polstein:
Tali has a big hand in sort of the content creation around how we respond. So we have a series of sort of standard in the can communications that go out to people through the booking process that, you know, again, it's not just because it's digital, we have a lot more flexibility in what we can put in there. And so it's both the information piece and a sales piece. It might it tells them where to check-in, but reminds them when our restaurants are open. Reminds them that we have we we do a special Tuesday night lobster bacon.
Matthew Polstein:
We have a mailing that goes out to everybody a week before they come. It reminds them that that's an option for them on Tuesday night. They need to sign them for it.
Tallie Martin:
Yes. And I would just like to add in that. Like, I I'd like to nerd out on the numbers with Constant Contact. I love the fact that it has a heat map. I use that with our website as well as mouse flow.
Tallie Martin:
So I can see where people are hanging out and what they're looking at and, like, actually caring them out so I can disregard other information pretty quickly. So when I go through that and I go through specifically people's emails and their names tied to that, I can then see, okay, great. This person's lodging with us. Cool. Like, let's push out this a little bit harder to them and see if they finally see the proof and they wanna do it.
Tallie Martin:
And I have had people who do know me personally come up to me and say, I've seen you write this on social media that it's snowing. I saw you, you know, push something out on this other platform, and then you I got an email, and I'm like, let's book it. We're coming up and riding.
Dave Charest:
It's amazing how you start to realize how many times it's not just 1 thing, but, like, it's the combination of those things that actually push somebody to that point to take the step. Right?
Tallie Martin:
For sure. And it's all authentic marketing. Again, it's not, like, pushing people Right. In an inauthentic way. It's organic.
Dave Charest:
So, Tali, you were mentioning AI and of and, of course, just starting to play around with some of the AI content generated within Constant Contact. Tell me a little bit about how you've been using and how that's been working for you.
Tallie Martin:
So I used it for content creation, when I was definitely putting together our latest campaign because it's May. It's it's a good month here, especially for our watchable wildlife tours. However, we don't have too too much going on in terms of, like, what people can do outside of that stuff. So I was just trying to put together, you know, what hear the bare bones, and, like, how can I get this looking spicy?
Dave Charest:
I like the spicy. We're gonna spice
Tallie Martin:
it up.
Matthew Polstein:
What do
Dave Charest:
you guys do to obviously, having a list of people to communicate with is really important. How do what do you are there any specific things that you're doing to make sure that you're continually adding to that contact database?
Tallie Martin:
Yes. So I go on to our booking platform, which is called Roam. And what I do in there is I actually do this, like, once a month. I take all of our lodging guests from specific periods. And whether they're already in there or not, I just copy that whole CSV file and upload it into Constant Contact.
Tallie Martin:
And, traditionally, there's a couple updated, you know, emails, and then there's, like, a a lot of added new ones. We don't have a specific plugin on our website right now because we like for it to be driven to our booking platform first, and then I extract from that. I do have different companies that I work with where we have those plugins, and that obviously makes it very quick and easy because they just add themselves into a general list. But this allows me to segment stuff out. If I know people are coming for an activity specifically for rafting, but they're not lodging with us, I'll just add them to that list.
Dave Charest:
Got it. Got it. What do you like most about Constant Contact?
Tallie Martin:
I think what I like most about it is kind of what I touched on earlier is I get to, like, look at all the numbers and see the click through rates. I've spoke with this company recently who was like, oh, we can get you, like, definitely 1% click through. And I I was, like, really? We have, like, 4%. I think that's pretty good.
Tallie Martin:
And we have, like, 19, 000 contacts. Like, those kinds of things get me really pumped up. I mean, it's it's nervous, or it makes me nerd putting myself, like, out there. But, again, it's like I'm behind the screen, and people don't really know that it's me unless they do. And so I like seeing that people are reading it and, you know, what what gets people excited, what gets me excited.
Dave Charest:
Well, so I'm curious. So you've got a you know, I would say in in most standards, a large list of people, and we were talking to someone the other day, and and I've I've heard this numerous times, and I'm I'm interested on your point of view on this. But unsubscribes, particularly for a small business, feel very personal sometimes. And so what is your reaction to unsubscribe, Sally?
Tallie Martin:
When I see an unsubscribe, I yeah. Usually, I'm like, oh, god. Did I just send, like, an annoying amount of content? Are they sick of seeing how many nights a week the brewery's open? Or, you know, what is it?
Tallie Martin:
But, traditionally, you know, if I see that then also pop back up when I've downloaded and put in the CSV file and it's like 1 person has previously unsubscribed, I'm like, alright. Well, maybe it's just them cleaning out their mailbox.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. Yeah. Tali, if you had to offer a piece of advice in regards to using Constant Contact to another business, what would that be?
Tallie Martin:
It would be to just do it because it can seem really intimidating. It's email marketing. Again, you have to create copy, and that's really difficult to do, especially if you don't feel confident as a writer. But again, I encourage, you know, that's where I would say the use of chat GPT, stuff like that to create the juices flowing would be helpful. But, yeah, just do it.
Dave Charest:
Matt, what would it be like to try to run your business without Constant Contact?
Matthew Polstein:
I think if we didn't have it, our engagement with our customers would be obviously driven by our social media relationship with them, and we would lose some of the chance to have more direct communication with our guests than we can have on social media. We can write anything on social media, but we don't really know upfront who's gonna look at it. And when we send an emailing out, we we can see statistically that most people are at least taking a quick look at it, if not delving into it, maybe clicking through links that are actively in it that lead them to certain things. So God forbid we go back to going to the post office with a giant box of things that we're mailing out.
Dave Charest:
Matt, you know, you've been doing this and growing and been doing this for a while now. What would be your best piece of business advice for any other small business owners listening?
Matthew Polstein:
Keith, I I actually was at the Maine State, award ceremony for the SBA winners here in Maine last night, and I got to listen to people that had won in a number of other categories. And and I I think I would come away with 2 things that seem consistently relevant. Small business owners are successful when they take logically calculated risks. And entrepreneurs tend to take more of those risks than others with perhaps a little less regard for for missing when you take a risk. But you have to be able to afford to miss if you wanna stay in business as a small business person.
Matthew Polstein:
So in addition to being thoughtful and doing some risk taking, it's important to have partners and allies both in the financing side and in the business evaluation side that can help you look at what you're doing. And, you know, most of the people that have won awards here, had a long list of people that they thank that had helped them that weren't necessarily employees. They were business advisers. They were banking partners that had worked with them. In the case of my own business, you know, I when I talked, I mentioned that as an entrepreneur, I often view financing and raising money as a necessary evil.
Matthew Polstein:
It's not necessarily the first thing I wanna do every day. But if you've got someone that's a partner with you that helps you look at creative ways to grow your business and and make sure you have the funds you need to support that growth, it makes a huge difference. So none of us stand alone small business people. We often feel like we do, but we really need to make sure we take care of and build the network of staff and supporters around us that are so important to having a community that grows your incubates and grows your business.
Dave Charest:
Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number 1, distinguish yourself from the competition. Now this is huge. In a time where many people are frankly doing the same thing, why should someone choose you? Hopefully, price isn't the answer.
Dave Charest:
That's typically a race to the bottom. Matt recognized that he had to offer something that his competitors weren't. This revelation really allowed any OC to add to its product mix. The decision expanded the market and influenced the customer in the decision making process. So don't be afraid to explore what you can do that others aren't.
Dave Charest:
And that doesn't necessarily mean new products either. It could just mean creating a stellar experience for your customers. So what can you do to stand out? Number 2. Communicate things of interest to your customers.
Dave Charest:
Tali mentioned that NEOC's communications focus on what's going on. What happened last week, what they're doing now, what's coming in the future. The newsletter is about communicating relevant information to an interested audience rather than asking for the sale. It's engagement from communications like this that actually lead to sales. People end up selling themselves on the things they are interested in doing.
Dave Charest:
And number 3, align your communications to your customer's calendar. Now both Matt and Tali highlight the importance of paying attention to when their customers do things. The challenge, of course, comes from things that impact timing. Things like weather and and the economy. But if you can keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on with your audience, digital tools allow you to react quickly and keep pace with an evolving customer.
Dave Charest:
Here's your action item for today. Try adding some AI in your workflow. Sometimes, you just need to get the creative juices flowing. The AI content generator within your Constant Contact account can help you create content across social media, email, and text. And you can even try the campaign builder, which gives you a multichannel campaign based on your goals.
Dave Charest:
Each can save you time and bring you new ideas to market your business. More details, of course, in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to rate this podcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:
Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's rate this podcast.com slash bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.