“Content is king” has become quite the quintessential phrase in Blogs like ours over the past few years. But it’s a phrase we at Tactic Group strongly believe in. So if content is king, how should it be communicated?

Last month we setup an email campaign for delivering HTML newsletters to the membership database of the New Zealand Snowsports Instructors Alliance (NZSIA). Our chosen platform was Campaign Monitor. And we were impressed. The functionality was extensive, the approval process for campaigns was thorough and the reporting stats are substantial. 100% recommended!

For NZSIA the newsletter performed well. 50% of recipients opened the newsletter (which is very high for email campaigns), 25% clicked a link and only 0.35% unsubscribed. Pretty good results I’d say. The fact that the recipients of the campaign were a highly targeted market certainly helped. However the newsletter’s clean and simple design plus, getting back on topic now, the well-thought-out readable content would have made the biggest impact – particularly with the clicked link and low unsubscribe rates.

Yep, content is still king, that’s for sure. However, without the vessel to communicate such content the message would have never reached the audience. In this case the vessel was an HTML email campaign in the form of a newsletter. In another cases it might be a Twitter stream or a Vimeo channel, but the vessel must be matched with the message and suited to those you’re trying to reach.

Our Tactical Thinking posting schedule has been a bit lacking of late. There is a good reason for this however…

Whilst both Doug and myself are the leading partners in the Tactic Group business, we’re both still self-contractors and have fingers in a number of other pies. Recently Doug has launched his own Web site promoting his services as a specialist User Experience Designer. Check it out at dougsomerville.com.

Me, well that’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride. I’ve recently published a book about skiing and snowboarding in Japan, called Snow-search Japan and am currently in the land of the rising sun promoting the book whilst doing a little other work. To keep track of all the projects I’m involved in I decided to start a mini scrapbook of projects with Posterous.

2010 will see Tactic Group begin a number of new projects including a Blog strategy and design project for the New Zealand Snowsports Instructors Alliance and a re-design for our own site. Watch this space!

The first half of 2009 saw Tactic Group finish off a couple of major projects. This included a web research and design project for Snow Sports Coaching NZ, which included an e-learning solution – something that was new for us.

More recently we undertook a social media strategy and monitoring project for Cardrona Ski Resort in New Zealand.

Both were fun, interesting projects that, not only opened new doors for Tactic Group, but helped us push our knowledge and abilities in a number of different web mediums. We’ve since written a casestudy about each project that provides a good insight into the processes and techniques we employed, check ‘em out…

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With the best intentions of continuous posting we began a photography series last February. Blogging plans often seem to elude us mid-series, but never-the-less the final posts in this series are almost complete.

It’s actually a good thing we waited to write this post, as we’ve since performed a fun social media project for our friend, and the interviewee in this post, Camilla over at Whiteroom Pictures.

WRP blog project

Camilla was in the process of re-designing her web site and wanted to develop her brand within the social media world. With a strong Facebook following already, this was easily done with a Wordpress blog. We designed the blog to fit alongside her new web site with very similar aesthetics and layout, but just a few subtle differences. We also created a blogging strategy to assist her as time goes on.

For more information about the project we performed look out for the case study, coming soon on Tactic Group.

In the meantime, let’s get back to the topic at hand…

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Over the past month we’ve been working hard developing our latest Wordpress blog called amphitheatre – just launched!

This is a community web site, pulling local resources together to create a wide range of content in hope of appealing to a large cross-section of viewers. The site itself focuses 100% on a mountain in New Zealand that is home to two ski resorts run by the same company; Whakapapa and Turoa on Mt Ruapehu. The resorts are the largest in NZ, but relatively unknown overseas. A massive percentage of Ruapehu’s visitors are within 4 hours drive of the mountain and are what most would consider ‘regular customers’.

This being the case, it’s the perfect place to trial a new business model we’ve been working on. I won’t give away too much about it, but the model is aimed at adventure tourism communities with fairly captive audiences.

Take a look around and throw some feedback our way if you feel inclined to do so. It’s not quite 100% finished, but what web sites ever are?

Also, if you’re interested in what we’re doing, get in touch and we’ll tell you a little bit more about it. Maybe you know of a similar community where this model could be applied?

As Doug mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been in Japan working with WSG Media for the past month. Although I’ve been back in the office for almost a week now my ‘to-do’ list seems not to be decreasing in the slightest. Instead it’s growing at a rather alarming rate.

Nevertheless, I did find the time to edit this fun little movie about our trip and thought our readers here at Tactical Thinking might enjoy some ‘light-hearted’ viewing. Enjoy…

The trip was very successful. With most of the research done and new material currently being written, things are moving along nicely. Keep your eyes peeled for further mentions of this new publication from WSG Media – it’s completely under wraps for the time being though, so my lips are sealed.

For the last few weeks Tactic Group’s very own Keith Stubbs has been out on assignment in Japan – “Enjoying the powder and sake”.

While Japan is in peak-season and enjoying some great conditions he’s been touring various resorts updating reviews for the World Snowboard Guide, writing dispatches for various magazines and also finding time to research a new book.

Keith is joined on the trip by Steve Dowle of WSG Media, snowsports photographer Camilla Stoddart, and two female pro-riders from the UK – Posy Dixon and Vicci Miller. The journey has taken them from Nagano to Hokkaido, via Niigata; riding many new resorts along the way—and it sounds like they’re having a blast.

Regular updates and stunning photos are being posted on the WSG Japan 2008 blog. Beware – reading their adrenalin-fuelled dispatches is guaranteed to make you very jealous!

Just a quick heads-up to our readers… Our Facebook page went live at the weekend. It is a little corner of the ‘social-web’ we have reserved for discussions around our humble blog.

There we will be discussing some of the topics we cover here and other general aspects of the blog itself. We have surveys and vox-pops in the pipeline, and there’s talk of video screencasts in the future.

The group is designed to be interactive and to add another level to the Tactical Thinking experience, so get involved to make the most of it! (more…)

… a magazine feature article from our resident writer Keith Stubbs.

Keith’s work in snow sports seems to take him all over the world – lucky him. This article, written by Keith for Whitelines Snowboard Magazine, explores international backcountry/off-piste culture and how it differs from country to country.

You can read the intro to the story here: Whitelines Dec ‘07. But if you want to read the full four-page article, you’ll have to buy the mag.

Well we’re live! It’s my great pleasure to kick off this blog with a “Hello World” type post giving you an introduction on what to expect from us in the coming months.

Tactical Thinking is a place where we at Tactic Group publish news and advice on web marketing, site management and brand development, with emphasis on how these subjects are crucial to the snowsports industry. (more…)