Snow.NZ

Snow.NZ

Why Snow.NZ commissioned Hello Better Digital to build a better digital info hub for NZ snow sports enthusiasts

The first snow sport website in New Zealand, Snow.NZ went live way back in 1995. Launched to keep snow sports enthusiasts up to date with what was happening on the mountains, it rapidly became a hub of ski field updates, event listings, and snow sport reporting. In its heyday it was seeing over a million sessions each winter and grew a vast social following and email list to match.

After a few years, New Zealand ski areas realised they were missing out on this new-fangled digital marketing thing and got in on the act. Over time, the stature of Snow.NZ diminished as the ski sites grew.

 A combination of factors led to Snow.NZ’s founder investing less, and by 2014 the site was sitting stagnant, featuring out of date info and regularly getting hacked.

Enter digital marketing expert and keen skier Lawrence Smith. In the noughties his digital agency was hired to build a competitor to Snow.NZ. Certain players in the NZ ski industry were concerned Snow.NZ was too influential and wanted to create a competing source of snow info. SnowReports.co.nz was the result. The site gained its own following, but the industry’s fickle attention moved on, and when funding for the site folded Lawrence kept it running himself.

Why New Zealand needs an impartial snow sports site

Lawrence explains, “NZ ski area websites are a good source of info on a single field, but because the NZ ski scene’s so small, it’s competitive rather than collaborative. So committed skiers and boarders interested in the big picture struggle to find unbiased info on the whole NZ snow sports scene.”

“Ski areas also don’t do a great job nurturing new skiers, and because snow sports are expensive and remote, they’re not easy to get into. As a result, the ski areas all scrap over the same group of existing skiers. The NZ ski industry spends more money promoting New Zealand as a ski destination to Australia, than it does promoting skiing as a sport. But as we saw during Covid, that’s a short sighted strategy.”

In early 2019 Lawrence bought Snow.NZ to merge with SnowReports.co.nz and create an objective hub of NZ snow info. His dream is a single source of unbiased data on NZ ski areas so skiers can compare destinations, combined with snow sports content to inspire a new generation of skiers. He wants to bring back the glory days of Snow.NZ, but better than before.

Of course, there was a catch. Lawrence needed to merge the two sites in time for the 2019 winter ski season, he was dealing with a hot mess of legacy tech, and he didn’t have a huge budget to play with. He wanted that mythical combination of factors, fast, affordable, and good. Luckily, he knew just the team, and called Hello Better Digital.

Case study snow nz

An ambitious build in a very tight timeframe

Lawrence explains, “Hello Better Digital built Snow.NZ very sleekly and efficiently. I gave them a brief that talked about outcomes, rather than defining solutions. It was up to them to interpret that brief technically and make it work. The team said they’d never worked so efficiently on such a complex project before, and that’s because they had the freedom to deliver results in the way they best saw fit. If you have an experienced digital partner and you trust them to deliver, you get both quality and efficiency in terms of time and cost.”

“We took quite an innovative approach. There was no detailed technical scope, and we took an iterative process to improving the site. We launched knowing it wasn’t perfect and evolved on the hoof. We did a two phase launch, where we merged the domain with lower traffic first. This meant we got to beta test the site in the real world and refine it based on real users’ response. Then after we’d improved the site, we merged the higher traffic site. I’d launch the same way again because it was the ideal way to test the site in a low risk real user environment.”

“Hello Better Digital’s experience and flexibility made the launch possible. That, and empowering them to do their best work. Don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do. Hire smart people, ask them what to do and how you can help them, then get out of the way. I know Hello Better Digital’s mantra is tell us what you want to achieve and we’ll tell you the best way to get there. And I know from experience that if you trust, you get results quicker and cheaper.’

A single source of snow truth

Snow.NZ relaunched in August 2019, mid-way through the 2019 ski-season. Traffic was good from the start and feedback enthusiastic. The NZ ski industry made positive noises about collaboration and support. Then along came Covid and those potential partnerships fell over. But despite borders being closed and zero skiers from Australia, Snow.NZ traffic was up 100% year-on-year in 2020 and has continued to rise every winter since. There’s a strong appetite from New Zealand skiers and boarders for an impartial source of snow news and info.

Lawrence hasn’t yet achieved his vision of a collaborative single source of snow truth, collaboratively backed by the NZ ski industry. Covid sent potential commercial backers into hibernation. However, the success of the site has attracted attention, and Lawrence is in talks with a new group of investors keen to grow the site.

He’s excited about Snow.NZ’s next evolution. The plan is to rebuild the site yet again using the next generation of tech to define a new standard for what’s possible for a ski industry site. Lawrence says, “I’m confident Snow.NZ can become a collective voice for everything snow. The site is about investing in the local market, trying to grow the whole pie for everyone.”

“The best thing about working with Hello Better Digital is you can trust them to deliver on your vision. “Not many teams in NZ have built as many technical solutions as Hello Better Digital. Because they’ve worked on so many projects globally, they’ve seen everything. You're dealing directly with experts at the top of their game in terms of understanding how tech can benefit your business. So, I trust them to choose the right tech and the right ways to do things.”