The “you’ve got mail” heyday of email is dead, but for the most part, that has gone unnoticed by Vail Resorts’ marketing department.

Those are the words of Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz, who came clean with investors this week about how his company has struggled to adapt to the changing communications landscape.

The most effective communication might always be the face-to-face, “give it to me straight, Doc” approach, and that was Katz’s preferred method of communication with investors this week.

“Results from the past season were below expectations, and our season-to-date pass sales growth has been limited,” Katz said. “We recognize that we are not yet delivering the full growth potential that we expect from this business, in particular in revenue growth in both this past season and in our projected guidance for next year.”

One of the main issues, Katz said, is the fact that the inbox just isn’t what it used to be.

“At the heart of our underperformance is the way we are connecting with guests, as it has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving consumer landscape,” Katz said. “For years, email was our most effective channel for reaching and converting guests, leveraging data and delivering efficient and targeted communications. However, as consumer preferences have changed, particularly over the last few years, email effectiveness has significantly declined, but we did not make enough progress in shifting to new and emerging marketing challenges.”

It’s an issue of concern across the tech world.

“The ‘death of email’ is a topic that is gaining popularity as businesses and individuals alike look for more efficient ways to communicate,” wrote tech writer Mile Zivkovic in a blog post published a few days before Katz’s remarks. “Even though it’s clear that email is the undisputed king of office communication, it’s also clear that it’s far from the ideal solution for communication … With the explosion of messaging apps, collaboration tools, and social media platforms, it’s no longer the go-to method for everyday business or personal communication.”

Vail Resorts has spent the last 15 years collecting email addresses, Katz said, but in the future, Vail Resorts plans to look to much more than that email list when targeting guests.

“Our focus is on broadening our reach and modernizing how we engage across channels. We plan to increase our exposure within digital and social platforms and expand our influence and partnerships,” Katz said. “We believe this shift will allow us to reach guests where they are, and to fully utilize our guests’ data to create content that resonates with our guests and drives action.”

Katz said this will be a multi-year effort.

“I actually feel really good about the data that we have on our guests; we have extensive data,” Katz said. “We can use that data now, with all the tools that are available, to go out and use tons of different paid media networks that personalize. We can go to other companies, and we can bump our list against their list, and then make sure we’re delivering the right ad to the right person. And then we can use lookalike modeling for prospects that we don’t necessarily have in our database to make sure we’re targeting the right people.”

That could include product placement through social media personalities and influencers, apps like TikTok, which Katz said the company has not yet fully embraced, and even media that predates email.

“On TV now, you can run ads that go down to the individual person, which is important for us because obviously we’re not a mass-marketed type item,” Katz said. “That’s traditional media, but then you add social media, posts about your product, and using that creative to run in those social media channels at the same time.”

This story is from VailDaily.com.