Thoughts about the Oak Pass site

We want to be a premier experience site rather than a discount site.

We want to provide all access, insider information about Paso Robles and SLO County. Members will be able to get early information. Members will be able to get privileged information. Members will be able to get exclusive access.

I think our challenge is to continue to provide high profile high value products and services for the economic elite, rather than becoming a place to clip coupons.

Our target market for membership will be people with income over $80,000 a year or people who have expendable income of over $1,000 a month.

I feel that our best early opportunity to provide high value will be in destination travel services. Services like guided tours or fully supported self-guided tours. This is the type of experience I had in Italy renting electric mountain bikes and traveling to the Mediterranean.

Our highest value asset will be our email list. Our email list really will act as our ATM machine. Our email list is our tool to call our customers and fans to action to buy products and services from our site.

Our primary goal will be to build and grow our email list. I feel we can grow our email list by providing exciting and inspirational content on the internet in the form of tourism videos and destination videos and articles promoting the Paso Robles wine country and the San Luis Obispo County recreational area.

In my mind we're a lifestyle and entertainment destination portal. Our primary billable services at least initially will be in destination travel logistics. This will include tours, lodging, transportation, concierge recommendations, and travel support.

Just like when I worked as a concierge at Yellowstone National Park, and people would ask me "How do I see Yellowstone national Park in 2 days?" I would respond that they're going to have so much fun in the next 2 days that they'll want to come back. Then I would give them an abbreviated "today and tomorrow" itinerary so that they could focus and fully enjoy themselves in the time that they had. This would build excitement for the next time that they would come back.

Since our primary goal is to build our email list we will need landing pages with calls to action to submit an email with the option to buy memberships. The landing page visits will be driven by and generated from our social media posts.

Our branded content will also act as inspiration to buy memberships, so we will need a content management system that can support news articles, videos, local maps, bike routes, catered picnics, and curated content from other sites.

As we expand our footprint, we can add products and services to our storefront. Initially we may have branded t-shirts, hats, visors, tea towels, wind scarves, etc and we can add services such as guided tours, self-guided tours, electric bike rentals, motel accommodations, transportation, and tickets to events.

I feel we will need to choose and create a specific personality for the site. It could be edgy and party centric. It could be elegant and opulent. It could be casual and beachy. Regardless of what personality we choose our goal is to build trust and excitement in the minds of our target customers.

Our constant challenge will be to create desire out of the promise for pleasure or gain or the fear of pain or loss.

Computer systems that we will probably want will include email list management, campaign list management, referrals, SEO, conversion metrics for each landing page, accounting, time management, hours billable and worked, and ways to analyze what our customer acquisition costs are, what are run rate is, and what are profit margins are as well as our projected revenue.