The very first Green Agency client and a business that is very close to my heart is St Martin Chalets in central Austria. St Martin Chalets can be found near St Michael in Lungau – about 1 hour’s drive south of Salzburg. I did a ski season there in 1997/98 and have been there a number of times since, so I know the resort about as well as anyone else in the UK. When St Martin Chalets decided to try to build the best value self catering chalets in Austria, they asked me if I would help with the marketing.

I am now St Martin Chalets’ ‘man-on-the-ground’ in London. I have created a sensible sales and marketing budget for the resort and a strategy that relies heavily on ‘online’ – with particular emphasis on the summer season (the winter is already gaining momentum). As well as working with the chalet owners to help them drive referrals, I am focussing on a combination of organic (SEO), online PR, blogging, social media and Pay-Per-Click advertising, which is all tied together by a unifying online marketing strategy. Offline we are rejecting traditional advertising routes, which can be costly, in favour of building a network of affiliates and ambassadors, who have specific influence within the relevant target markets.