Blue Tent Marketing

What is this Bing you speak of?
With the recent release of Microsoft’s “decision engine” Bing, there’s a new player in town. The goal behind Bing is to assist searchers with excessive amounts of information by simplifying and organizing search results. Bing as a “decision engine” exists to allow users to make decisions more quickly and easily. Microsoft reportedly spent around $100 Million Dollars on the Bing marketing campaign, so it may make sense to pay attention to it.

How does it compare?
Statcounter reported on June 4th that Bing accounted for just over 16% of the United States search market, beating Yahoo at about 10%. Google is still king with over 70%, but it’s important to consider that those results were within days of it’s general release. Looking at the data now shows that Bing has dropped to about 7.8%, while Yahoo has remained at 10%. Google is now back up to almost 80%, where they’ve historically lived. This graph shows it all:

Tips to optimizing your site for Bing

It’s important to understand that Bing looks at several important areas when crawling your site:

Title Tags: Critical importance for your pages, High importance for other pages. Bing relies on this to “categorize” pages, and if done well, your page could become the only result.

Domain Age: Bing really factors in domain age: older is better. You may want to think about acquiring older domains if available.

Content: If you think Content is King on Google, it’s even more important on Bing. The recommended length of content is 300 words or more.

Links: Bing likes outbound links, but doesn’t seem to care much about link popularity when compared to Google.

– Andrew Vick
Director of Sales & Marketing

It’s difficult to make large capital investments in your website when rentals are down, but it’s always possible to invest in incremental improvements that will buoy the bottom line and increase conversions. But where should you invest? Try asking your website these five questions and see if you like the answers. If not, consider investigating improvements to one of these key factors.

1. Do you satisfy the rate conscious?
   Renting a house is essentially an e-commerce transaction. Imagine an e-commerce site without prices, or a Request More Information button next to the product. Web users expect easy access to rates based on their target dates, not average nightly rates or generic designations like ‘Economical’ or ‘Luxury.’ In the information age, your site should deliver rates as quickly as possible, ideally at the search results page, based on the dates and length of stay.
2. Do I get results fast? 
   A quick search on the home page should allow users to get down to the business of renting a house immediately. Do not impede this process. The search should be visible on a 1024X768 screen, clean, and inviting. Inviting means simple. Provide a link to advanced search for those who might want to search by more than just start date, length of stay, location and a couple of key amenities. If you have many properties consider offering drill-down or drill-sideways results in a sidebar next to your search results. Drill-down: we have this many results if you narrow your search with “Hot Tub.” Drill-sideways: Show the number of results if a user were to filter by “Walk to Slopes” instead of “Ski in, Ski Out.”
3.  Do you provide enough rental detail and the ability to purchase?
   As a general rule, err on the side of simplicity when it comes to content, so that users can focus on the business at hand without distractions. This rule doesn’t apply to rental details though. If you’re going to rent a house for a week and pay big bucks, you’ll want as many pictures, virtual tours, maps and as much availability information as possible. Vivid descriptions are helpful, as are comprehensive list of amenities with house-to-house comparison options. As a rule, people don’t read on the web, that is, until it’s time to spend money. They will also want real pricing and online booking if this can be provided.
4.  Does my site make helpful suggestions?
   We’re seeing more and more “fuzzy logic” search results on VR sites. Drill down results appear in a sidebar next to large results sets and provide links showing common filters you might want to apply to reduce the overall number of results to a manageable level. A link in this sidebar might look like this: “Add Hot Tub (27),” indicating that the user may want to filter down to only 27 results by adding Hot Tub as a criteria. This link will go straight to the filtered results. A drill up link might suggest that the user remove an uncommon filter from their search for more results. For instance, “With Out Elevator (35).” Drill sideways results allow you to suggest parallel options to your user, for instance the house is available on an adjoining week to the dates searched or if you selected Ski in, Ski Out, you might consider the following link “Walk to Lifts (25).” These types of search services are increasingly common on travel sites.
5.  Do you take advantage of GIS?
   Does your site provide your user with integrated geographical information to help them picture themselves at your location. Offer your search results on google maps as well in list format. If you’re in a large city, see if the public transportation system has an API plugin. For instance, in some large Metropolitan areas HopStop (http://hopstop.com/) let’s you embed a form in your site that will return point to point subway, bus or tram directions. These services add value to your site and provide compelling reasons for your users to return after they’ve booked.

– Seth Brown
Director of Web Projects 

 

We’ve recently implemented a new support program to better accommodate our client’s needs for day-to-day questions, tech support issues, site updates, training, etc. We now offer three levels of customer support for our clients that host their website with us. As we have a broad range of clients, we’ve created a set of support plans to accommodate a wide range of needs. We have established the following three support plans: The Basic Plan, The Best Practices Plan, and the Managed Services Plan.

The Basic Support Plan: Our basic support plan is as simple as it gets: hourly support. All requests, questions and issues will be billed at our regular hourly rate. Support issues can be submitted in the following manner:

• Preferred: Complete the customer support form on our website that is submitted directly into the support hourly queue.
• Phone and email support (support (at) bluetent.com).

Advantages: You have access to our team of support professionals with no annual commitment or contracts. This package is ideal for organizations and companies that expect minimal support needs.

 The Best Practices Support Plan: This plan offers upgraded service and bundled support time at reduced hourly rates.

• 6 hours of support time for a fee of $550
• A 20% savings off our standard hourly rate
• Main point of contact – you will have direct access to an account representative to help with support or general questions.
• Preferred phone and email access support – You’ll have phone and email access to your main point of contact. 

Advantages: Faster access to our professionals and 20% off our regular hourly support rates.
Ideal for organizations and companies who expect average support requirements and want an opportunity to save money as well increase their quality of service.

The Managed Services Plan: Highly recommend for organizations looking for our highest level of service, support and agency quality marketing expertise.  A dedicated account manager will help you develop and execute all your online marketing initiatives – programs starting at $500/month. Programs are highly customized for your goals and resources. Hire a part-time internet marketing expert to help drive all of your marketing initiatives with a focus on increasing your ROI.

• A dedicated account manager familiar with your business goals allows you access to professionals with strategic understanding of your marketing programs.
• Proactive account management to add value and increase ROI.
• A customized plan allows you to outsource your online marketing department and reduce internal expenses without sacrificing quality.

Exceeding client expectations when it comes to customer service and support is our goal. To date, we’ve had a great response to this new support program. Your thoughts and feedback are invaluable to us and allow us to continue to improve our services – so please don’t hesitate to let us know what you think!

– Jay Scherrer
Director of Account Services

I am sure that many of you (me included) are big fans of Seth Godin. His blog is looked at by many marketers and business people as a guide for making those hard and timely decisions.

Our Director of Sales Andrew Vick sent this equation from Seth a few weeks back: Value = benefit/price

I know that many businesses are in a financial squeeze with the current economic conditions and are always trying to get the best deal and most out of every dollar they spend. I also know that Blue Tent as an internet marketing agency sees this first hand almost every day.

• What do I get for that
• What did I get for that
• How come this takes so long
• When will I see my ROI

These are all standard questions we get every day and I thought I would share some ideas for our customers and blog subscribers to get more Value for their marketing dollar.

Here are my Top 3

1. ALWAYS have your analytics set up by professionals. At Blue Tent we use Google Analytics (there are many others) to track and measure effectiveness of marketing programs. You will have no idea what your value is if you don’t take the time to set up and configure this correctly.
2. Have a trusted member outside of your internal staff. Whether it’s your uncle in Seattle or a Blue Tent Marketing account manager, have someone outside of your internal team know and understand your metrics and your programs. This will give you an outsider’s view of your business and could yield HUGE value because they see something you did not even know you did not know.
3. Email more. Simple rule of thumb, but you have to do it right…. You need to have good content with solid information and/or value to your customers. Email done effectively will give you much more value from the benefit/price equation.

So that’s my 2 cents on how to think about the Value=benefit/price equation with 3 things you should do today to make sure you have the ability to properly make the next round of decisions. We KNOW that next round will be very important to your business going forward. Good luck

– Peter Scott
President, Blue Tent Marketing

Recently Peter Scott, President of Blue Tent Marketing, asked us to reflect on why customers buy from us, why they stay with us year after year, and why we’ve been able to weather the current economic storm better than many of our competitors in the internet marketing industry.  Below, I’ve outlined a few of the key aspects of what makes Blue Tent Marketing a unique company, and a valuable business partner that has proven strategies to help you “Win on the Web.”

Pride and Professionalism – We’re as committed to your success as you are.  Many web companies simply lack a sense of professionalism or don’t answer your calls and emails if you aren’t spending X amount of dollars a month. Conversely, at Blue Tent, we’re a talented group of passionate professionals who’ve got your back.

A Wealth of Knowledge – After over 7 years, we’ve come to embrace the fact that the only constant in this business is change. We’re one of only about 30 Google Analytics Authorized Consultancies in North America, and we’re also certified in many other areas, such as Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassadors. Our in-depth knowledge of Drupal, search engine optimization and web analytics shows commitment to stay ahead of the curve and means that as a Blue Tent client you will remain at the forefront of web technologies.

A Lack of Hand Waving – At Blue Tent we realize that your advertising and marketing dollars are precious, and that you rightfully expect to know what your return on investment is. Whether you’re an email client, a Google Analytics client, or an SEO client, our reporting and analysis tools will provide you with real ROI figures in black and white.

Client Referrals – One thing we don’t spend a lot of time marketing around here is ourselves. We’ve worked hard to deliver results for an amazing client base who have consistently been our best advocates and advertisers. Our growth has been organic, fueled largely by these client referrals.

The Right Priorities – Through our charitable foundation, our Green Initiatives, and our company’s culture, we never forget the larger more important things in life.

- S. Chapin Lewis
Sales & Marketing Coordinator

To celebrate Earth Day 2009, we unveiled the latest phase of our Blue Tent Green initiative: Computer Recycling. It goes without saying how harmful computer components containing hazardous materials such as lead, mercury and chromium can be to our environment if they aren’t disposed of properly.

With a grant from Aspen’s Community Office for Resource Efficiency (C.O.R.E.) and in partnership with the Carbondale-based YouthEntity (formerly Computers For Kids Foundation or C4K), we will contribute to a collaborative effort to reuse and recycle computers from throughout the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond.

Youth Entity is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help prepare local youth prepare for future success by connecting community with technology and education. Their student technicians are able to give approximately 85% of the computers and peripherals they receive a new lease on life by refurbishing the equipment and then distributing it to those in need. The equipment that Youth Entity can’t use is headed for A-1 Electronic Recycling, LLC of Denver, Colorado. It’s not the company that was recently raided by the FBI and featured on “60 Minutes,” so no worries on that front.

Back in the day, our office was located in the server room of a company in Basalt. We were surrounded by old computer monitors, keyboards, speakers and such. Clearly, nobody knew what to do with that stuff or how to dispose of it in a responsible way. Going forward, our goal is to make it easy for people to recycle and reuse older computers as much as possible.

Today, BTM World Headquarters is located upstairs at 218 E. Valley Dr., Suite 205 in the Orchard Plaza building in El Jebel, across from Movieland. Our office will serve as a drop-off point for the mid-valley residents for used computers and peripherals every Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.. We’ll also station the computer recycling trailer at various locations throughout the valley from time to time. A processing fee of $5 to $12 is required to defray the recycling costs. All gift-in-kind donations to YouthEntity are tax deductible.

So if you’re located in the Roaring Fork Valley, keep an eye out for our computer recycling trailer. And help us keep toxic computers out of landfills and extend their life by putting them into the hands of those that could use them.

Happy Earth Day!
- The Blue Tent Team

As the separation between search and social media marketing fades away, marketers find themselves standing at a crossroads. In one direction, stands the huge opportunity to increase brand awareness and connect with targeted users, and in the other lies the possibility of getting left in the dust of web savy competitors by not evolving their search marketing strategy.  If you’re looking to drive huge amounts of traffic, then focus your time on Digg or Reddit. But, if you are looking to connect with new users and generate buzz about your business and its products and services, then you might learn something from our client, Gulf Shores Plantation and their approach of using Twitter to connect with new customers.

They decided to do some routine monitoring of Twitter Search for some commonly used vacation rental keywords to open doors to a variety of conversations and connections. In this example, they found a user who was planning a family vacation to the area. TIP: use TweetDeck to follow multiple keyword searches at the same time, giving you the ability to monitor multiple conversations.

Take the time to interact within your niche on Twitter. A simple reply to @itsalltweet is all Gulf Shores Plantations needed to open up communication with this potential customer.

Twitter has earned its reputation as a real-time networking and communication tool and will continue to build strength in the Social Media sphere with quality interactions between users.

Jonathan Georger is Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics at Blue Tent Marketing and is a reformmed Twitter hater, once he realized its marketing potential.

Last week, members of the Blue Tent email team traveled to Miami, Florida to attend MarketingSherpa’s 4th Annual Email Summit. For the second year in a row, Blue Tent won Gold for Best Postcard-Style Campaign (B-to-B) featuring A Blue Tent Christmas Carol. The goal of this campaign was to wish our clients and subscribers a happy holiday season while simultaneously incentivizing them to complete our Ghost of Internet Marketing’s Past, Present and Yet to Come Journey. We had great feedback and an outstanding response that generated about 75 leads across 11 service categories. Below is a photo of our acceptance of the award. Pictured between the MarketingSherpa presenters, from left to right: Josh Lewis, VP of Marketing, Eric Taylor, Email Project Manager, and Mehri Movassaghpour, Email Project Manger. Ryan Austin, Director of Marketing, is not pictured as he attended the email summit last year and accepted the award on behalf of Blue Tent. Following are our “Top 5 Takeaways” from the conference:

1) Why segmentation is so important
The objective of segmenting your email list members is to increase the relevancy of your messages so that they add more value to your members. To improve responses and results, target messages to different groups with varying subscriber behavior and/or specific demographics.

2) Using trigger-based email campaigns
Trigger-based email can create a truly relevant email campaign that can help your messages connect with subscribers and increase your ROI. This type of email can be based on important dates, subscriber behavior, and recent purchases.

3) Optimizing your email campaign
Optimize your email and landing pages to increase the effectiveness of your email campaign. This can help you identify a favorable marketing strategy and add flexibility to future campaigns.

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director of MarketingExperiments, pointed out that a consumer should immediately be able to answer 3 questions: 1. Where am I at? 2. What can I do here? 3. Why should I do it? If they can’t answer those questions right off the bat then you have problems.

4) Don’t sink in the in-box sea
Nowadays, everyones in-boxes are overwhelmed with mail, whether it’s junk or not. This is a time when marketers will need to re-evalutate their email strategies and analyze how well their existing methods are working to connect with the subscribers.

Stefan Tornquist, MarketingSherpa’s Research Director, mentioned that people aren’t bogged down with the amount of email they receive, they are bogged down with the amount of irrelevant information in most emails.

5) Test different approaches that have measurable results
Create tests that provide immediate results to plan an effective email marketing strategy. Whether it’s a redesigned layout or a new email incentive, you can use the results to determine which approach works best.

Mehri Movassaghpour
Email Project Manager

It’s no secret that fresh content is one of the best way to improving your search engine visibility. Whether you are updating product & services pages, developing a resource section or simply writing a blog post – fresh content will keep the spiders crawling back.

Not only is coming up with fresh articles not the easiest thing, we all know ‘writers block’, but you also want to provide relevant & worthy content. After all, you don’t want to offend your visitors with boring or unrelated articles – you want to keep them interested! Here are a few easy to follow ways to generate fresh content topics & ideas;

Expanding upon your already existing content is often overlooked. Does your site have bullet lists of ‘Things to do…’, ‘Services we offer…’ or ‘Area Resources’? Take a second look and consider expanding the lists into fresh articles or pages. If the list has made it onto the website, then there is a good chance that it is relevant and worthy content just waiting to be published.

When was the last time you checked on what your competition’s website was doing from a content standpoint? Do they have imagesimagesimage galleries or video’s. Do they allowing users to comment on articles?  These are all simple ways to generate fresh content to your site.

Researching and understanding new trends in your industry by tapping into socially driven websites is a the cutting edge of internet marketing. Websites such as Yahoo Answers, Google Blog Search, Google Alerts, Delicious Popular, or Twitter Search can give you up-to-date insight on what people are talking about. This is a fantastic way to find some Blog Food. Not only can you monitor when a certain keyword is mentioned, such as brand or product name, but you can also interact within the chosen community. Interacting with users and offering them content that they may find interesting will help drive targeted traffic to your website or blog – ultimately boosting your reputation and build a community.

Understanding your web analytics can be a huge advantage when you are coming up with fresh content. Using Google Analytics new Advanced Segmentation features, you are able to dive deep into how your users are searching for your website and its products/services. You will find that even though your website may rank for a keyword, the user performance is below par for the course – meaning you need to improve your content to increase user engagement with your website.

So get to it and start coming up with some fresh content for your website – because every article, blog post or web page keeps the Search Engine spiders and your visitors crawling back for more. Contact Jonathan Georger for more ways to help start adding fresh content to your website.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve officially been designated as the only Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (GAAC) based in Colorado! While we’ve been working with GA since the spring of 2007, this marks an important milestone not only in the development of our web analytics department, but also in the ongoing development of a “culture of optimization” within our clients and within Blue Tent. Since the beginning, our mission has been to help our clients “Win on the Web” and this designation is just another step in that direction.

As you probably already know by now, Google Analytics is a powerful, free, web-based analytics program that enables its users to measure the effectiveness of their online marketing programs. A successful Google Analytics configuration allows the user to see how their site visitors interact with their website, identify where their traffic is coming from, and track the number of those visitors that convert into new leads or sales. Google Analytics allows companies to connect the dots between their website, organic and paid search marketing, online advertising, and email marketing programs to identify which efforts contribute most to their bottom line. It’s all about ROI.

So what’s the big deal about becoming a GAAC? Essentially, we’ve received the “stamp of approval” from the web analytics gurus at Google. The GAAC logo demonstrates that Blue Tent Marketing has gone through the extra steps to prove itself as an expert in Google Analytics configuration, consulting, analysis and training. With a large percentage of GA setups installed incorrectly, it’s important that you choose an agency that can get the job done right. We’re uniquely positioned to help our clients in the real estate, fractional, vacation rental and resort industries maximize the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts.

It’s clear that in today’s economy you simply can’t afford to be guessing about where to direct your precious marketing dollars. So whether you’re looking for greater insight into how your current internet marketing initiatives are performing, or whether you’re ready to take the next step to begin optimizing your web presence with Google Website Optimizer – we’re here to help. 

Contact us today and get ready to take your internet marketing initiatives to new heights!

Until next time,
Josh Lewis
VP Marketing