We’re always stoked when the accolades roll in.  Whether it’s from one of our award winning email campaigns, or from the 27th Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards, who just gave us a Gold Award for the innovative internal patient’s blog we created for University Health System, we’re honored to be mentioned among the leading new media marketing agencies.

Due to patient confidentiality we can’t link to the internal blog, but check out the other winners at Healthcare Marketing Report’s site.

As we say goodbye to 2008 and look ahead to the promise of the New Year, we are well aware of the challenges that lie ahead. It’s no secret that the current economic conditions have created a very tough business environment. Just about everyone has been affected by the financial crisis and the melt-down in the real estate market. And when people lose confidence, they tend to stop taking risks and adopt a “back to the basics” mentality. It’s a time to separate wants from needs and boil our lifestyles, our operating budgets and marketing expenses down to the most basic essentials.

This is not such a bad thing. Because surviving through these challenging times is often what makes businesses better and stronger. It makes us take an honest look at ourselves – to identify what’s working and what’s not – and to make those difficult decisions that might otherwise get overlooked. Frugality is in, excess is out.

This reality certainly also applies to our client’s internet marketing programs. For many, now is not the time to take on big, new projects that require significant expenditures of time and money. Rather, now is the time refocus, refine and revitalize your existing internet marketing strategy. Identify what’s working and find ways to do it even better. Determine which programs are faltering and overhaul them or cut them altogether. Following are some simple suggestions of how you can get “back to the basics” with your internet marketing strategy in order to go from good to great in 2009.

The Year-End Review
You’ve got to know where you are before you can possibly know which direction you need to go. Schedule a comprehensive review of all of your internet marketing initiatives from 2008. Are you able to clearly measure your ROI for each online marketing channel? If not, why not? How will you measure your ROI for 2009? Which programs were the most effective and which ones bombed? Where will you spend your coveted marketing dollars?

Affordable Website Enhancements
Take a critical look at your website. Have you worked to improve it over the past year? What enhancements can be made at minimal cost for maximum impact? Analyze your web analytics data to determine where your site needs fixing. Do certain pages have a higher bounce rate than others? Are your visitors abandoning your site at a certain stage of the conversion process? Look for simple design and content enhancements that will improve the user experience.

Evolve Your Email Marketing Programs
Many of our clients have very good email marketing programs. However, there’s always room for improvement. Make sure your email programs is “authenticated” to increase the delivery rate into the inbox. Measure list subscriber growth and attrition. Redesign old templates that may not render nicely on newer email clients such as Outlook 2007. Segment, test and get creative with more advanced email marketing techniques. Encourage participation and feedback. Remember that it’s about building relationships and good communication. 

Refine Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy
Search engine optimization is one of the more convoluted aspects of internet marketing. Schedule a year-end review with your search account manager to get a clear understanding of how your SEO program is performing. How have your rankings, traffic and conversions improved? How does your paid search (PPC) strategy fit into the picture? Can your campaigns be optimized to be more effective? Can you cut spending on unproductive keywords? Should your paid search campaigns focus on one, two or three search engines? What are your most productive keywords? Are there other long tail keyword phrases you could be targeting?

Assess Your Analytics Program
The core function of your web analytics program is to show you what’s working and what’s not. Are you spending the amount of time necessary to decipher this critical information? Is your Google Analytics configuration as comprehensive and customized as it should be? Are you consistently measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) or do you spend most of your time report surfing pretty pie charts? Make a commitment to understand and leverage your web analytics data to improve your overall internet marketing strategy. Hire a part-time account manager to help you identify and measure key metrics. Discover the actionable data and act on it. 

Thanks to everyone for a great year, and may 2009 bring you peace and prosperity!

Happy New Year!

Josh Lewis
VP Marketing

This past Saturday night was the 3rd annual Summit for Life race in Aspen, Colorado. The event draws athletes from across the state to participate in the uphill race & raise awareness about the importance of organ and tissue donation. This was the first year Blue Tent sponsored a racer in the event.

The event was first started by Olympic athlete Chris Klug, who after being diagnosed with a rare liver disease, overcame the illness by an organ transplant. Chris later went on to win a bronze medal for snowboarding in 2002.

The Summit for Life is a nighttime race from the base of Aspen Mountain to the resort’s summit – a climb of 3,267 feet over some 2.5 miles. Racers can use their preferred choice of lighting – headlamp, flashlight, etc. – to find their way and whatever non-motorized equipment – snowshoes, skins, or other creative means – to get up the hill.

Everyone has a story. What’s your story about your business to prospective and existing clients? Do they believe you and does your story spread? Should they believe you? From a marketing perspective how can you make sure your story resonates with the people that you want to connect with? Do you tell them what we think they want to hear? Is that guessing? Do you expose every nook and cranny of your business operations, both good and bad? Are you really who you say you are, and how do you prove it? Lots of questions, and probably no simple answers, but I’ll submit the following:

From an internet marketing perspective, being genuine, authentic and real is the most effective way to build trust. Your story must be real and gain the trust of your audience. Gaining the trust of clients and prospects demands that you are who you say you are and do what you say you’ll do. Always. A great website that establishes you as the authority in your arena is important. Sending relevant, poignant email marketing messages on the schedule you and your subscribers agreed to is important. Winning at the SEO game through best practices and not trying to short circuit the system is important.

Whatever your marketing initiatives are, make sure that your story is real and trust will follow.

– Andrew Vick
Director of Sales

Over the past 18 months I have witnessed a sharp change to the forefront of blogging. A true breakthrough for the Web 2.0 world, blogging was initially used as a medium for people to express opinions and share information with one another. It helped spark the ability for people to build relationships – ultimately engaging readers enough to create some type of community on the web.  What at one point was a purely static version of blogging, has evolved into a dynamic, engaging and quickly changing environment. Vertical blogs, such as localism.com, have allowed users to block out the blogosphere’s noise, and choose the specific industry or genre of the blog(s) that they want to follow.

What continues to challenge marketing departments is the ability to engage their consumers in the company blog. How do you engage a reader once they have already arrived at your blog?

It is important that the author keep in mind two main aspects of successful blogging; organization and frequency. The first is simple, choose a blogging software that will allow you to arrange your content in an organized and easy to navigate way.  Currently, WordPress allows the author to tag each post with the most relevant categories, then offering a RSS feed directly to that category – allowing the reader to only read what they choose.

A second option is Compendium Blogware. Compendium blogs are arranged in a keyword fashion, rather than categories, each blog is given a keyword. The software then crawls your latest post and compends that post to the most relevant keyword blog – a very unique way to organize content driven by keywords.

Aside from providing an easy to navigate blog – it is important to consider the frequency of your posts. Twice a day, week, month? Too many posts can drown the reader in content and can also be missed – as most blogging software arrange blog posts by date. Welcome micro-blogging! Social media websites such as Twitter & Twello allow the author to update their audience with short snips of content. This tool is great for referring readers back to more involved blog posts, or even a great way to promote specials, packages and new inventory on the main website.

Providing your readers with an easy to follow, organized and steady flow of content will not only be favorable to the search engines, but also help build a strong reputation for your website.

Best,

Jonathan Georger
Director of Search Marketing

Over the past couple months there has been a distinct buzz over the use of blogs to complement one’s business. Business owners and marketing leaders alike are beginning to recognize the power of a blog. You may be thinking that blogs are nothing new, they’ve been around for awhile now. Yet blogs continue to evolve and are becoming even more interactive.

One of the biggest issues small business owners have with their website is how to leverage a small amount of content to their best advantage.

The most important rule to not lose sight of the reason for a blog. What is so great about ranting about the latest Jazz Festival coming to town, if there is no one there to read about it? [People - We are talking Web 2.0 here] If you are not willing to develop a blogosphere of your own, where you take the time to give thoughtful feedback and comments to other blogs, then don’t expect to have visitors drooling at the RSS feeds waiting for your next post. Commenting on other blogs not only gives the chance to make a meaningful contribution to someone else’s post, but you are also encouraging visitors who read the comment chains to follow you back to your blog.

The second most important rule is to post and to post often. If you are not keeping your blog up to date with what is happening in your vertical, then you will most likely lose readership over time and be forgotten about In reality, one post a week is nothing. But I understand, as a small business owner or marketer, finding the time to brainstorm a meaningful post can feel overwhelming. I am here to give you some Blog Food inspiration.

What is Blog Food? Simply, an article, review, testimonial, interview, picture gallery or opinion that you feel would be attractive to your audience. Anytime you have an idea for a post, write it down and use it later on. Here are some tips to leveraging your small business through Blog Food.

1. Use photo’s in your post’s – Living in the Digital Age, it seems the ability to upload digital photo’s is easier than ever. Photo’s offer a nice break in the text, while also giving your audience a visual to help get the point of the post across. Screen shots are a super easy way to provide visual instructions as well. [Note: There are no photo's in this post]
2. Provide a meaningful title – With the use of RSS feed readers, such as Google Reader, your audience is much more prone to skim the numerous blog post titles every morning as they drink their coffee, rather than hit each blog directly. The title is the first chance you have to reach your audience. Your title also provides a great SEO benefit. Giving your title a little SEO attention can go a long ways – simply do a little keyword research on your topic and optimize your post for a popular search term.
3. Diversify your posts – As a small business owner or marketer, it is your job to diversify the audience of your blog. Simple topics such as market tips, local events, or article reviews are a great way to diversify your blog.
4. Share your honest opinion & insight – Often times, the best blog post is one that comes from the gut. Post’s that are edgy and controversial give your audience something to comment on, but it also sparks a buzz throughout your readers. This can keep them coming back for more.
5. Be the expert – Position yourself as the expert in your vertical. This is huge to leveraging your blog to help influence your business , but also the most difficult. It takes time to prove to your blogosphere that you are the expert in the vertical, and this requires a high level of interaction on your part. Commenting on other blogs and posting meaningful articles will surely help point you in the right direction.
6. Share with Social Media – Most Social Media Networks, such as digg, del.ico.us, Twitter & Stumbleupon, offer the ability to share content via your blog. By installing the social network’s logo to the bottom of your post’s, your readers can easily promote your content to other sources of the web.
7. Track pageviews/visits – Install a web analytics tool to help track the visits/pageviews for your blog. This sharp Google Analytics plugin for WordPress blogs helps track all pageviews to your blog posts, giving you a sense of what works and what is flat-out garbage.

Once you have found a nice rhythm for blogging on your own, your small business website will surely feel the positive effects of a larger targeted audience. Happy Blogging!

Best,

Jonathan Georger
Director of Search Engine Marketing