Blue Tent Marketing

It is only fitting that we cap off our renaissance summer here at Blue Tent by rolling out a major overhaul of the Solar Energy International (SEI) website. Located just down the road from world headquarters in Carbondale, Colorado, SEI was founded in 1991 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to help others use renewable energy resources and natural building technologies through education and technical assistance. They have advanced this mission by working with grassroots and development organizations around the world to promote sustainability and improve quality of life, while offering a variety of classes and workshops for 18 years.

Having a web presence since 1998, SEI realized the power of the web as a medium to educate and communicate globally.  SEI approached us this spring knowing that, in order to retain their position as the leading force in the non-profit solar industry, their site was in need of a major redesign and redevelopment.

Goals
At the outset of the project, SEI set forth the following goals:

• Build a new site with a compelling design to act as a forum to facilitate SEI’s primary goal of educating people about renewable energy and sustainable building technologies, and be the “go to” online resource to satisfy any level of interest.
• Strengthen SEI’s brand by underscoring its unique history and wide array of products and services offered.
• Create the functionality needed for students to sign up for, and participate in, classes online and in person.
• Provide complete membership sign-up and administration functionality.
• Integrate a comprehensive e-commerce module to sell merchandise, books and DVDs online.

Process
We began by building SEI’s new site on our Drupal based CMS. This platform allows us the flexibility and scalability to add the features and functionality to accomplish the goals SEI set forth. We built the forms, forums, blogs, RSS feed, calendar and video applications necessary to create a trusted online resource for those seeking information about the latest developments in solar energy and sustainable building technologies.

To help facilitate SEI’s educational mission online, we created the custom integrations with Blackboard, so students could access curriculum, the shopping cart for purchasing textbooks, and the next phase of the project will integrate all of this member information seamlessly into their CRM database – creating a comprehensive web application for managing and growing their organization online.

We also created a member’s only area where interested parties can sign up for updates, access additional information and tools or view SEI’s alumni network, and update their member profiles within the CRM database. Down the road, we’ll be looking to enhance their email marketing and communication programs as well.

Conclusion

SEI has been a model client – embracing our holistic approach to internet marketing. Not only did they have the vision and commitment to make an investment in an industry leading web application; they also incorporated search, email marketing, and Google Analytics into their online marketing strategy.  We’re excited to measure the impact this rebirth of the SEI web presence has on their organization. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an awesome organization and look forward to helping drive the success of their online marketing initiatives into the future. A big thank-you goes out to everyone that worked on this project!

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

True story: Client calls BTM World Headquarters first thing Monday morning and states that over the weekend his company’s email and website suddenly went down! He called the company who hosted his website, email and domain name and the company is out of business. What to do?

First, I checked out the domain name for the client, and noticed that the registration was private so all it displayed in the WHOIS was the Go Daddy Private Registration information. Next, I called Go Daddy and for security purposes, they required that I had the Pin number or the last 4 digits of the credit card on file. Needless to say, I didn’t, so I asked him what to do next.

He directed me to the Go Daddy page to fill out a form Request for Change of Account / Email Update Form to begin the process to change ownership back to the true owner. Once the form is filled out Go Daddy requests a 72-hour turn-around because they get so many requests. Go Daddy will notify you through the e-mail address you provided on the form.

The next nightmare is trying to convince the Registrar that you really do own the domain name. Each Registrar is a little different, each have their own set of privacy rules, forms to fill out, proof of ownership, etc. During this time, your website is down, your email has stopped, and your business internet marketing has come to a complete halt!

This of course is a worst case scenario but nonetheless true. Registrars are usually very helpful as they want to retain your business. Here are a few steps you can take to prevent losing or letting your domain name expire.

1. Registrant Information - If you purchased your domain name through a registrar make sure the Registrant information is in your company name, your address and your valid email address.
   Billing Contact – your name, address and a valid email address.
   Technical Contact – should be the company where your domain is hosted or your name, address with a valid email address.
2. Registrar Account – Where did you buy your domain name? Make sure you have your account login ID and password in a safe place. If you do not have your login id call your registrar and retrieve it. By keeping the email address at your registrar valid you can easily retrieve your login ID/username and password through the email address you have listed in the account.
3. Domain name expiration date – If you plan on keeping your domain name active for years to come invest in it and renew it for several years. Registrars usually will give you a better deal if you renew the domain for multi years. Or have auto renew enabled for your domain name with a valid credit card on file.
4. Domain Name Managers – Many hosting companies are also domain name registrars. Managers will make sure your domain does not expire and will probably renew from year to year. With the slowing economy if you feel uncomfortable at all with your current hosting company I would suggest to follow steps 1-3 to ensure you are in control of your domain name.

WHOIS will give you all the information you need to know about your domain name. The Registrant, Contact information, the Registrar Company name where the domain was purchased and the domain name expiration date. Click on the link and see who is in control of your domain name: http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

Blue Tent Marketing is a Registered Domain Name Reseller. We have purchased hundreds of domains for our clients. We can help you transfer, purchase a new domain name, manage and renew your existing domains for you. Blue Tent Marketing has helped many clients who unexpectedly let their domain’s expire or who have experienced a bad registrar to help them retrieve lost login information or renew your domain name. Let us help you in securing you’re existing domain names or next domain name purchase.

Moira
Director of Technology

You smell that? That my friends is the smell of change and whether you cringe or embracing it with open arms, it is upon us. Traditional forms of advertising such as direct mail, print and magazine continue to decrease in value while marketing channels such as email and search are ranking one and two respectively as top performers. Email marketing will be the primary marketing medium of 2009 and I have compiled a list of four key components to a successful, healthy campaign.

Trust is a Must
Viewing email as a relationship and building trust is a big factor in a campaign. You have no doubt been hearing a lot about social networking, web 2.0 and the season premier of American Idol as of late and the big reason to their success is the relationship buidling. Facebook, Twitter and some Idol wannabe’s are so successful because friends and fans are able to get the inside scoop to the personal lives of an individual or company. The same can be said for the email campaign you are running. Don’t simply use email as way to sell sell sell (although yes this ultimately is the goal). Through your emails, let your customers get to know the personality of your company. In addition to those great specials and packages you’re promoting, tell them about the office chair relay race that went on last week. Giving a personality and face to your emails can do wonders!

Source: Marketing Charts

Consistency is Key
Being consistent is a major factor but there is a fine line. Upon opt-in to your email, let your customer decide how often they would like to receive information or at least tell them how often to expect communication from you. Maintaining that consistent sending frequency builds trust which you now know is crucial! It’s no secret that email produces the best ROI (define) out of any other marketing channel (see chart). It may seem logical that the more emails you send, the more money you rake in but you…must…resist. Sending too often or more than the customer would like can lead a sever case of email fatigue. While the customer may not unsubscribe from your list you have worn them out with a barrage of emails and are no longer interested in what you have to say. This in fact is even worse than if they had unsubscribed in the first place. Now they are receiving your emails but not paying any attention therefore lowering your open and click-through rates which in turn can ultimately tarnish your sender reputation. Like the cheesy saying goes “Email is inexpensive, bad email is very costly”.

Design
While many say “It’s what’s inside that matters most”, we all know this statement is a bit flawed. Your emails may have the best of intentions with great, useful information but if it reminds people of the ugly sweater your crazy aunt made for you last year, it is going to turn people away. Keeping the design of your email templates updated and inviting can go a long way in terms of keeping your customers interested.

Know the Value of your Emails
I can’t express how important it is to be able track the ROI of your emails. You may be running a great campaign that follows all of the best practices but in the end, what is the point if you don’t know the value of these emails. Track your emails through analytics, unique 800 numbers, etc. so you not only see the traffic patterns of your customers but can tell your boss “Our $350 email generated a 2,170% ROI“.

For those of you still cringing at the sweet but potent aroma of change, cheer up! Email marketing generated an ROI of $45.06 for every dollar spent in 2008. How can you afford not to have a healthy email campaign?

If you aren’t currently running an email campaign with Blue Tent, please contact us so we can further explain email’s benefits. If you do have an existing email program with Blue Tent Marketing, then contact us regardless as we would love to schedule an account review to see how we can improve for 2009!

Eric Taylor
Email Project Manager

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

“They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” – Oscar Wilde

When you consider the price versus the value of your internet marketing initiatives – which is more important? The price is the most obvious thing to analyze first. Can I afford this? Does it fit into my marketing budget? How does the price of this initiative compare to my other marketing efforts?

However, over time, even more important than the price of a program – is its value. Do you have a clear understanding of the value of your internet marketing efforts? If you spend $400 on an email marketing campaign, that may seem like a lot of money if you’re only sending the message to 1,000 people. But what if that same campaign generates ten times that amount of revenue – would that be a good value? Are you measuring meaningful data to determine the value of your internet marketing programs? If not, then a “rate hike” for services can certainly be a little hard to swallow.

From both the business and the consumer perspective, rate hikes have become an inevitable part of doing business. The questions that every customer inevitably asks is “what do I get for that” and “why is the price increasing”?

Services that have incurred recent rate hikes include Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Campaign management and Email Marketing services. Over the past five years, the fees for these services haven’t changed much, if at all. Over the past 6 months, we’ve been evaluating our costs and revenue structure to determine whether our services are priced accurately and competitively. And along the way, we’ve realized that we have some things that need to change, and it’s important that our clients understand “what they get for that.”

Our growth has been predicated on providing outstanding, personalized service, and that will certainly continue. Because our client list has grown exponentially, our costs and overhead have increased as well. In a sense, we’re faced with a dilemma: Do we keep fees the same and reduce the level of service? Or do we raise fees to cover the costs associated with highly personalized service that has brought so much success?

The answer is clear: Keep doing what has made you successful, and that which has delivered exceptional R.O.I. to the client. If it costs a bit more, but R.O.I. continues to exceed expectations, then there is value in that. Becoming the lowest cost, commodity-based service provider will not provide our clients with valuable internet marketing programs.

As you hear from our account managers and department heads about potential rate increases, keep this in mind: Blue Tent Marketing cares about the price of your internet marketing programs – but we care even more about their value.

– Andrew Vick
Director of Sales

This past week our COO and I headed down to Denver (again) to meet the new Netsuite office team. As part of our goal to help our clients better run and understand their business, I thought this would be a relevant topic for our blog. Netsuite is a SaaS provider and has proven to be a major help for our business and customer relations. We started using just the sales force automation (SFA) components of the software about 4 years ago. Since then we have dumped Quick Books and are running our entire business on this platform. Very cool! The Netsuite team has just opened an office in the Denver Tech center, quite an impressive group. We got to meet a few of the sales engineers and mingle with their team. Netsuite then threw a nice party for customers and prospects at the downtown Ritz with an appearance from their CEO and some customer break out session to rap with the geeks that really know how the software works. It’s always nice to get “free” training, although I must admit the free food and drinks were worth the trip. At any rate, we are pretty excited to have them open an office in Denver. If anyone has any questions about Netsuite, feel free to comment here or drop me and email through our contact form.

- Peter Scott
President