Blue Tent Marketing

Packin’ up and movin’ out. We’re heading out to attend the Online Marketing Summit in Denver, CO.

This gig has been traveling throughout the country all summer long – getting high reviews across the board.

It will be interesting to hear what other’s in the biz are thinking & share some of our own thoughts to the mix. . .

Panel discussions and Summit review to come post-OMS. In the mean time, check out the action as it happens on Twitter. If you’re attending, we would love to catch up with you – just look for the black Blue Tent Wrenchin’ shirts.

Cheers :: Blue Tent

I recently stumbled upon a benchmark survey for internet marketing in 2008. Even though this survey was targeted towards the marketing decision makers at hospitality businesses throughout the world, I found a number of the outcomes to be meaningful to the vacation rental and real estate vertical as well. The survey set out to achieve a better understanding of what these marketeers are doing to reach their consumers on the web, along with the anticipated budget trends we may see this year, compared to last year. As Internet Marketeers understand the importance of a comprehensive, long-term strategic approach to grow the online channel, our web marketing services will be here to supply these specific demands. Here are some main findings from the survey:

•  In 2007, a remarkable 68% of hoteliers will be shifting their budgets from off line to online marketing activities, representing a huge shift from traditional methods.

• For the first year ever, the industry reported that online business is coming from their own website more than third parties or corporate brand sites.

• The top three Internet marketing formats hoteliers believe produce the highest ROI’s are website optimization,  Organic Search Optimization and website re-design.

•  Interestingly enough, more hoteliers believe new media formats as consumer generated content and blogs will generate better ROI’s
  than traditional banner advertising.
• The largest growth in Internet Marketing spending (budgets) was found to be in website re-design, strategic linking/partnerships,
  email marketing & SEO. While PPC saw a 4% decrease in spending.
• Web 2.0 marketing initiatives planned for 2008 worth mentioning:
  • Blogs – 47%
  • Photo Sharing – 41%
  • Survey & Online Comment Card – 59%
  • Creating profiles on social networking and bookmarking website (facebook, digg, youtube, etc,) – 43%

As the Marketeers of the hospitality industry and other industries realize that they are missing a ridiculous amount of opportunities to reach their target audience, the web will continue to prove itself as their most cost-affective revenue generator. While social media and Web 2.0 strategies are becoming a standard buzz throughout the industry; Email Marketing, website re-designs and organic optimization appear to be the largest ROI centric models, and will continue in 2008.

JG

We’d like to thank each and every one of our clients, subscribers and readers for a successful 2007. Looking back, we really accomplished a great deal in 2007, and had a great deal of fun (as well as some pain) along the way. From opening our first satellite office in Boulder, Colorado, to launching our new Drupal-based Blue Tent CMS, to integrating Google Analytics into our marketing matrix – it has been a very exciting and a very busy year indeed.

Each year brings the promise of new opportunities and new challenges. And each year those challenges and opportunities force us to become better at what we do best – helping you “Win on the Web.” We truly believe that our success is driven by your success. Along the way, we’ve added many new faces to the Blue Tent Team. We’ve expanded our core departments and created new ones altogether. And we’ve also seen our company family grow with the birth of several babies – with a couple more on the way!

So to all of our clients, from those located in our snowy Colorado mountains, to those along the sunny, sandy shores of Maui, Mexico and Key West, we wish you all a very happy holiday season and a most prosperous New Year.

– The Blue Tent Team