Blue Tent Marketing

In July 2009, search headlines revealed a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo whereby Microsoft would power Yahoo search.  Yesterday the two search engines announced that they have received clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission for their search agreement.  A few important details to consider:

• Both Yahoo and Microsoft search will continue to have differentiated search experiences with Microsoft (Bing) managing the technology behind the search algorithm for both.
• The Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for search campaigns on both Bing and Yahoo.
• The agreement is meant to help you reach more customers, save time and effort in managing your campaigns, and more readily experience new features through greater innovation.

These changes will not immediately affect your accounts with Bing and Yahoo as the two companies are committed to a smooth transition.  The transition is expected to occur before the holiday season of 2010.  Several things to start to think about:

• Start (or continue) monitoring your Bing and Yahoo organic search results, paying more attention to Bing as this algorithm will ultimately command more market share by the end of 2010.
• If you aren’t running a Yahoo or Microsoft paid search campaign, consider starting one as you’ll be able to reach customers on both Yahoo and Bing.
• Stay up to date about the transition – Yahoo Transition Center.

- Lindsay Reither
Director of SEM & Web Analytics

By now I’m sure you have heard all about Twitter. Twitter is the social media phenomenon that has swept the world and allows an individual to have a voice that can be so powerful that the President of the United States will listen. This gives us all the opportunity to speak what we want, when we want, to whomever we want. And the fact is that people are listening. For a business, this can be a very powerful tool to connect with customers and potentially generate new business.

Many of our clients are starting to use Twitter and Facebook to Leverage the Persuasive Power of the Social Web. With that in mind we thought it would be good to give you ten Twitter tips to help you get the most out of every tweet.

1. When you’re initially setting up your account try to keep in mind all of the keywords that you are targeting on your website and include those into your bio. This gives your company the opportunity for more exposure and will help connect you with the right audience. Also try to theme your twitter page with the same graphics as your website.
2. Make sure you monitor your brand name and keywords that are related to your business. This gives you the opportunity to respond to people that are obviously interested in what your company is about.
3. While you are monitoring your brand name be sure to respond with in the day. Keep a watchful eye of everything that is being said positive or negative and respond accordingly.
4. When you use twitter to respond to tweets or comment on other tweets be sure to keep a casual tone.
5. Be sure to respond to everyone that addresses you. It shows that you are intone with your business and your in touch with your cliental.
6. When your posting tweets be sure that your not trying to sell something every time. Try to post articles related to your industry, blog posts, behind the scenes at your business, and things of interest to you.
7. If you see an post that you like retweet it. This shows that your not just on here to post, but that your actually reading other tweets. A retweet or RT is the ultimate Twitter compliment.
8. When you do offer deals or promos try to offer a couple of Twitter exclusive promos.
9. Tag your links with URL shortening services such as bit.ly to track the amount of traffic your site is receiving. Also consider tagging your links with web analytics tracking code such as Google Analytics.
10. One last thing: Have fun and be social – it’s all about interacting with others and sharing information openly – albeit 140 characters at a time!

Let us know your thoughts on how you’re using Twitter to connect with your customers and colleagues.

– Tim Hampton
SEM Account Manager

In the financially troubled year of 2009, there were some interesting things we saw happen in the email marketing world.  The importance of email authentication continued to grow, as did increasing the reach of your email campaigns through the ever-growing social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. But one of our clients in the medical education field showed us that taking a simple, disciplined approach to their email program by staying consistent and relevant produced extraordinary ROI. The annual cost of their email marketing program was $4,200, and it produced a trackable $219,500 in revenue from direct online bookings (and that doesn’t include any enrollments made over the phone)!

Our client didn’t do anything extraordinary to achieve such an astounding ROI  – they simply gave their subscribers the opportunity to choose the type of course information they were interested in receiving and then delivered that information on a consistent schedule. They created a targeted opt-in process which they then used to segment by “medical fields” for each send. They also stayed on a strict schedule of the third Thursday of each month with October and November as exceptions by doing two sends during the pre-holiday busy period.

Their content and creative was trimmed down from a lengthy newsletter to a single focus postcard style keeping it super relevant to what their audience was asking for. Their call to action was a simple discount with an expiration date associated with it. They kept the copy simple and gave direct links to the courses that were being discounted for that month. The site offered a direct way to enroll from the site and they also provided a toll free number for inquires in the email. Next, we’ll be proposing to use a unique 800 number so that we can tie those phone orders back to the email program as well.

Tracking the campaign was important not only to show the value of the campaign but also to for the client to know what courses where of most interest. All the links were tagged with Google Analytics and had eComerrce incorporated which was the main tracking tool but we also used a tool called “action tracking”. Check out the GA stats from the entire year of 2009. One major stat to notice is that even though the year campaign was responsible for only 2.95% of all site visits, it was accountable for 11.95% of all revenue produced.

Overall the client taught us that staying simple and relevant plays a big part in every email campaign. Display a clear call to action and always track every interaction from the campaign – and the results will often take care of themselves.

– Ryan Austin
Director of Email Marketing

Incline Ski & Board Shop is locally owned and operated and has been serving the Aspen/Snowmass area for 25 years. With prime locations near the Gondola at Ajax, and at the mall in Snowmass, Incline strives to provide the best value and most convenient service around.

To that end, they stay open later than other ski shops so customers can avoid wasting time in the dreaded lines of a powder day morning rush instead of dropping lines in the newly fallen snow. Incline has been so strong for so long in this highly competitive business, because of their dogged commitment to value and service. These were the watchwords that drove the recent redesign of their site. The site is a powerful tool for customers to save both time and money. They save precious time by booking rentals online, and they earn a discounted rate by doing so ahead of time instead of showing up on the first morning of their vacation and hoping for the best. By making online reservations ahead of time, customers know that the specific equipment they want will be right there waiting for them. Offering value is a huge priority for Incline. That’s why they offer only premium equipment, including local brands like High Society Freeride Company.

Shout out to the great team who made the redesign happen. Congratulations to Lauren for doing a great job with PM and Design, we’ll miss you during your leave! Michael and Dan did a great job with development, and Moira ensured a deft deployment of the site. Tim killed it with a tight Google Analytics and SEO setup and our fearless leader Pete Scott made the project possible on the sales side.

Ever wonder how the search volume for one of your top keywords varies over time?  Curious as to why your site saw a decrease in organic search traffic despite a month of improved search engine rankings?  Trying to determine when you should ramp up your paid search campaign?  Look no further.  Google Insights for Search is a powerful tool that allows you to compare search volume patterns across search terms, location and time ranges.  The tool is helpful for many aspects of your search engine marketing efforts including:

Seasonality: Budget and plan your internet marketing efforts (and your business) according to the seasonality of your top keywords.  For example, if you run a snow plowing business, determine when people are searching for relevant keywords in your geographic area and ramp up your paid search campaign accordingly.  Consider increasing your budget proportionally to the search volume.

Geographic Distribution: Where do you customers live?  Compare search volume across countries, regions and cities.  For example, if you are responsible for marketing for a vacation rental company in Colorado, you may need to know when people in different geographic regions start planning their ski vacations.  From the data below, you can compare different geographies and target these markets accordingly.  With paid search, you can create unique campaigns for individual cities and states and can increase and decrease their budgets according to the search trends.

Predicting the Future: Will the search volume for your top keywords increase, decrease or remain steady over time?  Do you need to ramp up your search marketing efforts to capture a larger share of search traffic in 2010 compared to 2009?  Using extrapolation of data, Google helps to predict the future of search for specific keywords.  Use their forecast tool, to help plan your search strategy for 2010.

Lindsay Reither
Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics

Let’s say your rental or real estate company has just decided to redo your website and spark up your online marketing initiatives.  You’ve been talking budget and have your heart set on a start date, but are you really prepared to start shopping around?  Having a few things in order will make this shopping process run a lot smoother, depending on who you are dealing with.

Where are you now?

• Who hosts your current site?
• Do you have access to that site?
• Do you own your site or the content management system that runs it?
• Do you even have the ability to make changes to the site in house?  Would you like to?
• Will you lose any 3^rd party solutions due to switching web/hosting providers?

Don’t be surprised if your web developer or online marketing company wants to learn more about your business.  This is the job of every good online marketing company, so be prepared.

• How many brokers do you have?
• How many active listings do you have?
• What is the average price of those listings?
• What do you specialize or want to specialize in? Luxury, Beach front only, Ranches
• What is your high and low season?
• Who is the final decision maker for this project?
• Who will be the point person during the project and all projects moving forward?

How well are you performing and what do you consider a win?

• How many contact forms get filled out each month requesting more information?
• What are most people asking for?
• When someone calls in, did they find you through your site?  Where on the site? Where did they originate from? How do you know a call came from the site?
• What is the total number of sales leads coming from your current site per month?
• How do you track those leads and make sure that they are getting the proper follow up by your employees?
• Are you considering changing the way that your users book online?
• What is your current online booking percentage?
• What is your 1-3-5 year goal for your online booking percentage?
• What current measurements do you have in place to track marketing effectiveness?

These are just a few of the questions we like to ask before working with a company.  It is vital for us to learn more about your business so that we can become a long term partner that ultimately will only succeed when you succeed.  Even though the economy has a glimmer of recovery you simply cannot afford to jump into bed with a company that is only in it for short term buck.

-Sam Campise

Sales/Opportunity Manager

Anyone questioning the effectiveness of SMS marketing need only look to the recent tragedy in Haiti.  A fellow Colorado company mGive manages the Red Cross’s mobile donation program.  Donors are able to quickly and easily make a $10 dollar donation to the Red Cross in support of their critical relief efforts in Haiti.  All it takes to help is a simple text message sent for any mobile phone.

In only a few short days this mobile marketing campaign has gone viral and generated over $8 million! To put that in perspective, that’s more than the Chinese Government’s monetary contribution to the crisis thus far. What’s more significant is that these funds were generated from a demographic that would otherwise have gone largely untapped.  Although dwarfed by the contributions coming form most governments, NGOs, and corporations, these funds have been gathered efficiently and economically from a donor base that doesn’t typically write checks or take the trouble to go online and fill out a donor form.  The power of this medium as a marketing channel is clear.

Blue Tenters are doing their part, and we’re told that the Marines will be landing shortly in Haiti to help.  Click here for a way to donate online to the Red Cross, or text “Haiti” to 90999.

This year’s “Give a Little, Win a Lot” holiday campaign has confirmed our suspicions: We really do work with some of the most amazing companies as well as some pretty remarkable people. We’re so excited to see how our clients and prospects have resolved to contribute to the greater the good this holiday season. Here’s a sneak peek at just a few of the “contribution responses” we’ve received so far in response to our holiday campaign:

From The Lachicotte Company:

We have continued to participate in Toys for Tots and turned in donations from our company agents and staff to children who will enjoy toys for Christmas this year due to these gifts given in love. Also, our Christmas cards to vendors and business associates let them know about donations in their honor given to two local community ministries of which our staff and agents are a part in helping throughout the year: Father Pat’s Lunch Kitchen and Pawleys Island Presbyterian Bread of Life Ministries. We are glad to give back to our area throughout the year and take this time to say Merry Christmas to all!

From Baby Decorator:

Baby Decorator exists to guide new parents to create warm and nurturing nurseries for their newborn babies. However, for the babies that aren’t so fortunate as to be well and healthy, we support the March of Dimes “Fight for Preemies”. Their mission is to enlighten women and to teach through health and prenatal care how to have a healthy, full term baby. November was Fight for Preemies month and on our website we linked to their efforts. We also offered a free nursery design tot he winner of the best blog as chosen by “Bloggers Unite”. We are trying to help the new little ones who need our help.

From Real Estate of Winter Park:

One of our missions as a company is to give back to the great community in which we live so it may continue to be great. We contribute many dollars each year to the Grand Foundation which is an umbrella for giving to most all non-profits in our area. We focus a lot of our contributions toward children’s causes (Grand Kids, the Learning Center, CASA) and we are a sponsor of the Grand County Blues society which funds Blues in the Schools and delivers instruments and music to children around the country. As for other artistic vertures, we give to the Grand Arts Council and again, the Blues Society. We also like to contribute to Mtn Family centers which provides a food bank and clothing to families in our area. We host a food drive each year and have also coordinated the school supply/backpack drive each year.

From East West Resorts – Beaver Creek/Vail:

We have “adopted-a-family” through the Salvation Army. Employees are all contributing gifts and cash to the family. The gifts and a City Market gift card will be delivered to the family on Christmas Eve to help make their holiday happy. EWR emplyees also manned one full day of “bell ringing” outside of Walmart in Avon for the Salvation Army.

From Ranches West Inc.:

I have about a 1/2 dozen charities that I make donations to annually – from St. Judes, Childrens Hospital-Denver, Montana Food Bank,American Cancer Society including a small rural school and my local church. Your propgram to foster philanthropy is great!! Thank you for spreading the word and helping us all realze we all have something to be greatful about! Merry Christmas to you!

These are just a few of the inspiring contribution stories we’ve received so far in response to our holiday campaign. We’re honored to work with such an amazing group of people! Stay tuned to see who the lucky winner will be on New Year’s Day …

Happy Holidays!

– The Blue Tent Team

Thanksgiving is the greatest American holiday. It’s an authentic celebration of the things that matter most in life – things to be thankful for. All too often, these are things that we take for granted. Taking time to pause with our family and friends to consider all that we have to be thankful for, just might be one of the best gifts anyone could ask for. So without further ado, here’s short list of some things we’re thankful for:

Our clients (of course!)
Our jobs
Our work
Our friends and family
Our health
Our troops
Fresh air
Clean water
Tasty food
Wilderness
Wild places
Storms
Sunshine
Snow
Skis
Powder days
Waves
The internet
Search engines
The social web
Flex time
Vacation
Kids
Smiles
Music
Laughter
Tolerance
Inspiration
Beauty
Exercise
Endorphins
…

What else? How about you? What would you add to this list?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Our offices will be closed tomorrow and Friday. We’ll be back at it on Monday!

– Josh Lewis
VP Marketing

Today, all it takes is an angry person with thumbs and a Twitter account to start trashing your business online. Recently, a lead came into us that clearly displayed this newfound phenomenon and the persuasive power of the social web:

Please Describe Your Needs: Please help with a few negative comments about our business consisting of 14,000 patients and over 30,000 implants placed to date. Less than 5 negative google comments are destroying 8 years of a business I have spent everyday building 16 hours a day.

Ouch! Less than 5 negative comments posted on Google are destroying 8 years put into building a successful business. The weight of that statement is astounding! This prospect (from the dental industry) is prepared to spend upwards of $10,000 per month to address these negative comments that were posted on the “social web” and are adversely affecting his business in a very severe way.

There are good and bad effects of this evolution of the web into the social sphere. On the good side, consumers have more control, more information, and more voice to affect purchasing decisions. On the bad side, the reputation of a great business, established over many years of hard work, can now be tarnished almost instantly by a few dissatisfied customers.

Which raises the question: How is your business leveraging the power of positive feedback online?

This is perhaps one of the most important questions for a business of any size to be mindful of when evaluating the importantance of social media to their business. The answer is obvious: It’s critically important. It simply doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running. Whether you’re in lodging and vacation rentals, dentistry, dermatology, the ski rental or restaurant business, the end result is the same – it matters what people say about your business online.

I recently returned from a trip to the Victoria House in Ambergris Caye, Belize (it was amazing, albeit a bit pricey, but don’t take my word, see what others have to say). As I was checking out I noticed a beautiful guest book (pictured at right), full of glowing reviews from past guests. The only problem was that these glowing guest comments weren’t reaching the right audience. That’s where we come in.

We create programs that reach out to your most satisfied customers, and turn them into your most enthusiastic online brand advocates – thus leveraging the power of the positive.

Anyone that’s ever read the letters to the editor in their local newspaper realizes that many of the letters are people complaining about something. The social web has made it even easier for people to make their complaints heard. The trick is combat and overwhelm those negative experiences with positive ones. However, expecting these positive reviews to appear on their own is a dubious approach indeed.

This is where the strategic approach to social media comes into play. You’ve got to find ways to first identify who your most satisfied clients are, and then make it easy for them to share their experiences online with the right audience – whether it be on Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp or elsewhere. Think of this type of expense as reputation maintenance. And we all know that it’s easier and less expensive to maintain your vehicle on a regular basis than it is to neglect it and be faced with expensive and inconvenient repairs when they inevitably occur.

Click here for more information about how we can help your company or organization leverage and maintain its positive reputation online.

– Josh Lewis
VP Marketing
@Blue_Tent