Whiteout
vs. Insight: Your Choice
Will your Web presence be lost in a whiteout of web pages
this winter? Without a solid strategy to boost
your online presence throughout the busy winter season, you're
likely to get buried by the competition. Don't let your internet
marketing strategy shift like the blowing winds that drive millions
of snowflakes in a blinding winter blizzard. Let one of our experienced
guides help you chart a successful path through the busy winter
season!
As you know, we offer a variety of services on many different levels – from
dynamic website design and development to email and search marketing
programs to Web analytics and much more. The ever-changing realm
of internet marketing can be very difficult territory to chart. It
takes a significant investment of time and effort to keep up with
the latest trends and technologies that enable you to "Win on
the Web."
Our account managers are here to serve as your trusted guides
– providing strategic account oversight to help you better
understand what Web 2.0 technologies are, and how to best deploy
them.
We've found that our clients that retain our account management
services not only have a clearer understanding of their internet
marketing programs, but their programs are also more effective. Having
a dedicated account manager devoted to their internet presence
helps them to achieve a maximum return on their marketing investment.
Contact
us today to learn how our account insight services can help
you "Win on the Web!"
Until next month,
The Blue Tent Team
Is
Your Website Ready For Winter?
We buy
snow tires, tune our snowboards and make sure our yard ornaments
are moved indoors before the snow comes, but what about our websites?
In general, few in the vacation rental industry think about the
difference between seasons on their website, but for would-be travelers
there's almost nothing more important. Here are a few simple tips
for winterizing your site.
Change your photos to reflect the season. If you're
in Hawaii or Colorado, choose pictures that help your end users picture
themselves involved in surfing sea or snow. Often times you are selling
the season as much as than anything else.
Put a detailed weather feed on your website.
Snow reports, surf reports, and tidal forecasts will bring potential
travelers to your site again and again during the lead up to their
vacations. If you have activity packages such as snorkeling, flyfishing,
yacht rentals, lift tickets etc. advertise them on your weather page.
Get a web cam and point at the snow or surf. Video
feeds are a great way to gain increased site traffic and offer live
area information.
Use a news block on your homepage. Announce big
snowfalls, perfect breaks, or other tantalizing events that make
your users want to pull the trigger on that next vacation.
Use humor. If you're in Hawaii, show a picture
of a hapless soul in Buffalo, NY and then contrast it with a photo
of one of your guests sipping a margarita on the beach with something
as simple as a "before
and after" tag line.
3
Tips To Avoid List Shrinkage
In the email marketing department, we are prone to saying that
an effective email program starts and ends with list quality. It is critical
to have a strategy in place to actively
manage and grow your email subscriber database. If not, you're likely
to lose between 20-30% of your active subscribers each year to the
inevitable "list churn." Following are a few tips to help you avoid
the dreaded list shrinkage this winter.
Regularly monitor and analyze your list. Keep track of the number of
new subscribers each month and compare to those that have unsubscribed.
Which number is greater? Run the "Most Active User" report to identify
what percentage of your current list is active subscribers versus
those that never open a single message.
Remove the deadwood. While it may be difficult to remove
30% of your subscribers if they are inactive – it's the right thing
to do. Sending messages to inactive subscribers that haven't even
opened a single message over the course of the past six months is
a waste of time and money!
Experiment with your opt-in form. The trick to an effective
opt-in process is balancing the need to make it quick and easy for
the subscriber, while simultaneously capturing coveted demographics
that lead to segmentation and relevant content. The best opt-in forms
are ubiquitous through the site and offer an incentive for subscribing.
Don't be afraid to experiment so long as you measure the results
and continually refine your approach until it's just right.
» Contact
us today to grow your email database
Your
Web Stats on Steroids
How are you currently measuring your website statistics? Simply
turning to your log files to base your web marketing
decisions on will not serve you well. You need a proven web analytics
platform. Simply put, Google
Analytics is your website statistics
on steroids. Google Analytics gathers your sites raw data and spits
it out into powerful metrics - metrics that should guide your internet
marketing strategy.
Google Analytics enables you to drill down incredibly
deep into your sites data. With that in mind, it is crucial that
you begin your analytics session with an objective or goal in mind.
Are you interested in the keyword reports that are generated from
your organic traffic? Or the success of your latest landing pages?
The point is - don't get caught report surfing. Report surfing will
ultimately lead you in circles, while never giving you the solid
answers you are looking for.
The solution is to schedule some time with your dedicated search/analytics
account manager to identify a list of KPI's (Key Performance Indicators)
that will measure the success of your internet marketing goals. KPI's
present the information in a way that you will be able to quickly and
easily focus on the most critical data, thereby allowing you to continually
assess and improve your internet marketing strategy.
» Contact
us today to assess your web analytics program
