The Inn at English Meadows is build around WordPress which is the top content management system today, giving the site owner access to many very powerful tools.

What do you get with a WordPress site?

• The ability to add and edit posts for your blog feed.
• Power to create blog post tags and categories, increasing your search engine visibility.
• The ability to add new pages or edit existing pages along with menu item control.
• Create image galleries and albums, change images on the site pages and blog posts.
• Makes updates faster if you choose to have us do the changes, thus costing you less.
• Full training and support by  InsideOut’s team of experts.
• A fully functional, top notch site that holds up to the competition, increasing your SEO.

The Innkeepers of The Inn at English Meadows are thrilled with their new site design and can’t wait to begin blogging about their inn!

If you are interested in learning more about establishing a WordPress site, please contact us. We would love to hear from you!

Hacienda Vargas Bed and Breakfast in Algodones New Mexico

We love the flexibility of WordPress and so do our clients.  We recently upgraded the Hacienda Vargas website of Algodones to a fully managed WordPress site.

InsideOut is proud to showcase one of our latest website designs: Azalea Inn. This glorious 19th century, colonial style bed and breakfast is located in the heart of the historic district of Savanna Georgia, located near Forsyth Park and the Savannah heritage garden.

Our design team worked closely with innkeeper Teresa Jacobson to produce a website that works to capture and showcase the romance and southern charm her bed and breakfast has to offer guests. Since the site’s redesign several weeks ago, there has been a significant increase in online reservations.

Features of the website include: beautiful photography, a custom Google map of the innkeeper’s recommended attractions in the surrounding area, such as good restaurants, and nearby shopping, parks, gardens etc. The website is built in WordPress, which allows the innkeepers full access to add photos, videos and edit the content throughout the entire website at a moment’s notice. Also included is a blog for the innkeepers to post recent news, inn specials and packages, and area events; all content that will serve to increase traffic to the website.

Congratulations to Teresa and Micheal on the success of your new website, and for running such a lovely Bed and Breakfast in Savannah Georgia!

New business cards and postcards set the tone for a brochure redesign.

Lookout Point Lakeside Inn was down to their last box of brochures. Co-owner Kristie Rosset decided this was the perfect time to update the design of the piece. InsideOut had recently established a new look for her postcards and business cards. Now we had the opportunity to brand the brochure.

Kristie was happy with the current format–an 8″ x 9″ piece which folded in half to 4″ x 9″–but she was also open to other options. Staying with a finished size of 4″ x 9″ made the most sense since it would fit both standard display racks and business envelopes. But which format would work for Lookout Point? Rack card, trifold or bifold?

Rack cards: small but mighty

A 2-sided 4″ x 9″ rack card was the most economical option. Although on the small side, a rack card still has enough room for good photos, a map and short-but-sweet text. For most small inns, a rack card is the best choice.

The old bifold brochure was dark and blocky.

Trifolds: a multi-tasker with impact

The trifold format (12″ x 9″ folded to 4″ x 9″) would work if it was important to emphasize multiple aspects of the inn. In Lookout Point’s case, the main aspect was the excellent accommodations (12 guest rooms and a condo), but the inn also hosted business meetings, weddings and fine dining events.

Bifold: right in between

The current bifold was a happy medium for fitting text and photos. As far as impact and cost, it was right between the rack card and trifold. After thinking it over, Kristie decided to stay with the bifold. The format had already proven itself and, with focused writing and design, we could still showcase the main aspects of the inn.

The design: making it all work

The new version showcases the inn's best qualities and matches the other print pieces.

The secondary aspects, such as gatherings and fine cuisine, also made their mark on the piece with small inset photos and short captions. The back panel was the place to put quick reference information. It’s a hard-working panel that features contact info, a locator map, a list of amenities and other highlights of the inn.

The same fonts, colors and photo treatments used in the previous print pieces were used in the bifold. As a result, all the pieces work well together and reinforce the established branding. Since InsideOut was already familiar with Lookout Point, the design process went quickly and smoothly.

“You’ve made this process so easy. Thank you! - Kristie

InsideOut managed the printing of 5,000 brochures to ensure low cost, high quality and timely delivery.

See a pdf of the complete set of branded print pieces.

New rack card design for The Croff House in Hudson, NY.

The Croff House is a Victorian home with a beautiful and comfortable updated decor. Owners Duncan Calhoun and Russell Gibson worked with InsideOut to create a great web site that captures the contemporary feel of the inn and showcases its luxurious amenities. With the web site completed, it was time to create a print piece that could do the same job in a much smaller space. Again, they turned to InsideOut — this time, for the design of their 4″ x 9″ rack card.

Strong branding with matching marketing pieces:
Print designer Jennifer Lozada transferred the logo, colors, fonts and layout of the web site to the much smaller 4″ x 9″ print format. Rather than cramming the space with text, she let the photos do most of the talking. Open spaces (“white space”) in the layout draw the eye to the most important information. White space is key if you want to convey elegance and sophistication. Even with the “blank” space, text and photos, there was still room for a helpful locator map. Good feedback from the owners helped refine the map, text and photo selections.

The result: The web site and rack card are a match, conveying a consistent message. The owners decided on a quantity of 5,000 cards. InsideOut managed the printing to ensure quality, affordable cost and speed of delivery.

“It’s perfect!!!!” – Duncan

“The rack card looks great.” – Russ

He has been speaking with lawmakers about House Resolution 2935, a.k.a. the Travel Promotion Act. The goal of the bill is to create America’s first “destination marketing organization”. This group would be a non-profit organization called the “Corporation for Travel Promotion”, and would manage the tourism promotion of the United States to international travelers.

Learn about the Travel Promotion Act

If you didn’t know, international travel to the United States is down significantly in the last 8 years. We have fewer tourists today than in 2001. As far as keeping up with the competition, we are the only nation in our “competitive set” that does not have a budget for promoting our nation as a travel destination. It seems, with all of our breathtaking National parks and natural beauty, we would encourage an income that allowed us to keep these spaces open and wild. Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are just some of the wonders of our continent that have drawn visitors for years, and can continue to do so.  The average international tourist spends $4500 during a visit to the US. These are important numbers to a struggling economy.

The bill is also set-up to allow the Corporation to pay for itself. It includes a $10 entry fee for visitors that would fund the Corporations’ efforts.

There are things you can do to support this bill, and help to bolster travel from our neighbors and friends abroad. Contact your House of Representatives Official via the US Travel Association. Let them know that this bill effects you. After all, we know how much international visitors enjoy the bed and breakfast experience!

Some prospective guests prefer going online while others are looking for printed materials. Maine Stay has the complete set to suit both groups.

Maine Stay Inn and Cottages recently had InsideOut design their rack card. They now have the complete set of essential online and print marketing pieces: a search engine-friendly website, a rack card & business card, a blog and an e-newsletter. All the pieces have consistent branding and they work together to target the full range of prospective guests.

Click here to see the case study for Maine Stay’s marketing materials.

Raster logo issues
The logo on the site was a “raster”. A raster image is like a mosaic made from tiny square “tiles” of data arranged over a very fine grid. When you enlarge the image, it’s like looking at a mosaic close up: you can see the blocky pixels that make up the image.

Raster image of a flower looks like a mosaic of squares up close.

As a result, there’s a limit to how much you can enlarge a raster image. So if, for example, you have a small raster logo on your site, but you need it really huge on a poster… you’re out of luck. Every time you need a bigger logo, you’ll have to pay a designer to re-draw it larger, from scratch, if you want it to look clear and crisp.

Most raster logos created for the web will not work if you need to use them in print. Print requires a much higher resolution than the web. What looks crisp on your computer screen will look either jagged or fuzzy in print.

Another raster logo problem: changing the background. Image on the left is the original. On the right, you can see a whitish outline from cutting the logo out of its original background. Not good.

Vector logo is the standard
Raster logos can work well, as long as you stay within their limitations. But there are good reasons why vector graphics are the standard for logos. Instead of little squares of tile, think of a very thin wire that can be bent into different shapes. If you bend that wire into the shape of a circle, when you look at it up close, you’ll still see the sharply defined edge of the circle. It doesn’t start breaking down into a bunch of little squares.

A vector graphic describes lines as well as shapes and colors consistently and efficiently — no matter how it’s resized. And there’s no issue with separating the image from its background. Any professional designer will be happy to work with your Adobe Illustrator, EPS or Freehand vector logo.

O-Bar-O Logo converted to vector
Susan’s situation was pretty typical. Acquiring a business includes inheriting old branding. Susan decided to get the vector done and avoid future logo hassles. She worked with InsideOut designer, Jim McCauley, to create an updated version of the logo with a few alterations to suit her vision. Jim retained the eroded look of the original but recreated the effect in Adobe Illustrator, a professional vector-based illustration program. Based on Susan’s input, he replaced the compass with evergreen trees. He also incorporated richer, earthy colors and a more western-looking font for the text. The result is a logo that will work visually and technically for years to come.

Original version from the web site has been altered and converted to a vector image.

Dunleith Inn, a historic Natchez Bed and Breakfast

Our very own Steven Dunston took a solo flight into the deep South for the Mississippi/Louisiana Bed and Breakfast Association Conference last week. After a quick visit to New Orleans over the weekend, he headed upriver to Natchez Mississippi where the function was being held at the Natchez Conference Center. The conference included a tour of the area’s extraordinary historical sites and antebellum mansions, many of which are bed and breakfasts.

Steven gave a presentation on Facebook Marketing, where he shared some of the insights and techniques for developing an effective marketing scheme on the ever popular social networking site Facebook. Many of the innkeepers Steven met expressed that their main sources for reservations were international clientele and word of mouth. Interestingly enough, these are the same qualities that make Facebook advertising so appealing.

Facebook is an international site, functioning in 60 different languages. It is designed to be a place for friends, coworkers and associates to keep in touch with each other. With this in mind, using Facebook to connect with your prior guests is like a form digital word of mouth. Many of the innkeepers that attended Steven’s presentation already had personal Facebook accounts, but were interested in learning about adding a business page.

He was also pleased to meet again with industry colleagues including Peter Scherman and Rick Wolf of The B&B team and Jay Karen, CEO of Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII). Jay presented some fascinating statistics from PAII’s latest innkeeper survey, showing that despite the economic tumult, the bed and breakfast industry remains strong.

The next conference we attend will be in Granbury, Texas for the Texas Bed and Breakfast Association (TBBA) next month. We will also be presenting about Facebook there.

New Site Design for the William Miller House

Beth Logan, our award winning lead designer, maintained the color scheme of their old site while modernizing the look and internal structure. Of course, all website designs at InsideOut are made with Cascading Style Sheets, and optimized for Search Engine Placement.

They have a different style of photo gallery, one that allows them to include descriptions of the photos. When a visitor clicks on the photo, it is pulled into a lightbox for better viewing. Try this feature on the breakfast page and click on the smaller inlay photos to view them larger.

The innkeepers of this Richmond lodging are active bloggers, and we made the RSS feed from their blog a prominent section of their footer.

The site is also loading very quickly as we work to improve some of our internal mechanics for even faster service of web sites. This means storing common Javascript and CSS files on a super fast server.

Mike has already told us the website has improved his business. How can we help you? Give us a call at 1-800-500-8401 or fill out our online contact form.