We spent our first night visiting at the opening party. Christian Giannelli snapped a picture of us with many of the individuals we work with for our state association sites. It was fun to see all of them!

From left to right, Beth Logan, Pat Detwiler of Florida association, Jeff Logan, Sara of New Mexico and Adobe Nido, Steven, Jeanna of Nebraska, Pat Fischbeck from Wisconsin Association and Speckled Hen Inn, and our Pat.

Steven, Jeff and Katie did a joint presentation on Beginning and Advanced Blogging, broken into two sessions over two days. The sessions were well attended, and we were able to share some of our favorite techniques on how innkeepers can make a blog successful.

We enjoyed the “night on the town” where we toured the BedandBreakfast.com offices while enjoying margaritas and cold Lone Star beer. There was a BBQ dinner and dancing at the spectacular Long Center, which was just across the river and had one heck of a view of the city! As Northwesterners, it was fun and refreshing to be out in the warm night air – compared to home where you can never go outside at night without your sweater.

We shot off to the famed 6th Street for some local culture after the dinner with Niles and Annie Deneen of Deneen Pottery, along with some of the PAII staff and David Hiler of Hiler Hospitality. We had a hilarious evening watching “live band karaoke”. David was even brave enough to go up onstage and for a couple songs. Way to go David!

Overall, it was a great trip and a wonderful show. We look forward to next year in Charleston South Carolina!

We have been busy, busy bees here at InsideOut lately – or should I say not here lately! There has been quite a bit of travel in the last two months.

Jeff Logan and Katie Pate were in Louisville KY for the Tri-State bed and breakfast Association in mid January. Unfortunately, there was no Ohio representation at the show, but it was still a wonderful chance to see some of our Kentucky Bed and Breakfast clients, as well as Indiana B&B clients.

Katie and Jeff spoke on Google search engine marketing and blogging. Despite suffering the loss of their projector, it was a success and enjoyed by all. InsideOut was honored that day by the Kentucky Bed and Breakfast Association as the vendor of the year.

The conference was held in a wonderful historic home in Old Louisville. The Conrad-Caldwell House is a magnificent Richardsonian Mansion on St. James Court. We enjoyed having dinner with innkeepers and hearing their stories about the neighborhood that many have worked to save by purchasing these elegant old homes. We were happy to again be a sponsor for this show.

Not but a week or so later, we were off again to the California Association of Bed and Breakfast Innkeepers (CABBI) show. It was in held at the Meritage resort in Napa. A beautiful facility, we enjoyed tasting fine California wines, eating the renowned California cuisine and meeting California innkeepers. Pat and Jim McCauley as well as Beth Logan were in attendance. Steven Dunston was a speaker, presenting his “15 Minute Marketing Makeover”. It was well received.

We got the chance to meet with Trent Blizzard from Blizzard Internet Marketing while in Napa. He was a presenting as well, and we enjoyed having dinner with him and talking SEO.

After two days in California, Jeff and Katie jumped back on the plane to Billings Montana for the Dude Rancher’s Association Convention. This is such a fun show (although not quite as warm as last year in Tucson), and it was good to catch up with our DRA clients and talk about our newest ideas for their sites and online marketing. Katie and Jeff lead a round table discussion on SEO basics for your site. It was quite the whirlwind event – only about 20 mins for each group and then you were off to the next table.

It has been a busy beginning to 2010! We love the chance to see our clients face to face, and it is a great time for us to educate clients and association members on new things that are changing about web marketing.

I hope we come to your region soon!

Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

Goin’ places I’ve never been,

Seein’ things I may never see again,

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.”

– Willie Nelson

As the off-season rolls around for many of our clients, we set out to make contact with the innkeepers we know and love, as well as meet new members of our industry.

Steven Dunston's 15 Minute Marketing Makeover Presentation packed the room.

Going back to Wisconsin was a great treat for us. It was everyone’s second visit, at least, to the dairyland, and we were happy to see old-time clients like the Inn at Lonesome Hollow’s Nora Knapik, Honeybee Inn’s Barb Ruka, Westby House’s Marie and Mike Cimino and Naeset-Roe’s Carl Povlick, to name a few.

The Wisconsin Dells was a fun place for the conference to be held, and the whole Logan family attended to partake in the entertainment. Glacier Lodge, where the conference and trade show was held, was also home to several massive indoor water parks. It was a fun place for the kids as well as the adults. Katie made a mad dash for the watersides as soon as she had a spare hour!

Katie Pate with Innkeepers from Wissahickon Farms

There wasn’t much time to spare in the Dells, however, the InsideOut crew was quite busy. Steven Dunston, Katie Pate and Jeff  Logan were all speakers at the conference. Katie and Jeff presented on Facebook and Twitter marketing, while the three worked in tandem to cover “Blogging 2.0: Finding Great Content” and share some of our favorite methods for keeping your web site and your blog an engaging and interesting location on the web.

Jeff also presented the Association’s new web site. It is our fifteenth state lodging association web site, and we love what has come together for them. Featured inns, an interactive map and other unique features have made the site a great tool for internet users and an asset for members of the Association. Features include a section of the site dedicated to searching for lodging based on specials offered, and changing content on itineraries based on artisan cheese, hiking, cross country skiing and other activities that are perfect for enjoying in Wisconsin.

There will be more photos and stories of travel around the nation to come!

The British Columbia Bed and Breakfast Guild held their annual Conference and Trade Show last week on Vancouver Island. Pat McCauley and Katie Pate were there for day one, the trade show, and Jeff Logan took the second shift.

Pat and Katie enjoyed meeting the BC innkeepers – this was the first time InsideOut had attended their conference.  There were distinct differences in the Innkeepers that we met and many of those we work with here. Smaller, more residential-based inns seemed to be the typical style, versus large historic homes turned into lodging like so many bed and breakfasts in the states.

Jeff was very busy at this conference, presenting on three different marketing subjects and presenting the Guild with their new site design that InsideOut has created. The Guild knew our great reputation for Association designs, and were excited to work with us and our great designers and programmers. Getting British Columbia’s business was compliment for us. They are our Northern neighbors. I can see Victoria from my house! This is InsideOut’s first international association web site.

Over the next day and a half Jeff presented “Get Going with Google”, “Facebook Marketing” and “Blogging for Success”. These presentations were so well attended that 30 additional chairs were necessary to accommodate the attendees.

Jeff was excited to be in Nanaimo, a charming port city on the 90 minutes north of Victoria. He was hoping to have a “Nanaimo bar” while in the city, but everywhere he went to find one, they were always sold out. I guess they are even more popular in their hometown than down here!

Jeff arrived in Nanaimo on Tuesday night, quite late, with Jay Karen, the CEO/director of PAII. They had been at the Michigan Lake to Lake Conference over the weekend before heading to Britich Columbia. After their busy stint in Naniamo, Jay and Jeff traveled back to Sequim together.  Jay got a tour of the InsideOut office, and met our staff. After that,  Jeff and his family took Jay to the Seattle/Bainbridge Island ferry dock. He was picked up by Joyce Schulte of Chambered Nautilus, a Seattle B&B where Jay was staying until his flight home the next day.

It was a great conference with friends and new clients. We are excited to get to know our neighboring BC innkeepers better, and spend time exploring this new market.

On Monday, Katie Pate presented on “Internet Marketing with Facebook”. It was wonderful to see such interest in this new marketing platform, and we had another full audience. There were lots of good questions, like from our client Grover McMains, who owns a North Texas Bed and Breakfast in Fort Worth. He asked us about the important steps to having a modern web site before starting to focus time and energy into Facebook Marketing.

On Tuesday Steven spoke again on using a blog as a powerful marketing tool for your Bed and Breakfast web site. Referencing some of the tips and advice he covered in this Marketing Boot Camp, he explained how a blog can allow you to capture additional traffic for attractions and activities searches by creating content about these on a blog, and expanding what your site can be about, and therefore attract new potential clientele to your site.

Pat generously donated an ipod nano for the giveaway to the innkeepers. Many of the other vendors and speakers have known Pat for years, and as always, they were thrilled to see her again and get an update from her on all the new news from InsideOut.

Along with all of the education, we also got to see some of our current clients, like Carol Davis, the current president of the TBBA, and owner of Blisswood Bed and Breakfast, a stunning Wedding Destinationin Texas; and Jerry & Laurie Pinnix from the Mt. Gainor Inn, a Dripping Springs TX bed and breakfast. It is wonderful to check in with them, and give them some more tools to add to their marketing toolbox.

We also saw Jay Karen from PAII, and discussed with anticipation the next annual PAII convention to be held in Austin, and what the TBBA will be doing to help with PAII be gracious Texans hosts.

We want to thank all of the innkeepers and TBBA staff that made the event a success, and treated us so well as our thoughtful Texan hosts. See you in March!

Steven Dunston, myself (Katie Pate) and company President Pat McCauley will be leaving this weekend to fly over to Granbury Texas for the annual Texas Bed and Breakfast Convention. We are pleased to be presenting on multiple subjects throughout the event, including Facebook marketing, blogging and general marketing makeovers. In fact, SEO Manager Steven Dunston will be presenting the kick off talk, “Web Stats Boot Camp”.

Steven will also be presenting some of the great results we have seen since launching the new Texas association site about one year ago (in September). Not only did we design the site for them, we are also helping them with their blog, and running AdWords for them.

InsideOut is heading to Granbury TX for the B&B Association Convention

It is going to be great to share with the Texas association how all of their different marketing efforts have really paid off for their members!

We are also looking forward to sharing our insights on the emerging marketing opportunities that are present in blogging and Facebook. Since we began giving lectures on Facebook last Spring, the format for the social networking site has gone through adjustments, and we have learned more about this ever-growing social platform.

Of course we will also be giving out our complementary ranking reports to all innkeepers that registered ahead of time for the conference . We look forward to seeing current clients, and maybe making some more new friends!

See ya’ll in Texas!

On Sunday night Jeff and Katie enjoyed a tour of several Duluth inns, including Solglimt, one of our clients. We enjoyed an evening of fantastic architecture and jaw-dropping beauty in these turn-of-the-century mansions. Our friends Anne & Niles Deneen from Deneen Pottery, had made many of the inns’ stoneware mugs that we saw on display or in use during the tours.

Monday was a busy day; Jeff Logan presented Minnesota with their new Bed and Breakfast Association web site, which will be going live in May. We have loaded the site with great features that only InsideOut is providing, such as seven different ways to search for an inn and an interactive map that will allow users to search for inns within a certain radius of their desired location. The site will help the members coordinate within each other to target market specific attractions that bring guests to their area, and administer their individual listings whenever they want.

The crowd went wild when they saw the site, and everyone hurried to follow Jeff into his presentation on Google marketing after lunch was finished. The presentation went smoothly and was very helpful and informative for the innkeepers.

It was great to see some of our current clients, such as Chuck Dougherty from the Water Street Inn, a lovely Stillwater MN waterfront inn, who’s new site had gone live only a few days before the conference.

On Tuesday morning, Jeff and Katie did a presentation on Internet Marketing with Facebook. It was a great success, with a packed crowd and lots of good questions. Visit our facebook page to see some pictures and real-time updates. Facebook is becoming a very important space on the web, and our team is researching the newest developments and trying to keep our innkeepers informed. We look forward to updating this presentation as trends develop, and sharing it at other conventions.

Katie Pate & Jeff Logan: Internet Marketing with Facebook

As always, we enjoyed meeting new innkeepers, talking with them about their potential for online marketing and sharing with them a ranking report that indicates their position online for various search phrases. We run these ranking reports for almost all the conferences we attend, and provide them to innkeepers for their knowledge.

Now that the Hood Canal bridge will be closed up here in Northern Washington for the next month and a half or so, we will be limited to the Northwest at least for a little while. But summer conferences are just around the corner, and we look forward to seeing you at one of them!

There will be a variety of activities, speakers and programs during the 3-day event. PAII will be holding programs for master innkeepers as well as aspiring innkeepers. Look forward to a variety of important speakers and workshops covering valuable information for every innkeeper. Topics will vary from customer service to overcoming stress to making artisan bread!

See you in Atlanta!

Of course our own Jeff Logan will be speaking on search engine marketing. We will also be vendors at the trade show and look forward to seeing some or our current clients as well as meeting new innkeepers!

Individual Marketing Sessions

During the trade show, we are also going to be offering individual sessions for innkeepers. This will be a chance for innkeepers to speak with one of the InsideOut team (Jeff, Steven, Pat and Katie will be attending the conference) for 30 minutes about their web site and their options for Internet marketing. Look for more information soon about our one-on-one sessions and online sign ups.

The PAII Conference will be an invaluable event for every innkeeper who is looking to learn about the newest trends in the industry and collaborate with other innkeepers and vendors about making your inn a successful tourism destination!