Publisher's Note

Greetings and welcome to Insights , SMG's online newsletter designed to provide senior executives with useful articles and concepts to help you improve your organization's marketing efforts. Our goal is to provide you with market relevant information like we've been doing for a wide range of clients in the tourism and hospitality industry for over 10 years.

In this first issue, Jenn Gleckman, an SMG Consultant, covers some online marketing essentials. As the Internet becomes an increasingly important part of many organizations' marketing efforts and budget it is no longer possible to just leave this important tool to your tech person. It is critical that executives in every organization understand the "language" as well as ensure that your Web site design and email strategies are on the cutting edge.

On another topic, for those of you in California it's disappointing to witness what has happened to the state tourism office budget. Many people worked very hard over a long time to develop what was considered a model public/private partnership only to see the state funding portion disappear in the wrangling over the California budget. Unfortunately, it will take years to recover from this short sighted mistake.

As a result it will be incumbent upon organizations and regions to develop cooperative marketing programs as never before. One place where this is occuring is in my own backyard. As a result of increased competition and a slow economy, all of the tourism marketing organizations around Lake Tahoe have adopted the "Step Into the Blue World" advertising campaign created by Mering & Associates in Sacramento. The new Blue brand building concept is designed to unite the Lake Tahoe winter sports destination under one identity.

Have a great holiday season.

Carl Ribaudo

Demystifying Online Jargon

In the rapidly evolving world of online marketing (and Internet technologies), it’s hard to keep up with the latest vocabulary. We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite used (and abused) words and phrases in order to help you decipher the online marketing realm.

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10 Tips for Effective Emails

You’ve developed an opt-in subscriber database on your Web site, and you’re ready to send out your first email. Where to begin? To
help you out, we’ve put together a brief primer of essential tips for effective emails, which will help you harness the power of what some have called ‘the killer marketing application”.

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How a Well-Designed Web Site Can Improve Your Results

Odds are your company has a Web site, with an address that reinforces your brand and is easily remembered. But have you considered what your users are doing once they get there....and why?

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