Cadillac launched a new commercial for the Olympics that really got under my skin! I waited for a week to see if I was still irritated enough to post a “ranty” blog, and I am, so here we go! This ad for the new Cadillac ELR essentially proclaims that the achievements and greatness of the United States of America rests in the fact that we don’t rest. Check it out here if you haven’t seen it.

For months now here at Half a Bubble Out we have been writing and posting blogs about a wide variety of inbound marketing and SEO concepts; from how to create the best landing pages to what makes a good website, how to add keywords to your website, and a host of other topics. Every week each person in our office gets assigned a topic from the core areas we have committed to writing about, and every week we are responsible for coming up with a helpful, informative blog post about that topic. We are huge believers in blogging and have seen the fruit of it in our business. Having said that, if you look at the authors over the past several weeks, you will note that I have been woefully remiss in contributing my allotted blog posts on any regular basis.

I learned something about myself watching the Super Bowl last weekend. It wasn’t a brand new revelation, but it was a deeper understanding of something that resides in my DNA. Simply put it is this: I want people to do well. I want teams to play well. I want competition to look like it really is competition. When games happen like the recent destruction of the Denver Broncos by the Seattle Seahawks I am just kind of depressed afterwards.

Why blog? How often should I blog? What should I blog about? How do I know what my potential customers are looking for? These are questions we are asking and answering every day as we work with clients in their internet marketing. The first step of any internet marketing campaign is generating traffic to your website. A solid inbound strategy is founded on writing good content and writing it consistently and in a compelling way.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if my website generated qualified leads for my sales people while they slept?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was information available to my website visitors that helped them sort out ahead of time whether my services were truly a good fit?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone coming to my site believed that I am really an expert at what I do (because of course you are!!)?

These questions are all areas that are on the table when it comes to discussions of lead generation techniques in the world of online marketing.

We LOVE to brag on our clients. Sometimes we get to brag about work we have done with them, and sometimes we just get to brag on the incredible stuff they are doing! Today is such a day. The Hignell Companies have been a client for nearly seven years and we love who they are and what they do. We talk often with them about the Chico community and the involvement that businesses get to have in making our community a better place. We are proud to tell you that The Hignell Companies is doing more than just talking about corporate giving! We wanted to tell you about this. This blog is the press release announcement so you can see what they are up to!

I unapologetically love Christmas.  The sights, smells, sounds. Time with friends and family. Giving gifts carefully chosen. Parties and celebrations. Good food. A momentary reprieve from the pressures of work that almost everyone honors, even clients in other countries. Less email!  A reminder to pause and consider the gifts in my own life. Near the top of the list of the many things I love about Christmas is the music. Everywhere you go songs that range from the fun loving songs of Santa and his reindeer, to the deep wonder of O Holy Night, the sounds of the season are a source of both joy and peace for me.

Santa’s busiest day of the year is almost upon us, but what do you think Santa is doing with the other 364 days of the year? He has elves for making the toys and gifts, and Mrs. Claus takes care of the meal preparation so Santa is all about learning the rest of the year. He is looking for valuable information that he can pass on to his friends and neighbors. Recently a small business owner asked Santa the question “why blog” and he had to research a good answer. Since then he has signed up for our blog and he is deeply interested in internet marketing.

I'm not sure who writes marketing content for JetBlue but I want to meet them! I am regularly impressed by their ability to be creative and weave in meaningful content while doing so.

Below is an email I got from them today built on "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and while I know many will rework this for their marketing, I think JetBlue has done it well. Note the links in this email that each highlight one of the benefits of traveling with JetBlue. It's a great example of what can be done. You can bet this took a bit more time than the average email, but it serves to delight and inform. You can't ask for more in marketing than that!

Without further ado, JetBlue's Christmas email:

Recently I met with a client regarding a website redesign we are doing for them. We are working on trying to streamline their content, make it more user friendly in the navigation, and be more client focused than it has been to date. The client, who happens to be the CEO of the company in this case, agrees in concept with all of these ideas, but the implementation of that in a way that he likes is not so simple. He wants “warmer,” he wants people to feel “drawn in” and he took us to a site he really likes and feels does that. As it turns out, that site had the opposite effect on me!