One of our largest single property sites to date, the new Whitestone Inn website launched this month. Whitestone is a resort property, bed and breakfast, wedding location, and real estate investment opportunity, all located on 600 acres on Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee.

The new site design also includes a blog for the latest news and insights from Tennessee’s premier country resort.

Thinking Bigger
In Washington state, the eastern Olympic Peninsula communities include Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Port Hadlock, Brinnon & Quilcene. For the last few years, they’ve produced a 20- to 24-page, 4″ x 9″ travel planner promoting tourism in their area. It’s a standard format in the tourist industry. But this year, they decided to go for something different, with more impact: a bigger 8.5″ x 11″ format, with room for larger photos and easier-to-read text. Read the rest of this entry »

An Annual Planner Gets an Update

The Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission (OPTC) promotes tourism throughout the communities of the north Olympic Peninsula, Washington. This year, they chose InsideOut to produce their annual travel planner. To save on time and design costs, OPTC decided to retain most of last year’s design elements (created by a different design firm). The biggest changes for this year included a new cover, a new spread on agri-tourism and an increase in page count‚Äîfrom 36 to 40.

How the Planner Works Read the rest of this entry »

April is a month of travel for Jeff Logan and Patricia McCauley. Both attended the Oregon Bed & Breakfast guild conference in Hood River Oregon.

The two of them went to separate conferences the next week. Patricia traveled to Helena, Montana for the Montana Bed and Breakfast Association conference. She was a vendor and spoke to Aspiring Innkeepers on “How to build a web site that works”. She spoke the following day to the MTBBA Innkeepers on “Web 2.0, How to market for the next generation of the Internet”, “Is Print Marketing Dead”, and lead a discussion on Best small association management and ideas”.

Jeff hopped a plane for Red Wing, Minnesota where he was a vendor and a speaker on three different Internet Marketing topics ranging from Google Adwords, New Tools from Google and Web 2.0 marketing. Pictured to the right is Jerry Philips the owner of the Rittenhouse Inn with Jeff.

We can turn out a new custom client website every week, on average, but it took us nearly nine months to launch our own. Still, it’s finally here. Our new website launched on April 1st, 2008. Cool new stuff includes:

• Our Blog
• Department-specific contact form
• Portfolio Gallery of some of our latest print and web work
• Case Studies for three of our clients
• Staff Pics and Bios

Let us know what you like, what you don’t, and what you’d love to hear about here on the blog.

The Bed & Breakfast Inns of Utah (BBIU) weren’t happy with their old brochure. It was printed in 2 colors, which probably made it less expensive back in the day. But without full color, it was no place to showcase photos. Not that there was room for them–the little brochure was a single 8.5″ x 14″ sheet, with just enough space for a list of inn names and contact info. BBIU wanted MORE. What they got was a major upgrade: a multi-purpose piece that works as a print and interactive online brochure all in one!

Bigger & Brighter

They asked InsideOut to do a 24-page directory in full color. We were able to give them a good printing quote since changes in technology have made full color costs comparable to 2-color printing. With 24 pages, there was plenty of room for pictures, a map and useful travel information, as well as a photo and description for each inn.

Display It or Mail It

Folded in half, the brochure is 4″ x 9″ and fits standard display racks at Visitor Centers. The front cover is uncluttered and eye-catching. Photos tell the story, expressing a feeling of hospitality and the drama of Utah’s landscape. The back cover has the return address and room for a mailing label and postage. As a self-mailer, the piece doesn’t require the extra cost of a separate mailing envelope.

BBIU wanted enough brochures to distribute both in- and out-of-state. But they didn’t want too many since they plan on updating the piece next year. A print run of 7,500 satisfied both these concerns.

Interactive & Online

To maintain the strength of their branding, the piece matches the look and feel of their website. More importantly, the piece easily makes the transition online… you can download a pdf (portable document format) from bbiu.org to your computer. With its clickable table of contents and map, this interactive version lets you easily navigate through its pages. Once you’ve found what you need, you can print out the pages, too.

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The brochure is getting rave reviews. We were happy to guide BBIU through the process and give them an attractive, multi-functional marketing piece.

Andrea’s Troy-Bumpas Inn is located in historic Greensboro, North Carolina. Recently InsideOut had the good fortune to be able to re-design their website. When the time came to do a rack card InsideOut was asked to create one that would be consistent with the website branding/design and at the same time be an effective stand-alone marketing piece. The finished piece captures the inn’s beauty and ambience on the cover and describes rooms, amenities and location on the reverse. The website is emphasized but the phone numbers are important on a piece that someone is reading in a Chamber of Commerce office or a VIC. The location map is equally important for those situations. The client was very pleased with the finished piece.