Today, more than 148.3 million people use the internet to make reservations for their vacation activities, which is more than 57% of all travel reservations every year.

Does your travel company show up when prospective guests turn to Google to research and book their trip? Setting up an inbound marketing campaign will make sure you catch the right buyers at the right time with the right message, the key to overall marketing success. Here’s our checklist to help you get started.

One of the secrets of Facebook Messenger bot marketing is that it is a great platform for capturing additional user data, like emails addresses, phone number or whatever else you need to grow your business. (In fact, here's a case study on how we use Facebook Messenger to grow the email list and drive organic traffic for a publisher.)

Above, BlueWing's Steven Aguiar (right) with Normandy American Heroes founder Rudy Passera (center) and US sales representative Steve Judd (left) at the 2018 Los Angeles Travel and Adventure Show.

In the late summer of 2016, Rudy Passera approached BlueWing with a vision for his passion project. Rudy provides sweeping historical World War II-themed tours of Normandy. At the time he was largely supporting himself with income from a separate job, but he thought he could grow his tour business with the right marketing and sales structure. Less than a year later, Rudy’s vision came to fruition. Increased awareness led to a flurry of new tour reservations. The uptick in bookings brought a wave of money into the business.

And at last, Rudy left his other job to focus exclusively on Normandy American Heroes tours. "It is awesome to be able to focus full-time on my business. I didn't think it would be this quick," says Rudy.

BlueWing worked hand-in-hand with Rudy to execute a strategy driven by our expertise yet based on his knowledge of the business and familiarity with his target customers. Overall, we’ve helped Rudy generate 784 new leads for his business and 44 new customers.

In the age of digital disruption, few jobs have been transformed as much as sales. Whereas sales pros were once hired based on the size of their Rolodex, today there are tons of ways to build a database of contacts without actually networking. Interpersonal and problem-solving skills are important as ever, but the democratization of data has made it much easier for new industry entrants to be effective without spending years building up a cache of contacts.

So, what's replaced the Rolodex? The landscape of sales intelligence tools in 2017 is extremely rich. Here, we'll provide a snapshot of 13 tools that agency owners and their sales teams can use to build prospect lists and collect contact data.

There's a wave of change sweeping through the ad industry right now. Creative talent is leaving corporate powerhouses to start their own shops. Established agencies are dealing with the structural challenge of creating content for both traditional media and emerging platforms. Programmatic, native, and social advertising each claim to be the next big thing. Agencies are lining up and placing their bets.

Seasoned creative pros Eve Asbury and Tina Cervera, the co-founders of Wit & Measure, are building an agency from scratch in the middle of it all. We caught up with them to talk about creating a scalable infrastructure, how to compete with bigger agencies, and the biggest piece of advice they have for creatives looking to branch out on their own.

“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” These cautionary words of wisdom have been repeated around offices since before the 1930s. Fast forward to the digital marketing landscape of 2017, and the saying might be as relevant as ever.

It's been almost five months exactly since we launched BlueWing with an email to family and friends. A ton has happened since then. Here's an update on where we stand right now.

Congratulations. If you've made it to the proposal stage with a potential client, that means you've been out there taking calls, booking meetings and learning about how you can help another company accomplish their goals.

Now that you've done the groundwork, its time to seal the deal with a killer proposal. At this point, you've should have already had thorough discussion with your potential client about their needs, bugdet and timeline and how you plan to help. The purpose of a proposal is simple: to formally outline all of your learnings form the sales process and get them to sign (or click) on the dotted line.

Whether you are a freelancer, an agency or a business, nailing your proposals is a critical skill. Here’s how to do it.