New Year's Clean-up

Since we can't go clean up Fain Park in Prescott Valley, Arizona, because of the weather, we are cleaning up the eatstayplay.com offices. For two days all we are doing is going through files and re-organizing and purging.

This is a good way to take a look at where we are and where we are going in the coming year. So, put on the radio, pop some popcorn and settle in for major merge and purge!

Happy Holidays from eatstayplay.com

Merry Christmas!

In this holiday season, eatstayplay.com has another surprise: Nevada was launched on 25 December 2004. We are looking forward to fleshing out the attractions in this great state, as well as beginning marketing after the New Year.

In other news:

- A search for Prescott National Forest on Yahoo.com returns eatstayplay.com as number 3

- A search for Grand Canyon National Park address in MSN returns eatstayplay.com as number 15

- We get almost daily searches for Prescott Trolley Company.

Nevada!

Merry Christmas! What a present!

Research is moving forward

Lately, we have been very focused on research: getting Utah up, fleshing out the other states, finishing the optimization on Alaska. Just basic housecleaning on the attractions.

This is a never-ending process:

if content is KING, refresh rate is Queen!

Next week, we have our first meeting with a new SEO firm that is local here in Prescott, Arizona. So, we will begin the dance with them to see if they have what we need to continue to move forward in the engines and also to see if they have the knowledge. I know just enough about SEO to know if somebody else is a good choice or not.

Sales will be gearing up after the New Year. We are expecting major sales in Arizona and to fully maximize the potential in Prescott, Arizona. While eatstayplay.com is much bigger than Prescott, or even Arizona, this is still our home base. That makes it PERFECT for beta testing our new sales methods and for getting the sales staff's feet wet.

In other news:
The Christmas postcards we sent out were a huge hit.

Utah!

The state of Utah was loaded over the weekend! Look for more attractions to be loaded in the coming weeks as we start requesting users to verify our information. Today, links to the Chamber of Commerce will be loaded for each popcenter.

After the first of the year, the sales staff will begin our initial marketing to that state. So, we have until then to find any abnormal pages and get them fixed!

Prescott Valley Town Council Meeting

eatstayplay.com has adopted Fain Park, in Prescott Valley, Arizona. In the meeting this evening, the Mayor and Councilmembers voted and it is now official. I gave a presentation to the council, explaining about eatstayplay.com. I also invited the council to our first clean-up in January.

All in all, it was a great success. They laughed at my dog joke and I was able to slip in another joke about not being mic (Mike) shy. Lucky for me, there was a councilmember named Mike and he is an easy going guy.

New Record (even better than last time!)

eatstayplay.com had a double record setting day this week. Sunday finished out at a whopping 988 sessions.

To make it even better, Monday ended at 964! For the month of December, we are averaging WAY over 500 sessions a day.

All time sessions record!!

Sunday, 12 December 04, was an all time sessions record for eatstayplay.com. We had 851 sessions recorded AND there are still 6 hours of data left to post.

Funny thing is though, most of this traffic is coming from no-entry. Where are people finding us at? Users need to take our survey!

Town Presentation a HUGE Sucess

Okay, I'll admit that when it came right down to the moment, I was nervous to get up before the town council, the assembled townfolk, and the TV camera. I was especially worried when I saw that Teapot Inn had a powerpoint presentation.

But, it went off wonderfully. The council laughed at my jokes, I got the word out (some more) about eatstayplay.com, and hopefully, I'll be invited back! I even received compliments on being a good public speaker.

I'd do it again, in a heartbeat.

New Hit Record

Monday: 732 unique sessions.

December: Average of over 500 sessions a day.

(I remember when we were happy averaging 100!)

First presentation

Well, the council of Chino Valley said that I would be coming in sometime in January. Then, I was called two days ago and invited to speak TONIGHT.

Good thing that I can pull together a presentation quickly. So, wish me luck, I'll be addressing the Chino Valley Town Council this evening on behalf of eatstayplay.com!

Business Presentations

My latest venture as being the "most visible eatstayplay.com executive" is to go to meetings and give presentations about eatstayplay.com.

I am still working on perfecting my pitch to said organizations. I have to fine tune my PowerPoint slides and oh! buy a projector. (Kind of hard to have a meeting of 30+ people gather around the laptop screen...)

The best news is that I already have two presentations scheduled: Prescott Valley Town Council meeting on December 16, 2004 & the Chino Valley Town Council meeting for sometime in January. After that, it will be on to the Chambers of Commerce, Woman in Business organizations, the Hispanic communty, and other networking groups.

Good thing I LIKE public speaking. Guess all that training in high school will finally pay off!

In other news:

• Our daily visitor count is picking up. We are averaging 500 visitors a day.

• We have a link to eatstayplay.com on YorkRV.net - a major business player for this area.

• We have more merchants now than we have ever had before.

• Networking at business parties is paying off with new clients, a partnership with a SEO firm, and even more name recognition.

• The Features page has been updated.

• We won another award.

Chino Valley Review

The article that was written about eatstayplay.com for the Prescott Courier was carried in the Chino Valley Review this week. After the great response from the last article, I am hoping for some more traffic.

What I really need are people to take our user survey. How can eatstayplay.com better serve its users if we don't know who they are, where they are coming from, and what they want?

Word on the Web is that Google is up to something. I can vouch for that! Just by looking at my stats for the previous week, I can see that a major change is in the wind. Hmmm, just in time for Christmas.

Next Great Sucess

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! (A bit late, I know)

The Phoenix Magazine came out over the weekend. Our ad is already showing its sucess. It was placed very nicely in the middle of the calendar of events and next to a really eye catching ad with a cat in it. One thing I've discovered is that having a nice ad is good, having an eye catching ad placed with other nice ads is even better.

Our marketing push for this week is a direct mailing piece to real estate agents, following Doug Hall's marketing principles. After the great results we had with the flyer to agents in Prescott, I am expecting big things from this mailing- hopefully a 2% response rate. In fact, last week I got another call off the first flyer- better than three weeks after it first came out!

I also got a call from a very nice contractor who wants to advertise in Williams Arizona. I don't much care for snow, but these snowballs are making me happy!

In other news...
Bullzimedia is doing our rebroadcast today. Results were good last time, but I am expecting an even better response this time around.

We have the KNAU party to go to tomorrow night and the Chamber party the next evening. I LOVE parties.

Postini!! - What a cool word

In the never ending quest for more marketing- get the word out about eatstayplay.com -we began working with bullzimedia.com. Chris, my contact there, is a really great guy. Bullzimedia is located in Florida, making a two hour time difference between me in Arizona and them. BUT, Chris works killer hours every day so our schedules overlap.

The issues today that we are battling are missing emails. The email moves from

point a to point b

rather nicely
BUT

moving from

point b to point c

AND WE ARE LOST IN CYBER SPACE!!

So, we are working far into the night. It seems the problem is something called a Postini Mailserver. Which I know little about except that it is a very fun word to say & that it is keeping me from getting my own emails.

On a more positive note, we are having a new link exchange with PrescottWeddings.com & with LooseEnds.net. Plus, our new client Prescott Trolley Co. (website) is getting lots of good press and seems to be doing very well in their own right.

Now, as an Search Engine test, I am linking to Kimberly-Eldredge.com. This site is a place for Kimberly's publications and awards. It hasn't been updated in a while, though, because of the more pressing business of eatstayplay.com and focusing on Prescott Arizona merchants.

Great Results from Daily Courier

The article that Ken Hedler wrote about eatstayplay.com has been showing great results. New merchants have been calling about advertising, we have developed some new (very promising) business relationships, and we have had tons of offers for link exchanges! I've even gotten some calls from people who want to come work for eatstayplay.com to research.

eatstayplay.com got a shot in the arm from all the great PR. Things are snowballing in the most positive way.

By the way, we only have one Level 1 spot available on the Prescott Arizona page and many of the other merchant categories are filling up nicely. Look for big changes coming on eatstayplay.com - America's Recreation Connection!

Women in Business

eatstayplay.com has finally arrived in the big time- a feature article in the newspaper. Last Tuesday, the reporter came to interview me and stayed for an hour and fifteen minutes. Boy! after that, I was exhausted- who knew being interviewed would be so much work?

Today, I went out and bought ten copies of the newspaper and also asked all my neighbors to save me copies. The list of people who need a copy of this article is ten miles long!

(I think the best part is the photo- personally!)

Changes to Prescott Arizona

eatstayplay.com has decided to add a few current events to each popcenter page. Click here to see what was added for Prescott, Arizona!

eatstayplay.com
Visit eatstayplay.com, America's Outdoor Recreation Connection today!

About eatstayplay.com

eatstayplay.com was officially started in December of 2002 after

Kimberly graduated from the University of Arizona. But, the business

really began the summer before that when all of the National 

Forests in Arizona were closed due to fires. 

The Eldredge family went to Priest Gulch Campground- a beautiful

private campground on the Dolores River. However, none of the

family had ever vacationed in Colorado.

One afternoon, they drove three hours to Groundhog Reservoir-

known for great trout fishing. The lake was being drained. There

was 50 feet of mud between the water and the bank. On the way back

to the campground, Bruce and Kimberly began discussing the

power of a website that would be able to offer current information

about the things that people liked to do.





And so, eatstayplay.com was born!