Faraway From The Everyday

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Taos is lately experiencing an artistic and cultural Renaissance thanks to a few locals who have their fingers on the town’s pulse.

Both Ana Karina Armijo and Alyson Hyder have been profiled here on taoStyle.

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For the first time, MarkeTaos and the Town of Taos are working in tandem in a collaboration that is certain to benefit us all. Over the past year, since Karina took on the position of Marketing Director of Taos and Alyson was appointed Director of MarkeTaos, it became clear that united they (MarkeTaos and the Town) were much stronger than acting as separate entities, which was often confusing to visitors and locals alike.

MarkeTaos had long held the monopoly over Taos’ online presence and Karina (whose background in Web Design combined with her Marketing skills) was especially concerned about rebranding the Town in a cohesive and unified manner. Alyson and Karina have worked together for many years on a myriad of projects, so it didn’t take too long for them to put their heads together and come up with a solution to the problem at hand.

Now these two remarkable women have joined forces to create the new, very much improved website for Taos.org, branding it with the brilliant slogan I’ve used as the title for this post; “Far Away from the Every Day”, a phrase coined by perhaps the first Brander of Taos, Mabel Doge Lujan. Making sure you have an effective website and slogan are just two of the most important branding methods that are out there, alongside more traditional methods of improving brand awareness, such as having brochures and business cards printed with your slogans and logos on (find help at third-angle.com when it comes to this) and handing them out to the public. There are many other things that new businesses or blogs need to consider when starting up. Some even decide to try and find celebrities who can help increase their brand awareness as there is no doubting the power of celebrity to catapult awareness of a brand. It could now be easier than ever to use a celebrity endorsement as you can contact companies such as Lunar Talent to help you get in touch with them. Just think about how this could help the success of your business in the long run?

“Karina and I started working together in 2007, when she become the Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce Graphic Designer for all print products, Web Design and Branding,” explains Alyson. “At that time she assisted me in putting Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce on the map as the third top visited website in Taos.”

“In 2009 we worked together on the First Annual Taos Mountain Music Festival,” (which was coordinated by Alyson with the Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce and Alejandro Blake). “It was hugely successful.” She tells me.

Karina volunteered her help with the Taos Ski Valley Up and Over event, and was largely instrumental in growing the event. She organized the Paint for Peaks fundraiser and K2 Bumps challenge raising over $30,000 per year for Breast Cancer Awareness. She then produced the first Taos Ski Valley Visitors guide which this year morphed into a joint guide between Taos Ski Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Taos – Taos/Taos Ski Valley Visitors Guide.

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In 2010 Alyson was awarded 3 TANM awards (only 10 awards are given each year). She resigned from the Taos Ski Valley Chamber in 2013 to build BookTaos a Central Reservations, online service she created for Taos, which is now a feature of the new (Taos.org) site. “Karina and I both applied for the Town of Taos Marketing position – but the way the fortune cookies fell was better than expected.” Alyson laughs.

MarkeTaos were contracted ( by the Town of Taos ). The redevelopment of the site was awarded to GUMCO Web Design and MarkeTaos was awarded the contract to manage Taos.org and in so doing have established a partnership with the Town of Taos.

MarkeTaos (under Alyson’s Direction) manages the web maintenance, listing sales and provides the online Central Reservations Service to Taos County. Alyson manages the day-to-day running of Taos.org, along with running Taos’ Central Reservations which currently lists over 98 lodging properties county-wide. Alyson and Karina have worked closely together since April to launch the new site. One day in the future, they may even take the time to incorporate something similar to what Pay Per Click Management, PPC UK provides in being able to advertise their business on a variety of different sites. And what’s even better is that you’d only be required to pay per click so you could be saving on quite a bit of money to further your business growth. After a soft launch last week, the website is going into phase 2 development which will fine tune the site and make it even more user-friendly. If you are looking for a user-friendly web hosting provider, you might want to try something similar to Hostiever – https://www.hostiserver.com/ – for a place to build your website.

“I just love working with Karina,” Alyson says, “we have created many amazing things and our energy works so well together – it is an absolute pleasure to work with someone who has no drama, no time for that, we just get down to business”

Karina too is delighted with the way everything worked out. When the three of us met recently, she was excited about the upcoming launch of the new site. Like Alyson she’s been head down since early spring working hard to make this happen, while taking care of all the other business she attends to in her position as Marketing Director for the Town.

Both of these women are nothing if not hard workers. And what’s more, they get things done! Taos.org has had a facelift and is now in the hands of media savvy millenials who not only have plans for the way Taos is presented to the outside world, they plan on keeping the business of branding Taos in the hands of locals who know the town best.

screenshot-2016-09-20-at-5-09-17-pmtaostyle is beyond thrilled to contribute archival and occasional one-off exclusive – to – Taos.org, content. Insider Tips is where you’ll find us and we do pop up elsewhere on the site, along with other local bloggers, magazines, indie writers and photographers.

taoStyle fav Rita O’Connell’s Live Taos‘ Calendar will be the Entertainment Calendar for Taos.org

“It’s all coming together,” Says Rita. “Truly, such great momentum.”

“Those two are doing remarkable things.” She adds.

To see what Karina and Alyson have been busy with since April, please visit the site linked below the post.

Taos.org

Top photo: Karina with lead singer/guitarist Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes

Portrait of Alyson by Bill Curry
Screenshots of Taos.org taken on my PC

2 thoughts on “Faraway From The Everyday

  1. Wonderful article that helps me understand the full picture of the great work and collaboration between these talented people who just happen to be women! LIVETaos!
    Great work, ladies!
    ~MattressMary

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