Never a Lack of Ideas

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot Looking for a good excuse to surprise your clients with a gift basket? Send them one to celebrate the New Year. But don't limit yourself to just the New Year that begins on January 1st. There are plenty of other fun New Year celebrations that would make great days to delight your customers with a gift: The client's new fiscal year Chinese New Year A new school year The first day of an annual project Add This to Your To-Do List New Year's celebrations aren't just for December 31st. Use any type of new year as an excuse to surprise and delight your customers. They'll be thankful and keep you at the top of their mind. There's never a lack of ideas. Thanks to Megan Danielson for inspiring this post.

Flying High The air traffic control tower in Cancun, Mexico is blanketed with an enormous Corona logo. That's such a great place for Corona to advertise — the brand has aligned itself with images of the beach for years. And Cancun is one of the most popular beach party cities in the world — especially for US college students on spring break. Corona's sponsorship got me thinking: what other brands should sponsor air traffic control towers around the world? In other words, what brands have aligned themselves with cities or destinations around the world? I came up with five ideas. Can you add more to this list? Rice a Roni — San Francisco, California Foster's Beer — Sydney, Australia Uno Pizzeria — Chicago, Illinois Coors Light — Denver, Colorado Pat's King of Steaks — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Add This to Your To-Do List Creating a brand with a powerful association with a specific city is difficult to do on a national and worldwide scale. However, when it's don...

106 Flavors Coca Cola has a new fountain that dispenses 106 different beverages out of just one spigot. After hearing about the machine, I was so excited that I dropped by Wendy's to check it out. While there, I whipped up a new drink — the Nick Scarpino. Check out the video to see how to make it. Add This to Your To-Do List If Coca Cola can innovate in a cool way after selling drinks for more than 100 years, then so can your business. How will you innovate your product or the way it is distributed? And what flavors would you combine in the Coca Cola drink named after you? There's never a lack of ideas. Thanks to Pastor Rob Douglas for inspiring this post.

Holey Postcards In the summer of 2003, I created a direct mail campaign that earned a whopping 15% response rate — and it was probably the least expensive direct mail campaign ever run. I was trying to pick up freelance graphic design work with local non-profits. So, I identified 20 prospective clients nearby and then designed the postcard on the right. The headline read, “are there holes in your advertising and design plans?” I actually punched two holes in the postcard, represented on the right by the circles filled with black. I did my research and knew the post office would still deliver the cards with holes in those strategic spots. A few days after mailing the cards, I received calls from three different non-profits. After a week, I was working for two of them. The Little Things Matter There are three reasons this campaign succeeded: I targeted an untapped market. Not many people want to work with small non-profit organizations because there’s not a lot of money to be made. But...

Another Year Older Today marks the second-year birthday of my blog. I made my first official post two years ago, today. 73 posts later and here we are. Thank you to all of my readers for making it fun to post all of my marketing ideas. To celebrate my blog's birthday this month, I'll be digging into my past and posting about the most successful direct mail campaign I've ever been a part of — and it involved a creative use of a hole punch. Look for it later this month. Until then, sit back and enjoy my top ten favorite posts over the past year: Bobbleheads! (Part 1) | Part 2 Nick's Knacks — How I Sold Myself for an Internship What Lady Gaga Should Wear to the Grammys Using a Facebook Advertisement to Land a Job The Woolly Mammoth Bus — The hardest I've worked for a post! The Exclusivity of Butterbeer Helicopter-Dropped Easter Egg Hunt IMDB Meets Google Maps When Realtors Become Commodities $#*! My Dad Says Add This to Your To-Do List Enjoy my top ten posts! There...

Google and the Beanstalk Google recently mailed a letter to small businesses, encouraging them to use Google AdWords to grow their business. The paper on which the letter was printed is embedded with wildfire seeds. The letter's postscript reads: "This card was printed on 100% recycled paper embedded with wildflower seeds. Plant it in a sunny spot with a thin layer of soil, add water, and watch it grow — while you watch your business grow with AdWords." I have planted the card in a pot. Let's see if it grows. Direct Mail is Not Dead Despite what many bloggers might say, direct mail advertising is not dead. This mailing proves that there are still many creative ways to reach customers through the printed page that can't be achieved in another way. It's easy to measure the success of direct mail marketing campaigns, which makes them easy to test. Add This To Your To-Do List If you've never tried a direct mail campaign, it's time to start. Build a list of...

Direct Response Cable Television Comcast is now selling products via a direct response advertising unit that appears at the bottom of a viewer's television screen. The advertisement pops up for a few seconds during a commercial and gives viewers an offer that they can accept or dismiss by using their remote control. (See the video above.) My wife and I were offered a free brochure about visiting Scottsdale, Arizona and we elected to have one shipped to us by following the prompts on the screen with our remote. My wife had seen a direct response ad for a bottle of lotion the previous day. In that ad, she could have chosen to receive a bottle for $5. I can only assume that the $5 charge would have been added to our monthly cable bill. We saw this new advertising unit at 7:45 p.m. on the SOAP network on a Wednesday and a Thursday. We have not seen it on any other channel or at any other time of day. We recorded the ad via our DVR, but when we played it back, the offer was not at the b...