Make Your Direct Mail Stand Out – “Quirky” Holiday Marketing

Sending a card to your client on days like Valentine, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas is like trying to beat the traffic by leaving the office at 5:00pm or waiting until the end of the football game to leave. You are going to be stuck in the crowd.

Why not use one of the hundreds of “quirky” holidays as a reason to contact clients and past customers? They won’t be expecting anything on that date and your competition will be nowhere to be found.

Groundhog Day Card

I received the card to the right from a Realtor and on the inside he wrote “Just as the Groundhog keeps a close watch on the weather forecast to predict spring’s arrival, I always keep a close watch on the latest news and trends in the local real state market.

So when the time comes to buy or sell, or you can if you simply have a few questions, you can rely on me for all your real estate needs no matter what the season.

In the meantime let me wish you Happy Groundhogs Day.”

He stood out from the crowd and delivered a valuable message at the right time of year for people thinking of selling their homes in the Spring and Summer.

To make it easy for you here is a list I compiled of “quirky and unusual” holidays. If you need some help tying them into your marketing give me a call. While I checked most of them you might want to do a quick search to make sure they are legitimate and what they represent:

JANUARY
Polar Bear Plunge or Swim Day – January 1
Global Family Day – January 1
National Personal Trainer Awareness Day – January 2
Drinking Straw Day – January 3
Trivia Day – January 4
Bubble Bath Day – January 8
Organize Your Home Day – January 14

FEBRUARY
Freedom Day – February 1
Groundhog Day – February 2
National Stop Bullying Day – February 9
Valentines Day – February 14
Innovation Day – February 16
Mardi Gras – February 21
World Thinking Day – February 22

MARCH
World Book Day – March 1
International Scrapbooking Industry Day – March 4
Organize Your Home Office Day – March 8
International Fanny Pack Day – March 10
Daylight Saving Time Begins – March 11
First Day of Spring – March 20
Daylight Saving Time Begins – March 22
Earth Hour – March 31

APRIL
April Fools – April 1
Good Friday – April 6
Easter – April 8
Easter Monday – April 9
Get To Know Your Customers Day – April 19
Earth Day – April 22
Morse Code Day – April 27
National Dance Day – April 29
National Honesty Day – April 30

MAY
National Teacher Day – May 8
Cinco de Mayo – May 5
Dance Like a Chicken Day – May 14
National Chocolate Chip Day – May 15
National Sea Monkey Day – May 16
Artichoke Day – May 19-20
National Waiters and Waitresses Day – May 21
Tap Dance Day – May 25
Learn About Composting Day – May 29

JUNE
Hug Your Cat Day – June 4
World Environment Day – June 5
National Yo-Yo Day – June 6
Iced Tea Day – June 10
Red Rose Day – June 12
Go Fishing Day – June 18
Paul Bunyan Day – June 28

JULY
Canada Day – July 1
Independence Day (US) – July 4
Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day – July 6
Chocolate Day – July 7
Pecan Pie Day – July 12
Cow Appreciation Day – July 15
National Hot Dog Day – July 23

AUGUST
Girlfriend’s Day – August 1
Watermelon Day – August 3
Friendship Day – August 5
National Relaxation Day – August 15
Hug Your Boss Day – August 17
Cupcake Day – August 20
National Dog Day – August 26

SEPTEMBER
Labor Day – September 3
Google Commemoration (Founded) Day – September 7
National Grandparent’s Day – September 9
Greenpeace Day – September 15
International Day of Peace – September 22
Punctuation Day – September 24
National Good Neighbor Day – September 28
National Coffee Day – September 29

OCTOBER
World Vegetarian Day – October 1
Improve Your Office Day – October 4
Free Thought Day – October 12
World Food Day – October 16
Make A Difference Day – October 27
Checklist Day – October 30

NOVEMBER
National Family Literacy Day – November 1
Daylight Saving Time ends – November 4
Windows Day (Microsoft) – November 10
Thanksgiving Day – November 22
National Day of Listening – November 27

DECEMBER
National High Five Day – December 1
Poinsettia Day – December 12
National Re-gifting Day – December 20
Crossword Puzzle Day – December 21
Festivus – December 23
Boxing Day (Canada) – December 26
New Years Eve – December 31

Meeting Clients – Impress The Heck Out of Them!

If you visit, drop in or have meetings with clients or customers and take them donuts, box lunches or other food or specialty items then this is the perfect way to make a great impression.

I can design a custom, branded, foodsafe, durable “donut” box that you can fill with anything you want and when you drop it off at a client’s office it will reinforce your brand throughout the day and create a special relationship that only food can create.

Before June 30, 2012 you can order as few as 100 donut boxes and pay the same price as 1,000 ($2.99 each) and we will honor that price for 1 year and the printer will waive the $ 80.00 set-up fee. Typically we charge $ 75.00 for the custom design so your average cost per donut box is about  $3.75 for the first order and $ 2.99 for subsequent orders.

You can visit the printer’s website or read more on this blog or call me at 800-568-8338 and let’s start impressing the heck out of your clients and customers.

Below are a few examples.

We also have stock boxes that you can choose from:

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

Phrase Me This! – Google nGgram Viewr

If you are a subscriber to this blog you know I don’t always write about marketing, but often venture into side topics and this is one of them. I am sure you will find this useful some day.

I was curious about the origin of the phrase “once in a blue moon” the other day and started searching for information about how long this term had been in existence. (see graph below)

I stumbled across the Google nGgram Viewr. When you enter a phrase into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., “British English”, “English Fiction”, “French”) over the time period you have selected.

This is the graph that shows the incidence of the term “once in a blue moon” in books from 1900 through 2008. At the bottom of the graph you can click on date ranges and actually see the books that use this term.

Searching for a word like “internet” does not create much history, but it is a useful tool for market research.

Here is the graph for the use of the term “Penny for your Thoughts” from 1800 to 2008.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

Paraprosdokian – “Marketing is easy. If you get someone else to do it.”

I came across this word and type of humor recently and thought it was worth sharing. I am sure there is a tie to marketing somewhere. Otherwise just enjoy it.

A paraprosdokian ( /pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən/) is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians, satirists and marketing guys.

A couple of famous examples first:

• “She looks as though she’s been poured into her clothes, and forgot to say ‘when’.” —P. G. Wodehouse
•  I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” —Groucho Marx

Here are a few more that I found on the internet.

• Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
• I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
• Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
• Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
• Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
• Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars but check when you say the paint is wet?
• Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.
• I didn’t say it was your fault; I said I was blaming you.
• To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
• Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you will be a mile away and he won’t have any shoes.
• The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.
• Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.

Actually going back to my original Paraprosdokian – “Marketing is easy. If you get someone else to do it.” There is a certain amount of truth to this.

My Name is Mike. How do you like me so far? Or…

I wrote an article a couple of years ago titled Elevator Speech Tips which guides you through the process of whittling down what you do into a simple 10 second statement.

Here is a simple worksheet that you can use to create your elevator speech:

You know how some (your target market)__________________
find themselves (experience the problem of)_______________
Which means that (the outcome of problem)_______________
Well what I do is (your job)_________________
Which helps them (the solution)__________________
The benefit to my clients/customers are (outcome of solution)________

As an additional tool you may want to visit the 15 Second Pitch web site which advertises the 15 second pitch as “An introduction that is concise, compelling and conversational. No elevator required!”

It provides the discipline to actually put into writing what you have been thinking about saying.

My pitch ended up as:

My name is Mike Blaney and I am a marketing guy specializing in providing a wide range of marketing and website services to small businesses and Realtors. Regardless of the project my goal is to ensure you receive value for money and can measure results. When it comes to website I ensure your website is easy to navigate, informative and most importantly it is found through strategic search engine optimization. With more than 30 years of experience in a variety of businesses I have learned that while “good ideas are a dime a dozen, implementation is priceless.”

You can run through the Pitch Wizard in just a few minutes and you have the option of adding it to more than 25,000 other pitches.

So what’s in it for them?  It is a great marketing tool for their services. The co-founder, Laura Allen, teaches people to market themselves more effectively – and have fun getting the word out about what makes them special! Laura is passionate about helping her clients create effective, cohesive personal marketing strategies that excite and inspire them to achieve their personal and professional dreams. She offers courses in Professional Coaching and Networking Essentials.

Clean Your Inbox of Newsletters With One Click

If you have a lot of email newsletters or other subscriptions clogging up your inbox you have two options to stop them; you can click on the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the news letter or use this new free service called Unroll.me, that can handle unsubscribing to all of them at once. Unroll.me is the easiest way to manage your inbox. Unsubscribe from unwanted email subscriptions, discover new ones and organize them all in one place.

Although still in Beta mode and only available by invitation Unroll.me works with Gmail, Aol Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Yahoo! Mail.

How Does It Do This?

It crawls through your email inbox searching for newsletters then provides you with a list of all your subscriptions. Simply select the ones you don’t want to receive anymore, click Unsubscribe, and Unroll.me handles the rest.

Does it Work?

From an article on Lifehacker.com by Melanie Pinola she found during a test, Unroll.me found what seemed like a hundred subscriptions—some of which she doesn’t even remember signing up for and others she had just been too lazy to unsubscribe to. Melanie reports the service worked as promised and all she had to do was check off the ones she no longer wanted, submitted them and even got email confirmations from those newsletters that she unsubscribed from.

Melanie also noted that after clicking the fifth subscription you want to unsubscribe from, you will be prompted to refer friends to unsubscribe to the rest in bulk. You can do the referral via email (5 friends), send a tweet, or post a Facebook message.

It even offers a Rollup?

The rollup is a digest that gives you an overview of all the subscriptions you receive each day. The rollup will keep your inbox clean by organizing the subscriptions you receive into a single email.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

Need a New Slogan or Tagline – I do that!

Today I am announcing the official launch of “Blaney! Get Me a Slogan.” (Remember the TV show Bewitched?)

Larry Tate asking Darren Stevens for a Slogan

I have written 4 blog posts about slogans and taglines and they are among the most popular blog posts I have ever written. This one, Writing a Slogan or Tag Line has been viewed by 104,034 readers since I wrote it in 2007 and there were more than 4,200 views in January 2012 alone.

As so many people are researching the topic of slogans and taglines I decided to officially announce this new slogan service today to help you develop the perfect solution. I have created many over the last few years “under the radar”, but the demand has been increasing to the point I need a formal service offering.

So here’s the offer.

I will create a tagline / slogan for you. All I need from you is a few minutes of your time to complete a simple questionnaire and I will do the rest. I will provide about 5 concepts for you to choose from. We will narrow it down to the best 2 and refine those to the point where you can choose the one that fits best. Elapsed time from receipt of the questionnaire from you is less than 72 hours.

The fee for this service is $ 199.00 (USD or CDN) payable by credit card. What’s the catch? There is none. If you are not completely satisfied with the results then there is no fee. There is no payment required until you have submitted the questionnaire.

In addition, I can help you integrate your new slogan or tagline into your marketing and if you require a logo, stationery package, website or advertising I can help you there too.

Call Mike Blaney at 800-568-8338 or email me at marketingguy@shaw.ca to get started.

Here are the other 3 blog posts I have written on the subject of slogans and taglines.

Creating the Perfect Tagline
Stevens, Get Me a Slogan!
Critiquing Catchy Real Estate Slogans

Cool New Tool To Check Things Out Before You Buy

I stumbled across a service that I could have used in the past and always thought was a great idea. Its called We Go Look when you can’t! I haven’t used the service, but I thought you might be interested. I also think their website is excellent.

We Go Look has a network of more than 7,000 Nationwide Looker® Inspectors to complete an ONSITE verification report of the item you wish to purchase or verify. Verify the item’s existence and the seller’s claims.

A basic $ 49.00 report includes the following:

1. Travel to view items, property or date
2. Confirm existence of items, property or date
3. Complete personalized report
4. Confirm brand, manufacturer, model number, serial number, VIN number, or other markings on item as requested
5. Provide 10 digital photos
6. Answers your custom questions

You can add more though if you need to:

1. Request Custom Tasking: quote
2. Add a video of your item: $20
3. Verify and Record dimensions: $8
4. Deliver an item to shipper: quote
5. Arrange transportation: $29 plus shipping fee
6. Add an additional 10 photos of your item: $10
7. Add an expert photo appraisal of your item: $25
8. Observe a working demonstration of an item: $20
9. Add a background check to dating verification: quote
10. Rush Service: $25

Why SOPA is a Bad Idea – Clay Shirky from TED Explains Why

You need to act if you believe in the freedom of the internet and believe the Government should not have the power to censor what you read. Even though I am in Canada writing this blog the new Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA can reach out and cut my blog off without providing any evidence that I have contravened a U.S. copyright law. Then it is up to me to prove that my blog did not infringe on a copyright.

This video will take 15 minutes to watch, but at the end you can make an informed decision and decide if you are going to add to my voice against SOPA.

I agree that we need to protect intellectual-property and the jobs and revenues that go along with it. I also understand we need to bolster enforcement of copyright laws, especially against foreign websites, but the fallout from SOPA can have unforeseen consequences even to us simple creators and sharers of content.

How Does SOPA Propose to Work?

From Wikipedia (I hope I do not get shut down for sharing this content”

The bill establishes a two-step process for intellectual property-rights holders to seek relief if they have been harmed by a site dedicated to infringement. The rights holder must first notify, in writing, related payment facilitators and ad networks of the identity of the website, who, in turn, must then forward that notification and suspend services to that identified website, unless that site provides a counter notification explaining how it is not in violation. The rights holder can then sue for limited injunctive relief against the site operator, if such a counter notification is provided, or if the payment or advertising services fail to suspend service in the absence of a counter notification.

The second section covers penalties for streaming video and for selling counterfeit drugs, military materials or consumer goods. The bill would increase penalties and expand copyright offenses to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content and other intellectual property offenses. The bill would criminalize unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months.

If you are in the U.S. call your Congressman or call your Senator and tell them to focus on jobs, housing and the economy.

Cool Social Media Tool

If you are active in Social Media on websites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter you have probably been asked to give “permission” to various Apps to access your account.

While you can go to each website and check your permissions I came across a new website called mypermission.org which makes life so much easier. You just click on the icon and it takes you directly to the Permissions page where you can review which websites and Apps have access to your account and delete old, inactive or unsavoury ones.