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The past year or so has seen it fair share of ups and down with the economy, and with that we see some interesting marketing ideas. I love coffee and occasionally visit the local Starbucks or Dunn Bros. A recent idea someone at Starbucks dreamed up was to reward your receipt with a stamp that will discount your next coffee if you return the same day. If you cant tell I love coffee.

I admire Starbucks for trying, but I don’t see anyone talking about the new marketing scheme. At least they are rewarding the people who visit their stores multiple times a day, which can be up to 3 times before 10 a.m., according to one Starbucks worker.

Within a week, Dunn Bros. Coffee offered me the same deal as Starbucks. Do they really think giving someone a $1 off their next drink will stir up buzz and bring people flocking in? It won’t. The reason is simple. Nobody cares about saving $1 with the condition of having to return within a few hours. And most of us are probably going to be annoyed that we were even told about this lame deal.

If I were in the decision-making process of one of these two companies, I would reward the faithful customers by going over the top. Working the early morning shift at a coffee shop, you would learn quickly who are the talkers and frequent customers. I would then greet those customers with a limited edition card (like the Black Centurion Card). The card would be worth a month’s worth of free regular coffee if they return it at the end of the month. I would maybe make about 20 of these, depending on how much business is done at that particular store.

I would then create a couple more cards (different colors) like that in greater number that would be worth between 25-50% off for the month. Now you have a product that people will talk about. Plus you have just placed that into the hands of the talkers. It won’t take long for that to be passed around and a month is just long enough to get it into the hands of another talker as the first gets less excited.

Then I would run a campaign in the store showing the picture and posters of “Have you seen this card?” Let everyone know who comes to the store they could potentially get one of those cards. Now that is an idea worth sharing. Scarcity and Reward. Scarcity to create a desire and a reward to the talkers and return customers.

This is a post about nothing really in particular, but just in case you weren’t sure if I were a nerd or not, I now have proof. (link to videos)

Proof I am a nerd and will travel

In the above video, my car is decorated with an @TheRealJosh Twitter decal from custom-vinyl-lettering.net. I spent some time finding a company that could do the custom car decals, and they seemed the easiest to use and priced very well.

And now for some jets

The Blue Angels are in Fargo, ND, for the Airsho and were buzzing over my house all morning making all kinds of amazing, awesome ruckus that I just had to film and share with you all.

I recommend hooking up the sound system and cranking the bass, just like my mom did with the movie Top Gun in the opening 2 mins of the movie with the Kenny Loggins rockin your face off Danger Zone. Here nor there, the jets made me feel like a little kid running out in the field with my camera trying to capture their pure awesomeness as they maneuvered about. Enjoy.

Random awesome links

Also, if you haven’t seen Allyn Hane from bloggerillustrated.net impressions of Darren Rowse Problogger (spoof) or Gary Vaynerchuk (spoof) you must check them out. So funny!

To view the video visit www.joshwhitford.com.

The trade ring is a simple yet very effective marketing idea. Find other businesses or friends that are in similar niches like “home improvement” or other service related business and combine forces. Each person in the group posts the others’ information on the back of their business card. Such as: name, phone, and category.

Every time you do business you pass your business card out to your clients and your friends do the same. Now, you have referrals to all of their clients as well. Simple yet very effective. Great idea brought to you via buzzprofits.com newsletter. Give it a try what do you have to lose?

Anyone have any success with this promotional method before? Like real estate agents, loan brokers, title companies and so on?