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This is the thirteenth day of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

It’s not so much that a bunch of stores are having a big sale before the holidays but rather the name that accompanies the sale. Black Friday Sale, where did that even come from to begin with? Let’s take a great holiday time and cover it with the sale to end all sales. It is like more people talk about Black Friday than Thanksgiving. When did a one-day sale become some popular, other than Valentine’s Day? Talk about marketing at its finest.

We now celebrate more holidays in retail stores than we do with our family. I can just imagine way back when people lovingly gave a few handmade or long saved for gifts to one another, that that tradition would become the bonanza it has become today. I hope that I as well as others can recognize the true meaning of all of this holiday time and be truly thankful for the things we are blessed with. I hope that all of us take the time to really reflect on the things we are thankful for and spend quality time with our friends and family. Here are a couple of videos to get you ready for Black Friday.

Tips for Black Friday Shopping

This is the first of a 30-day trial. Follow the link to Marketing Ideas En Masse to find out more.

Sometimes the turkey just isn’t ready. Now, instead of awkwardly looking at all your family and extended family members you can pass that time with a new Thanksgiving Game. The Thanksgiving Game is now up for sale at 100 different Kroger locations in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee as well as all of the nearly 600 Cracker Barrel stores nationwide and at Amazon.com and many Christian bookstores across the country. The Thanksgiving game will retail between $14.99 and $19.99.

Stotz was doing what he could to hold off dinner until his wife’s parents arrived, but everyone was growing hungry and restless.

To pass the time, Stotz whipped out pencils and scraps of paper and declared, “We’re going to play a game.” He told all the players to write down what they were thankful for that year, and then afterward had them try to guess who wrote what. Players earned points for guessing correctly.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Stotz, a retired entrepreneur and airline sales agent. “You just don’t start Thanksgiving without your mother-in-law.”

The game was such a hit, it became a family Thanksgiving tradition.

Now the family has professionally developed the game and hopes to share it with the rest of America.

Read more here.

This is the third and final in a series about Nido Qubein and his book, Stairway to Success.

Developing a plan for success involves three things:

1. Setting Goals
2. Setting Priorities
3. Developing Strategies

“Good personal planning involves no more than determining how you will get from your present circumstances to the future you have created through your vision.” - Nido Qubein

I tend to set pretty ambitious goals for myself, and I do so by writing or printing them out and hanging them around my office. Up until last week I listed goals on my blog for page views and other meaningless stats. I have since pulled those off because I personally think those are the wrong goals to have because of their small measurable impact. I am instead working on a new set of goals that I might not publicly post for this blog and its growth. Goals are a must and should be taken vary seriously.

“Wisdom ofttimes consists of knowing what to do next.” - Herbert Hoover

Setting priorities gives you a place of reference when you come to a situation in which you are unsure of where to go. Knowing your goals and making them your priority makes day to day decisions easier. Suppose your goal is to save $2,000 and you are buying Christmas gifts for your family and extended family. It is easy to want to splurge on the people you love even if it goes against your goal of saving money. Is there a way to save money and still buy / create gifts for your family? Of course there is. It might take a little more imagination than cruising the isles of Best Buy, but it can be done.

More important, the issue of saving money vs. buying Christmas presents for your family shouldn’t even be an issue. Nido talks about the different levels of planning and problems. Most problems like the one above can be addressed early and then shouldn’t ever be an issue down the road at Christmas time. If you plan ahead with your goals and set priorities you should be able to navigate your way through most problems fairly easily.

“There usually are half a dozen right answers to “What needs to be done?” Yet unless a [person] makes the risky and controversial choice of only one, he will achieve nothing.” - Peter F. Drucker

Developing your strategies for success in any area of your life is like having a playbook in sports. Could you imagine if a professional sports team just said: “Aw…this week, let’s just wing it and see what happens”? My guess and I am sure yours as well would say they are guaranteed to lose.

Your strategies should meet these criteria:

• They must specify actions to be taken.
• They must specify the person or persons who is to take the actions.
• They must establish a time for beginning the actions.
• They must establish a deadline for completing the actions.
• They must establish criteria for determining when the actions have been satisfactorily completed.

This can be addressed pretty easily by stating what the problem or goal is that you are trying to achieve or overcome. Then developing a plan of action to tackle that issues in a systematic and bit sized way. You need to set an “end game” for that issue when you get to your defined goal or conclusion.

I have brought you through roughly half of the book Stairway to Success by Nido Qubein. If you would like to learn more, I would highly suggest buying it or checking it out of your local library. Although I did not read this book before I started out on my own quest for success in business and life, I have been using many of the same techniques learned by other teachers and writings. I think this book has the plan well laid out and is a solid package of advice for building upon your success in any facet of your life.

Here are the first two parts, Nido Qubein Part 1 and Nido Qubein Part 2

Here is a compiled list of recent Marketing Ideas for many different occasions starting with the newest Marketing Idea.

Marketing Ideas #13 Black Friday Sale - It’s not so much that a bunch of stores are having a big sale before the holidays but rather the name that accompanies the sale. Black Friday Sale, where did that even come from to begin with? Let’s take a great holiday time and cover it with the sale to end all sales.

Marketing Ideas #12 Be Creative - Thanks to Dosh Dosh on twitter I found this ad talking about a Nissan Xterra for sale. This is an ad from Craigslist where some guy is trying to sell his Nissan Xterra SUV. In a market where SUV’s and fuel mileage are things to consider he chose to tell a story.

Marketing Ideas #11 Creative Advertisement - Nothing is better than an ad that makes people stop and stare. Especially, when the people know that what they are seeing is in fact an ad yet they continue to look on anyway. Here is a quick and powerful video that an Italian company did to advertise for Oreo.

Marketing Ideas #10 Burger King dropping money - Most of the contents inside are gift certificates to their restaurant but who knows maybe someone got adventurous and added some real cash. As far as we can tell they are being dropped in and around the Chicago area, but that doesn’t mean it cant happen where you are.

Marketing Ideas #9 Listen to Marketers - Just when you thought someone would never compare Google Analytics to Star Trek, I found this. I would never consider myself a Trekkie, but this is a neat presentation. Information is key on the Internet, and the more you know the better you can market yourself or your product.

Marketing Ideas #8 Marketing Video Tips - I believe videos will continue to gain major ground as Internet speeds increase and more people figure out how to upload their videos easily to sites like YouTube. With that in mind, here is a good tip for marketing your videos:

Marketing Ideas #7 Marketing Videos - Couple of good marketing videos that every marketer should check out.

Marketing Ideas #6 Cell Phone Videos - Cell phones are a huge business to be in, and as technology improves the business will only get bigger and bigger. I am surprised some industrious people in big marketing companies haven’t figured out a way to give cell phones away for free. I mean all you would have to do is enable advertising on them so anytime they sent a text, surfed the web or received incoming calls there would be an ad attached to it.

Marketing Ideas #5 Cut Prices - I find it amazing how well cutting prices works to lure people into a store. The problem with the price cut war is eventually everyone gets in on it and those that don’t cut prices get cut out by the customers. This year retailers have cut prices quick and early to attract customers into their stores.

Marketing Ideas #4 Do a guest post - Guest posts are a great way to introduce yourself or your product to a new audience. I believe any time someone asks if you are willing to do a guest post, you should jump at the chance. Yesterday, I did a guest post for Eric on Marketing.fm. If you would like to hear me talk about Social Network management you can head on over and check it out.

Marketing Ideas #3 telephone conference series - One realm I have never ventured into is that of a telephone conference series or packaging a product on mp3 or DVD. I have seen the effectiveness of marketing via these methods and the ability to upsale people on bigger and better versions of the same series later on consultant fees.

Marketing Ideas #2 Black Friday “Free treats for all” - As black Friday and the mad shopping spree from Thanksgiving to Christmas approaches, stores are getting desperate. The more desperate they get, the better deals you will find. Already, I have seen sites posting stores like Best Buy and JC Penny’s with Black Friday sales coupons. You can always visit BlackFriday.info to find the best collection of coupons.

Marketing Ideas #1 Thanksgiving Game - Sometimes the turkey just isn’t ready. Now, instead of awkwardly looking at all your family and extended family members you can pass that time with a new Thanksgiving Game.

Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas for your business - “Taking advantage of targeted advertising next to online recipes for holiday favorites is a great way to get your brand at the top of every shopper’s grocery list this year. When a consumer goes online to look up recipes on how to roast their Thanksgiving turkey, will they be thinking Butterball, Norbest or Honeysuckle White?

Starbucks new Gold Card marketing strategy - Just the other day I noticed Starbucks had started a new promotion, the Starbucks Gold Card. Although, it is not quite like the Centurion Black Card, it is on the right track. If you have seen this card or have purchased one, let me know your thoughts about the promotion. Do you like it or dislike it? Are you interested in getting one? Play the video below to hear my thoughts on the Starbucks Gold Card.

Seesmic marketing - What do you do when you don’t have a lot of time to express your thoughts and ideas? 1. You can hire an extremely fast typist and have them pound it out for you

Halloween Marketing Ideas - I have been seeing a lot of searches landing on my blog for Halloween Marketing Ideas and really wonder what people are tying to marketing on Halloween (or there about). Here are a few of my Halloween Marketing Ideas for various industries…

Real Estate Marketing Ideas - I don’t know if you have noticed, but the Real Estate market is taking a bit of a beating. When things in a market change so drastically in a sort time period, people have to get creative to preserve business and their way of life, none more is true than in real estate.

Quick Marketing Ideas - I am going to just throw out a few different marketing queries I have received to this blog and then reply as quickly as I can with marketing ideas. All of these are terms people have searched and found their way to my blog. I can’t promise that they found what they were looking for, although I hope they did. Just in case, here are my different marketing ideas for a variety of different areas.

Get CONNECTED with your audience - A list of 13 different ideas or ways to connect with your audience both on and offline.

Marketing ideas: allowing your product to advertise itself - We have all seen those great word of mouth campaigns that pay off huge for the creator of whatever was being talked about. The latest of these was The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Stop throwing money at marketing - And start changing the way you go about marketing.

My one month test and a new Marketing Ideas newsletter - Over the last month give or take I have been running a test for this blog to determine what kind of traffic and visitors I would receive if I put the least amount of effort into running my blog.

Are You Taking Advantage of Auxiliary Services? - There’s a very simple question that many marketers and businesses fail to ask themselves: “What do people need?”

The rainy day marketing strategy - As I write this blog it has been raining in the state of North Dakota. You wouldn’t know it but old man winter is already beginning to show his face around here. Not to mention that he left about 3 months ago. That got me thinking of a marketing idea that I would try if I owned a more traditional brick and mortar business.

How to market yourself - I got a comment recently from Jacqueline who mentioned that she had no problem marketing other people’s products and services but lacked in marketing her own. Since I am actually planning on talking about this subject with local business owners, I figured I might as well start practicing here.

3 Lessons of marketing deployment - I put together a short list of things I need to remind myself from time to time. These are just a couple of examples that make business, marketing and products all the more better when done right.

Is it your first time here? And another marketing idea. - Welcome to TEABERRY! As some of you know, I write to you primarily from Fargo, North Dakota, and like to share some marketing ideas I can easily take pictures of. This brings us back to TEABERRY in downtown Fargo.

Effective Marketing Online - Anybody with millions of dollars in their advertising budget can run a huge and effective marketing campaign, but how do you run an effective marketing campaign online for free? First off, none of these marketing techniques are new by any means, but they do sometimes get overlooked. So without further adieu, I present my top 5 effective marketing tips online.

We have all seen those great word of mouth campaigns that pay off huge for the creator of whatever was being talked about. The latest of these was The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Everyone knows the cast was loaded with amazing actors but due to the untimely death of one of them, the film received a tremendous amount of publicity. The turn of events that took place shot the movie to a huge opening that will remain on the top 10 list for a very long time.

Advertising budget spent on a better product

I mention Dyson on here from time to time because I feel it went the route of product innovation vs. mass advertisement. Dyson’s sell themselves. It’s true. People are completely convinced paying a couple hundred dollars more for a Dyson is money well spent, even the people who only vacuum once a month. What is the cost break down per use at that rate I wonder?

Sacha Baron Cohen up to it again

Every time Sacha Baron Cohen starts a new project, we hear about it. He goes on crazy antics that get him thrown out of stadiums, pulls one over on celebrities, gets sued by college kids, you name it. The fact that his name is in the news only enables more and more people to learn about his upcoming projects.

Lines at Apple stores nationwide

We have all seen the news on the day or night before the launch of a new Apple product with lines that wrap around the block. Everyone gets so excited they can hardly wait one extra day to beat the madness or not be one of the first to own their shiny new ______.

Giving your product legs to walk with

The key is the ability to give your product or service legs to walk with. Some great ways to enable word of mouth to spread is to give people something to talk about. Tie your product in with a charity event or organization. Have an impromptu contest around some special occasion whether it’s a holiday or an internal celebration. Perhaps, allow a specialized coupon to leak to others. Remember when Starbucks offered friends and family of employees a free coffee and everyone forwarded the email on to everyone else in the world? I am sure it was all planned. Be creative and have fun, make people smile, think and share their experiences.