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

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. I think overall this is a good thing because I don’t like paying $80 for shoes when I know they were made for about $5 somewhere outside of the USA. The next problem to the price cut war is convincing people they will still be getting a deal if they buy today and not tomorrow when the prices are even lower. I wonder what the door buster prizes will be this year at the major retail stores on Black Friday. This could potentially be a great year for deals. Here is what the Baltimore Sun has to say:

To lure shoppers, retailers are pushing holiday promotions earlier than ever; they’re already offering extended store hours and steep cuts on items such as toys. In recent years, holiday advertisements began to appear before the Halloween candy is sold out, but the big shopping season has crept even earlier this year as retailers grapple with the economic downturn.

Wal-Mart led the way for holiday bargains by slashing the price on toys well before Halloween. The world’s largest retailer also announced it will alert shoppers about holiday deals through text-messaging.

Other retailers have also launched sales and discounts traditionally pegged to the day after Thanksgiving, the typical start of the holiday season. Kmart began hosting “Black Friday Weekends” two weeks ago. Stores such as Kohl’s and JCPenney have extended hours to midnight on some days, another shopping tradition once reserved for after Thanksgiving.

Retailers also are appealing to consumers with marketing campaigns and other programs that promote ways to stretch a budget or save a few dollars.

That’s all we have to do! Convince the consumers that they can save money while spending it at our store and not the competitiors. Genius.

The holidays are upon us and with that it is time to ramp up the marketing of retail businesses. For this post I used the assistance of HARO (help a reporter out) and got a good return of ideas. I will explain more about HARO and different ideas on how to use the free service a little later.

1. The first suggestion comes from Leah Dossey who is the owner, art director/ designer for Blue Leaf Creative. She suggests:

2. Next we have Karl Schmieder who is one of the founders of MessagingLab in New York. Karl suggests:

3. Erin Read Ruddick, the client services director at Creating Results, LLC – Strategic Marketing, suggested that I find a video clip from the show WKRP in Cincinnati “Turkeys Away.”
Here is the video, you might have to click here to view it.

also suggested by Erin:

We’ve done multiple fall promotions for clients, including creating a giant corn maze for a real estate developer that drove thousands of leads, but nothing specifically Thanksgiving.

4. Next Benjamin Christie suggested I take a look at his blog www.gourmetads.com.

“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? That all depends on whose ad is cleverly placed right beside the roast turkey recipe.

More and more consumers are turning to the Internet for their recipe needs; especially their holiday recipe needs and smart advertisers are taking advantage of this trend with their Thanksgiving advertising in order to create brand awareness during the critical holiday sales rush. Ideally, companies should get their products placed four weeks before the big holiday as many shoppers have already begun to stock their pantries in preparation for the big event.”

5. Lastly I figured I would throw out a suggestion of my own called the Turkey Hunt

I would aim for success by getting as much local publicity as possible, including local business sponsors. Then right on or around Thanksgiving Day I would dress 3-4 people up in big turkey costumes and have them run around in a big field. I would charge people a couple bucks for a bucket of water balloons (all proceeds go to a local charity). Next give them all water balloon launchers and let them rip. The first person to hit each turkey with a water balloon wins that turkey’s prize package from the local sponsors.

So we create a fun way to promote sponsoring businesses, free prizes and also donations to charities. Maybe even instead of charging for the water balloons we offer a swap of a balloon or two for a nonperishable food bank item.

Do you have any Thanksgiving marketing ideas for local businesses or charities? Have you ran a successful marketing campaign on Thanksgiving? Tell us your stories.

It was a fight to the finish as the top 3 commenters battled it out to see who would walk away with $50 and copy of Tim Ferriss’s Book The Four Hour Work Week. Here is how it breaks down:

Winners

1. BM (422)
2. Sherry (416)
3. Wiehanne (328)

Prizes

1. $50 and Tim Ferriss’s book
2. $30
3. $20

I was originally only going to give the Top Commenter a prize, but since these three were so far ahead of anyone else I offered a 2nd and 3rd place prize as well. I am glad they didn’t collaborate to stop on an exact number and all win the $50 (that would have been evil ). All in all there were 1411 comments for the month and I feel that is a success and definitely a new record for my blog. Thank you everyone.

The RSS subscriber that was chosen by Random.org was Doug Labrosse. There were 162 possible winners because you had to be subscribed by email to either my newsletter or RSS feed. The number chosen was 96.

Overall the contest was a lot of fun and I enjoyed getting 100 emails in my inbox from all the new comments some mornings. I also learned not to hold a contest that ends on the day you have to move out of one place and into another. Sorry for any confusion to the commenters who were frantically trying to figure out who won. I still don’t have Internet at my new place and have to work from my remote office at Dunn Bros. Coffee in Fargo (if you are around swing by I might be here).

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:

Gas Station

I would hold a costume contest every day of Halloween week, where the winner gets a free tank of gas.

Restaurant

I would dress up the host or hostess in the scariest costume imaginable and have him or her jump out at everyone as they came in.

These ideas are to get people to talk about your business. I don’t think Halloween is as marketed as Christmas, but still, a lot of people participate. Seeing that this year Halloween is on a Friday I am sure a lot more people than normal will be out. Finding a niche that your business can capture and help the word spread by including as many people as you can is the key. Use what you have at your disposal to give away as prizes, include in the contests and help other to talk about you.

Whats new at the Unconventional Marketing Blog?

Well last week I did a featured series for a blogger appreciation week, where I made mention of those who wanted to be recognized. I believe I got everyone. If you slipped through, send me a message and I will make up for it. Here are the posts:

• AlmostFit.com takes the stage
• The Big Bald Blog, a Big Pappa creation
• The MLM’s best friend, John Leonard
• Four blogs worth checking out featuring…
  • That’s Great PR
  • Down On Our Luck
  • It Might Be Love
  • The Blue Workhors

Overall I feel it went very well and I really enjoyed talking and sharing some of my reader’s blogs with the rest of my readers. From time to time I really like to give back and make a mention the best I can for those who help support my blog. I wish I could shower you with lavish prizes and tons of cash but not quite yet ;).

Guest Posters

I have offered up guest posting in the past and have not received much attention until out of the blue Shaun Connell stepped up to the plate and shared his thoughts on Google Adsense. I would like to thank Shaun and welcome him to guest post anytime.

Also, you might have noticed a new guest poster page at the top of the blog. To encourage some more guest posting and share a little more about those who do guest posts, I created a page to show off a mug shot and brief bio for all to see. Shaun is lonely on that page and is looking for some more company. If you are interested, feel free to use the contact page to let me know of your interest to join Shaun.

Goals

I am a big fan of goals for both this blog and my personal life, and this month was a great month for goals on this blog.

Here were my goals:

Page Views : 70,000
Alexa: under 125,000
Technorati Rank: 30,000
Technorati Authority: 200
RSS Subscribers : 250

Here is what I got:

Page Views : 106,953 Unique Visits 53,000
Alexa: under 122,000
Technorati Rank: 26,138
Technorati Authority: 193 (just missed)
RSS Subscribers : 308 (last day of the month)

As you can see, I made all but one of my goals of the month with which I am really pleased. I didn’t meet all my goals in the last two months and so I did not set July goals as out of reach as the others. I also was not anticipating all of the new subscribers to the blog but would like to welcome all of you. Seeing that I just missed the Technorati goal by a few, if you would like to add my blog to your favorites to help me meet my goal, I would be eternally grateful. Heres the link.