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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).

One of the coolest things about being a blogger and having an audience is the wiliness of others to offer free things for reviews and exposure. I like books and try and read them whenever I get a chance. If anyone knew me when I was a kid they would probably laugh as I never used to read. One of the most recent books I received was Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard.

I probably finished Scratch Beginnings in about 3-4 sit down sessions of reading, so it was a quick and very enjoyable read. Adam set out shortly after graduating college on a social experiment to achieve the “American Dream.” The intro informs us that he was to ride a train to a southern city with $25 in his pocket, the clothes on his back and a duffel bag. In one year time his goal was to have $2,500 saved, a furnished apartment, running car and be in a position to continue his upward movement.

Being roughly the same age as Adam and battling some of the same life choices in the pursuit of a career, lifestyle and calling, I can relate to him a lot. I believe that his experience throughout the book can be just about anyone’s experience. To make the experiment more convincing Adam chose not to use his personal credit, college education or contacts to his benefit.

The first 60 days he admits were the hardest and yet the most rewarding. Most of that time was spent in a homeless shelter looking for steady work while trying to stay fed and in good health and spirits. I would say 1/3 of the book was just about his first few days of his quest for the American Dream and really shows what the process is like to start all over with nothing. This could ultimately be a situation anybody could find themselves in due to any variety of circumstances.With a goal, determination and some support it really shows how far and how quickly someone can pull themselves back up again.

I would recommend purchasing the book and it can be found on Amazon for about $14, more than reasonable. If you want to find out even more about Adam Shepard and Scratch Beginnings head over to his site scratchbeginnings.com.I had a chance to ask Adam some more questions about his time during and since his experiment. Here they are:

Josh: On pg. 188 you talk about the journey, process, setting goals, finding passion and giving it your all. How much do you believe surrounding yourself with successful people helped you in your journey like Derrick (someone who helped you)?

Adam: More than “helped”, I think it defined the success of my journey. Maybe I could have succeeded on my own, maybe not. But in the end, that wasn’t the point. The point is that WE made it, together. And by choosing to surround myself with positive people that have my same focus, made this so much easier. I was so much more inspired that I wasn’t the only one fighting for the American Dream.

Josh: You also mention having a long-term, 5-year plan and the importance of having a goal even if it changes. I love goals and find them extremely valuable. How has your goal changed since embarking on your experiment, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Adam: Certainly, my goals — more specifically — have changed since this book came out simply because I see that there is a market for me to talk about the issues surrounding the American Dream, but the fundamentals for my 5 year plan are the same. There still isn’t a quick fix to what I want to do…I still have to build a little bit every year. Actually, to be quite honest, achieving my goals is more difficult now, because now there are more opportunities for me to lose focus. It’s easy to shoot for the top when you’re broke…hell, there’s nowhere to go but up. But, when you’ve got a little money, a little success, it’s easy to steer off course and buy things you don’t need or do things that aren’t productive.

So, my goals have gotten bigger and more profound, but so have the obstacles, so it’s even more important to stay focused and grounded as I enjoy more success.

Josh: In the country with the highest rate of consumption and desire for “things” you resisted splurging on the non-essentials but rarely. Have the changes you made in your spending and thriftiness continued even through the present? Do you still shop at discount stores and supermarkets?

Adam: Oh, absolutely. And that’s what’s so important. Now, I’ve got a little bit of money in the bank and I could go out and buy “things” or I can be smart and I can really set some things up (investment-wise, for example) for myself. When you’re broke, it’s easy to be thrifty. Hell, you’re broke! But when you have money to spend, keeping it in your pocket is a challenge.

If you go to Amazon.com, you can watch a two-minute clip (or it’s on youtube; search my name) and you can see the car I drive now (cost me $400) that I’m doing pretty well.
I definitely still shop at discount stores and supermarkets. I just made a trip to Target for clothes (first in 5 years, actually, where I stocked up my wardrobe) and I splurged big time. I spent $300 and I’m not sure when I’ll have to go back.

Josh: It seems that once you have gone from something to nothing and back again possessions take on a new meaning. Having starting from scratch, did the “things” you acquire seem to not matter as much as you once believed, could you lose it all again and not really care?

Adam: Of course, and I think that’s the irony in this entire project. I was aspiring for “things” ($2500, a car, an apartment), but in the end, I discovered that the foundation of the American Spirit is built on character: integrity, work ethic, friendship, compassion for others. Things are things. And absolutely, I could lose it all today and start over again, because it’s an attitude. So, things aren’t as important as how I treat others, for example. (Now, don’t get me wrong. I would love to drive around in a BMW, and perhaps one day I will. But, that’s only after I’ve built a happy life on top of a strong character.)

This guest post is from Salwa, a 21 years old digital artist, designer and blogger from U.K. If you enjoy this post, be sure to check out her out at BlogRiffic.com or subscribe to her RSS Here. If you would like to guest post on the Unconventional Marketing Blog go to the guest post page to learn more.

As every novice internet marketer and those who are apprentices and greenhorns in any online business would ask, how can you possibly make money through PPC or pay per click advertising? If you are going to throw this question to me, I will make it a point that you will leave this page with a new knowledge to keep you through.

What is PPC Advertising?

Pay per click advertising is the latest form of online marketing and promotion that allows an advertiser to pay only those ads that have been clicked by online visitors redirecting such users to an advertiser’s website. This way, an advertiser can keep track of his online visibility and performance and likewise make way for improvement as loads of feedbacks are also been taken in consideration. Whenever I would go for this kind of marketing, I would often bid for certain keywords and phrases that I perceive as the most frequently used words by online users in their searches. This way, I can easily narrow down my target audience and be able to devise excellent marketing strategies to advertise and promote my products and services.

How will I know my advertisement is being read and published through PPC Advertising?

That is precisely my query when I was just starting on this online marketing business. I used to ask how people can possibly see my ads when they made their search. The answer is plain and simple, as your target demographic start with their search, they will be keying in keywords or key phrases, once these words match with the content you have, your page will be shown together with other germane results. We call this sponsored links and you can generally find this on either top or on the side of fundamental results.

Where can I place my PPC text advertising?

You can position your pay per click advertising on network sites such as the likes of MSN adCenter, Google Adwords and Yahoo Publisher. As you will be bidding with the price of keywords and key phrases, you have to keep in mind that the popularity of each word you bid somehow affects the pricing. Therefore, ensure that what you got is a well planned and designed campaign just in case unforeseen cases might transpire in the course of your online business.

How can I make money and succeed in PPC advertising?

Some words from the wise to make your pay per click advertising a big success is to predominantly study the market behavior as well as your demographics’ analytics. You have to see through which keyword lists are sterile and inefficient and which ones are productive and fruitful. If you are able to determine the best performing keywords make certain that you make every way possible to improve and attain its best performance. In my case, I also created a powerful capture page and send in the pay per click traffic there which has immensely boost my sales and online performance in just a short period of time. You can make yours too and watch as everything unfolds to your advantage.

Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

I came across a neat site that shows keywords like a tag cloud (sized according to number of appearances). On the site Wordle.net you can play with the settings to have a little fun and see what your site or document looks like in various different word arrangments. I think it is definately a way to show what your major keywords are and where you would use some improvement in reguards to staying on topic and SEO. Check it out and see what you come up with. I would say that I use the word marketing a lot.