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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.

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

Now that all of the madness is over and the election is out of our control, it is time to pick up and move on. For the last year and half we have been completely inundated with political ads and rhetoric. Campaigning for the 2012 presidential election officially starts on November 5th 2008.

One of the last papers I wrote for my political science major was about the effect of the Internet on future elections (including this one). My argument was that the Internet leveled the playing field and would continue to spread videos and political messages even though election laws forbid certain campaigning the day of election.

I think the return on investment of an online video is far greater than that of a paid ad placement on one of the major networks. I talked about a video called Keating Economics released by the Obama campaign about McCain’s ties to Mr. Keating and the S & L scandal. The video was mini-documentary style and garnered 1.7 million views on YouTube. As far as I can tell, the Obama campaign is out the production and website costs. My guess is a couple grand.

I am also sure that the page more than paid for itself by all the donations buttons scattered about. So, technically I am sure the site netted a profit for the Obama campaign as well as shaped opinions about John McCain.

Could websites and YouTube videos be the future of marketing and advertising?

I think it is pretty obvious that the Internet and all online components have a significant effect on the future of marketing and advertising. Now with social networks, emails, newsletters, SEO, internet marketing, videos, Meetup groups and on and on, you can effectively build residual traffic and income for a tiny investment.

People are looking for ideas and other people that are just like them. When they find their community or “tribe” they feel at home and are comfortable. The key is to realize that you can’t just create a community or tribe and expect people to jump on board. They want truth, passion, excitement, entertainment, gossip and whatever else they might be into. If you can attempt to create something like that out of thin air without the full conviction or passion behind it, you’ll be called out and will most likely crash and burn.

Thankfully, starting ideas online is a lot cheaper than starting them offline where overhead costs can run very high. 13 years ago Matt Drudge of Drudgereport.com started posting up-to-date news articles he found online. He runs a single page website that received just under 800,000,000 page views last month. His site is now the 6th most visited news website. He makes his money from ad placements and with 800 million views a month, I am sure he is doing pretty well.

What we online have known for a while and what those outside of the Internet are learning is how effective advertising online can be. When your message has a clear purpose and contains relevant information to your tribe, the message will spread to millions in a very short time, like drudgereport.com or a YouTube video.

It amazes me that every segment of the evening news isn’t broken up and uploaded online to easily distribute like a YouTube video. You would think they would want people to spread their content and video far and wide. Who knows, maybe they would even get views from different countries and states who simply like what they have to offer. Not to mention they could embed advertising into the videos to boost revenue.

How about newspapers allowing their readers to write and add commentary to their online web pages? A news collaborative that builds upon itself like a mini Wikipedia. Simple measures like flagging inappropriate articles and comments could allow discussion to continue without the direct influence of the company or organization. The future involves catering to your readers and subscribers needs to enable them to share and take part in the activities surrounding your community (tribe). If they like what you have to offer they will stay. If they really like it they will share. Be an enabler to your community.

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).

Chances are if you live in a big city you are no stranger to high-speed police chases followed by a news helicopter and live commentary. Is it sad that the whole time I watched a chase on TV yesterday I was thinking I wish my website logo was on the roof?

I am not sure that I would necessarily want to be associated with a fleeing criminal, but it makes me think about different marketing strategies, hopefully without anyone going to jail for a long time. Not to mention that one time I was almost killed by some 16-year-old in minivan running from the cops. Thankfully I looked up and saw what was about to happen to the rear of my car. But I digress. There are legal and illegal ways to spread a message. I hope most go for the legal.

I don’t think anyone could ever condone running from the police unless you are part of the Gumball 3000. This is a cross country free-for-all that takes place once a year somewhere around the world. It happens about once every other year in the USA.

The Gumball 3000 is a combination of too many people with too much money Baha’in across the country as quick as they can in their upper-end sports cars. They also have a huge following (a Tribe). If you have ever seen them you would know because all 160 or so cars would be zooming by you at 100+ MPH on the interstate. Here is a clip of the 2006 Gumball.

The Gumball 3000 is an extreme example of a Tribe of people taking part in something they love, fast cars and parties. This originally started out as a recreation from the movie Cannonball Run where Burt Reynolds races an assortment of muscle cars across the country on the silver screen. Now the Gumball has taken on a life of its own with documentary crews and celebrities going along for the ride.

In order to participate in a Gumball rally you will need a fast car and lots of money (the car in the video was $60,000), not to mention gas and food (AAA extra).

The question I ask myself is how can I create a group of people like those Gumballers? Seems like the answer to that would be pretty simple:

• Focus on the thing everybody in that group loves (like fast cars and parties)
• Organize / lead the group into an idea (like starting a rally including the above)
• Have a way of separating them from others (the high cost of entry)
• Allow the merchandise to spread (stickers, shirts, videos, etc.)
• Rise and repeat

If you are running a business that has a core group of people who center around one thing, your goal should be is to enable those particular people to talk about and share that thing with others. Become a leader and an enabler. If people are buying your products, you already have the core thing needed to build a Tribe. Now it’s a matter of finding what they need, not what you want.