February

Do A Grouch A Favor Day – February 16th

November 3, 2018 by Craig Daniels Leave a Comment

We all know a few people who Do A Grouch A Favor Day may brighten their day. But what if a small business celebrated the day with a discount of say 10 or 15% off anything in the shop if for anyone bring a grouch along with them when they visit.

You can create a whole marketing campaign around Do A Grouch A Favor Day that makes grouches smile and those who love grouches get rewarded with a discount.

it’s a simple day to celebrate for 2 or 3 days with lots of smiles and well wishes. Model your campaign on a Popup Event

5 Marketing Campaign Ideas

Offer a 10% or 15% discount to the person who brings in a grouch.
Give matching T-shirts away to the first 10 couples who come in. (one grouch required)
Offer a free blood pressure screening to any grouch who comes in.
Sponsor a traveling puppet show to local schools that features a story about a grouch.
Setup a dunking-booth and give prizes to those who dunk a grouch (all in fun – of course) Maybe have some grouches from the business volunteer to be the dunking grouch.

Do A Grouch A Favor Day is the perfect day to do a short marketing event. Every campaign run by small businesses doesn’t need to be a couple of weeks or longer in duration, sometimes the swooping in with a brief event that surprises your customers will turn out to be a terrific success.

Remember to spend time promoting your pop up campaign and if possible include other small businesses in your campaign as a way of making it bigger and more successful. Co-op Marketing Campaigns are a great way to spread the word locally and on social media.

Need an idea with a bit more lead time? March 16th is #NationalFreedomOfInformationDay and a great day to promote and utilize in a marketing campaign.

It’s National Ferris Wheel Day – February 14th

November 3, 2018 by Craig Daniels Leave a Comment

When February 14th and National Ferris Wheel Day shows up the calendar in my part of the world the ground is covered in snow and temperatures are frigid. But cold as it is, I still love the idea of a day set aside to celebrate the Ferris Wheel. It’s a day for celebrating fun and whimsy and a perfect day to use as a bookend for a creative marketing campaign.

National Ferris Wheel Day

The Ferris Wheel was created in 1893 by George Ferris for the World’s Fair in Chicago, as readers of “Devil in the White City” know.

“On June 21 in 1893, that was actually the first time that the public got to ride the Ferris Wheel,”
Field Museum spokeswoman Emily Waldren

Example Of The 1893 Ferris Wheel

Ideas can morph into some pretty amazing marketing campaigns. spend a little time visiting the links in this post to see how you might spark your imagination and create a real original marketing campaign using National Ferris Wheel Day as your small business catalyst.

Buy a block of tickets to a fairground or amusement park

Even if you are in a cold zone your business can purchase passes to pass out to your best customers to nearby amusement parks for when the weather get s warm. Invite people to visit your stores or website to sign up for a raffle of tickets. And plaster Ferris Wheel posters for 2 weeks before the raffle.

Create a display of Ferris Wheels from around the world.

Highlight the technology and engineering along with the fun aspects of riding a Ferris Wheel.

Contact museums and artists to help your business contract with owners of Ferris Wheel models and artwork. Once you locate the owners see if they will lead you the items for a National Ferris Wheel Day exhibitions.

If you don’t have room for an exhibition talk with local libraries or lodges about utilizing there space for a week long exhibition.

Hold a Ferris Wheel centered big bake.

Bake Ferris Wheel cakes, cupcakes and pies and donate them to local charities and other good causes. Advertise using pictures and drawings of Ferris Wheels and proclaim the joy of riding them.

Create a contest: First prize is a trip to a some well known Ferris Wheels in the world.

The Seattle Great Wheel
Tokyo Big-O
Carrousels in Paris
Until 2018 there was a grand Ferris Wheel in Paris but alas, it was taken down. But there are dozens of historic carrousels that go round and round 🙂
The Bohai Eye China
The Dubai Eye

Conclusion

There are really no limits to what event you can tie your small business to, but I will suggest you do things your competition is not doing. Create 3 or 4 bit marketing campaigns that each. take up at least a couple of weeks. A new campaign every quarter of the year fills the calendar up nicely.

Remember, be unorthodox and creative. Everyone advertises on Presidents Day and the Fourth of July.. Find unique days and events to celebrate that no one near you is promoting. And once you’ve adopted a day like National Ferris Wheel Day, rinse and repeat for a few years and then move on to new days.

If you are struggling to find a day for a new small business marketing campaign and #NationalFerrisWheelDay does quite fit with your business check out National Day of Unplugging, it takes place in early March.

National Random Acts Of Kindness Day – February 17th

November 3, 2018 by Craig Daniels Leave a Comment

Random Acts Of Kindness Is An Everyday Thing

Endless Possibilities, it’s the simplest description I can think of when talking to small business owners about Random Acts Of Kindness (Day). I believe you could be in business for 100 years and still find unique ways of interacting with your customers, unique ways tinged with kindness.

Each day we go about our lives and without thinking about it we open doors for others, we ask an employee how their sick loved one is or maybe we direct our assistant to send a small gift to a valuable client. Point is, we do acts of kindness all the time and often those acts are done out of habit.

February 17th is a day to bring the random acts of kindness out of the habit zone and into the light. Mark this day by making your acts of kindness not random but deliberate.

Marketing Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated

Getting involved in your own marketing can at first seem far too complicated an enterprise for you to take on, you may wonder if the time spent working with an agency or working with a freelancer will result in time better spent on your business. An honest answer is that yes it might take away time from other things, but it doesn’t have to. In fact being involved in your marketing campaigns can invigorate not only you but your employees as well.

Time spent in the trenches of your marketing campaigns will put you on the front lines of involvement with both your customers and your employees. Think of it like spending time on an assembly line so you’ll get a first hand refresh of what the heck is going on.

Find out who your clients are, who your your customers are by jumping into the front-lines of your business with involvement in your marketing campaigns. Deliberately find out what the heck is going on at all levels of your business

10 (Deliberate) Random Acts of Kindness

It’s not important if your business already does some of these things on the list below, mark this day as a day for doing something extra and out of the ordinary.

Create a Kindness day Food Drive for your local food pantry.
Sit down and write a few notes to customers who you haven’t talked with in a while (mail the notes)
Surprise all your employees by having a coffee service or cater show up at work.
Invite someone to go ahead of you at the grocery store.
Send a coffee cart of a cater to a local fire department or ER dept to acknowledge their good work.
Create a handful of 50% off coupons that you give out when a customer makes a purchase (surprise)
Create a focus group of current customers and surprise them with a catered lunch for taking part.
Invite your parents or favorite college professor for a long weekend all expenses paid and show them your city and your business.
Leave a free car wash coupon on a few dozen random cars.
Sponsor a series of talks at a local Y or community center that trains people how to meditate, how to eat better and how to enjoy life more.

I started out this post using the words Endless Possibilities, stepping out of our business routines is key to innovation and building a culture of creative employees who are invested in your business and equally important invested in the needs of your customers.

Get involved in your marketing campaigns, after all who knows your business better than you, right?

For more info on this Kindness day check out Wikipedia info about the subject and check out the Twitter hashtag #RandomActsOfKindnessDay

Occurring on the 3rd Thursday of January, April, July and October is Get To Know Your Customer Day. 4 days every business owner would benefit greatly by actively jumping in and getting to know their customers. Check out the link above for more info.

Send A Card To A Friend Day – February 7th

February 5, 2018 by Craig Daniels 2 Comments

If ever there was an opportunity for a small business to reach out and connect with customers this day is it. Think about it for a moment, and then ask yourself what value do you put on your relationship with your clients and customers. Are they more than just a dollar bill? Are you grateful for their continued patronage and reviews? Do you wave or stop for a moment if you meet long time customers on the street? How do you answer those questions in a genuine and transparent way?

Of course there are no requirements that you see your customer relationships as anything more than a business interaction, no commandment residing in the business handbook demanding you move beyond the simple relationship of the transaction. There is no Send A Card To A Friend Day monitor who will check a box on a secret report. No, either you send a card or you don’t send a card. It’s up to you.

Forget The Holidays

Small business often resorts to bundling a funky calendar with a card during U.S. holidays as a way to say Thank You, but in reality it’s done by third party printers sourced from a mailing list. Does anyone actually believe your Small Business is sending the card/calendar and that you know who they are? And does the business owner really think they’re connecting with their customers?

Ask yourself, do the things I do as a small business owner to maintain a relationship with my customers matter to the customers? If you are letting some 3rd party create an automated greeting than the answer is, no.

Forget The Automated Greetings

Forget what you’ve done in the past and sit down to address a couple of hundred cards at some random time. Send the cards to your best and most memorable customers. Or maybe gather a large group of employees together in a room with pizza and drinks for a card writing-fest to a huge number of customers. Aim for delivery on Send A Card To A Friend Day or a completely random non-holiday.

Conclusion

Marketing is about connecting. The only authentic way to meaningfully connect is to engage with your customers through a series of personal gestures such as Send A Card To A Friend Day – written by hand, and not a machine.

If you need more time to create a customer centric marketing time maybe National Random Acts Of Kindness Day on February 17th is the perfect day for your small business to hit the road running.