New marketing and promotional ideas! Free! Most are related to internet-based businesses, but even those can usually be adopted in some way to other businesses. Here are half a dozen marketing ideas to get you thinking.

A one-hour coupon. Offline businesses that want to increase the traffic to their websites can announce an “internet coupon” good for a free drink (or whatever). The coupon would be up on the site for an hour, sometime on a Friday, say. Visitors will return again and again to try to be there at the right time to get the freebie. If you collect pay-per-click advertising fees, this repeat traffic might be especially profitable.

Free gift article teaser. A free gift is certainly not a new marketing idea, but it hasn’t been done much in internet article “resource boxes.” My click-throughs from articles increased when I started putting in the author’s resource box, “For more information and a free gift, visit…” The gift is usually a short course, or an e-book. If you don’t want to write an e-book, you can find one with free distribution rights.

Word links for sale. Maybe you have heard about the entrepreneur that sold a million pixels on one web page for a dollar each. Advertisers could buy a minimum of 100, and the image would link to their site. I’ve seen many copycats, but I haven’t yet seen anyone selling words. This could be even better for advertisers, because they could buy the words that are relevant to their products. A page full of random words isn’t pretty, but these things get publicity and traffic for their novelty.

Product user contests. If you have a product that’s used in many ways or many places, this is a great promotional gimmick: a contest to see who has used their cell phone, watch, or whatever in the wildest place or the most unusual way. (”I took my walkman to the north pole!”) Customers could post their stories and photos directly to your company web site. They wiould return repeatedly to see new stories, and the results of the competition.

Advertising on cereal boxes. A lot of time is spent staring at cereal boxes. Perhaps you could get a good rate on advertising on them. There have had some advertising, but no boxes covered in ads yet. Brokering ad space on cereal boxes could be a good business to get into.

Pay for article placement. Many of us distribute articles to generate traffic to our web sites, and many also pay to advertise. Since articles are especially good marketing tools, why not pay to have other webmasters put them on their sites? This is done for free now, but not often enough. Maybe offer a small one-time fee, with a minimum time commitment. Explain that leaving the article there forever can generate search engine traffic.

Put ads on private cars, advertising on sidewalks, have a contest to see who can get your product mentioned on and seen on TV – there are endless possibilities for new marketing and promotional ideas.

About the Author: Steve Gillman has been exploring new ideas for decades. Visit his site for invention ideas, business ideas, story ideas, political and economic theories, deep thoughts, and more. Get a free gift too: http://www.999ideas.com

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Whether you are marketing on-line or off-line, your potential customers are scared, scarred, and skeptical. Consumers, today, are quite resistant to sales messages.

In the mid 70’s, a store could run a “10% off” sale and people would flock in. Then the big stores got into the discounting mentality. Now it is common to see “70% off” sales – especially in jewelry. The consumer is not too long a fool. These promotions do not produce the wanted response anymore.

Repeated, high powered sales events create a downward spiral. Eventually you cannot offer a big enough “deal” to get the public excited. The big three car makers played this game for three years. By January 2006 they found themselves in deep financial trouble. They had borrowed customers from the future by offering a bigger, better sale every couple months. It is a deep grave from which to crawl out.

Successful businesses, now and in the future, will be practicing what I call “soft marketing”. To make sales today, marketing efforts have to come in under the consumer’s sales-pitch radar.

Many of the big companies have known this for some time because of their on-going marketing analysis. You can take advantage of their research for free.

Look at Coca-Cola for example.

Coke was famous for their flashy, high-powered TV ads. Today you seldom see such ads. Have they cut back on their marketing expenditure? No. In fact, they are now spending more using soft marketing techniques. Most people do not even realize they are being advertised to. That is the beauty and power of soft marketing.

Here are two ways Coke is using a soft marketing approach to build profits and market share.

1. You may have seen Coke products displayed on TV shows and movies. “American Idol” is a popular TV show, with about 35 million viewers. The three judges are a big part of the success of the show. In front of each judge is a tall Coke cup. These characters, in effect, are recommending Coke to their viewers. Coke pays a lot of money for this and sells a lot of product based on this endorsement type advertising.

2. Coke brings new loyal customers in the “back door” using nostalgia products. Coke collectibles are a huge market today. And once caught up in the hobby of Coke collectibles, a person, and the whole family, become avid Coke drinkers. And Coke is being advertised to everyone who enters that home.

Coke’s soft marketing techniques have made them almost bullet-proof in the soft drink market. They have built an image of being the most popular soda. Since it is human nature to want to be on the winning team, swarms of new customers are joining the group every day.

Here are three powerful soft marketing tactics you can start using today.

1. Become known as an expert. Credibility and trust are the two most important ways to succeed in any business. Write and submit articles and press releases. If you cannot write, hire someone to do it for you. There are several good writing service web sites on the internet. They are very cheap. Also, you should join a “Private Label Rights” content site. They provide already written articles that you can put your name on as your own. This is pure gold for on-line or off-line marketing.

If you have a business on Main Street, your local newspaper should be your best friend. Do whatever you can to develop a relationship with them. You may or may not be able to get your news articles and releases printed for free, but even buying the space will return big dividends.

2. Give away a free report on the topic of your product or service. Your local newspaper will probably give you some free editorial space in the beginning if the report is of interest and free to their subscribers. A real life example is a realtor in this area that offers a free report – “10 Ways To Get Top Dollar For Your Home”. It reveals what is valuable, and what is not, when getting your home ready for sale. With this he becomes the expert in the consumer’s mind and a person who cares about them.

You can get a book or report written for you for a few hundred dollars by the same on-line companies that ghost-write articles and press releases or from your “Private Label Rights” membership site. This realtor has been using the same report for over ten years now. It is estimated this report has generated about $1.6 million in profits.

3. Partner with related, non-competing businesses. One dry cleaning operation partnered with clothing stores in the community. The store, when selling a garment, would give a gift certificate to the customer. The gift certificate was good for a free first-time cleaning and pressing of that new garment.

The customer thought the store was paying for the dry cleaning. The fact is the dry cleaner was giving the service for free. The customer saw the store as being a “hero” and the store saw the dry cleaner as being a “hero”. Both stores gained a load of new and repeat customers.

Use these soft marketing strategies or think up your own to fit your product or service. Have some brainstorming sessions with other energetic, savvy business people, like you. The resulting ideas will amaze you, and your traffic and profits will increase as if by magic.

About the Author

About the Author: Hans Hasselfors is the founder of SubmitYourNewArticle.com. Visit our article directory for varied articles about marketing.

Tennant Company Reports 2008 Second Quarter Results: Business Wire – MSN MoneyCentral
Tennant Company TNC , a world leader in designing, manufacturing and marketing of solutions that help create a cleaner, safer world, today reported net earnings of $8.3 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, on second quarter net
Source: news.moneycentral.msn.com

Florida ends voluntary green energy program – Houston Chronicle
MIAMI Florida utility regulators on Tuesday powered down an $11.4 million program designed to promote green energy, but whose budget overwhelmingly funded marketing and administrative costs. The program, operated by Florida Power & Light and
Source: www.chron.com

Federal Trade Commission: Kids Target of $1 Billion in Food Ads
WASHINGTON The nations largest food and beverage companies spent about $1.6 billion in 2006 marketing their products especially carbonated drinks to children, according to a Federal Trade Commission report. The report, to be released
Source: newscluster.msn.com

Trust is the key to e-mail marketing excellence – dmnews.com
There’s no doubt that e-mail occupies a growing role in marketers’ plans and programs the DMA recently revealed that it is now the most widely used direct marketing channel but despite its unique ability to cultivate one-to-one customer
Source: www.dmnews.com

DreamWorks posts lower Q2 net; beats view – MSN MoneyCentral
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc said second-quarter profit fell sharply on Tuesday, but still topped expectations, helped by its hit “Kung Fu Panda” film, but warned of higher international marketing costs in the third quarter
Source: news.moneycentral.msn.com

Marketing: Doing More with Less Is Topic for MIT Enterprise – dBusinessNews.com
ATLANTA – In these days of shrinking budgets and changing media, businesses are faced with achieving higher returns at lower costs. At the upcoming MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta (MITEF) workshop titled, Marketing: Doing More with Less, MITEF
Source: atlanta.dbusinessnews.com

Ryanair shuts down UK marketing operations – Brand Republic
LONDON – Ryanair has closed its sales and marketing department at Stansted Airport, leaving the future of its staff unclear. The low-cost airline claims 10 of its 16-strong sales and marketing department are due to move to Dublin imminently
Source: www.brandrepublic.com

Toronto Company Launches the Think Green Alliance to Promote Green – Forbes
TORONTO , July 29 /PRNewswire/ — The Think Green Alliance is a community of businesses and organizations that are committed to environmentally-friendly and sustainable operations, technologies, services and products. Baudry Cybernomics(R
Source: www.forbes.com

Call For Entries: Construction Writers Association 2008 Marketing – PR Newswire
CHICAGO, July 28 /PRNewswire/ — Entries are being accepted for the Construction Writers Association’s 2008 Marketing Communications Awards. The annual awards, in their eighth year, recognize an important aspect of construction writers’ efforts
Source: sev.prnewswire.com