It’s a new year and time to try some new innovative marketing ideas to help you stand above the other businesses in your space. Bonza Bottler Day is a great way to have a fun monthly promotion that the competition will never think about.

This is also my first post of the year in my new format where I will be focusing on new and different ideas for you to try that don’t have to be complicated or expensive.

• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• Marketing Should Be as Natural as Breathing—the Life of Your Business Depends on It! – Sponsored by TimeCenter.com
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100
• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday

I recently discovered that it is hard to push water up a hill. For me that is writing, while I enjoy it as a leisure activity, it is not the best way for me to deliver my message. So Blog if your love to write, Shoot video if that in person, on stage is what you need and do a podcast if you you find comfort in talking and not being filmed.

• Marketing Should Be as Natural as Breathing—the Life of Your Business Depends on It! – Sponsored by TimeCenter.com
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field
• 10 Ways to Improve Workflow
• Late Payments Can Be a Good thing in a Slow Economy
• Monday Marketing Tip: Underpromise and Overdeliver

Giant Broccoli

For Tibits, a Swiss vegetarian restaurant chain, oversized forks were installed on to trees in major parks and in outdoor shopping areas all over Switzerland,  The freshness of Tibits food could be demonstrated to people walking by. and hey for a guy who actually likes broccoli, it made me hungry.
Agency: Wirz/BBDO, Switzerland.

The Haunting Girl

During the fist phase of this campaign from New Zealand, die cut images of a haunting little girl were plastered around the city. The real size cut outs were spread out so that the little girl would seem almost omnipresent, like a spirit haunting the area. This teaser phase caught people’s attention during 2 weeks as no message, logo or signature appeared on the visual. Then during week three of the campaign a sticker was placed over the girl revealing the line, “The kids you kill never leave you “Slow down near schools.” Agency: Colenso BBDO, New Zealand.

Have a great weekend.

• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 2
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Guerrilla Bah-Bah LED Sheep
• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100

Unless you’ve got a friend who specializes in Web programming and website design with whom you can strike a barter deal, you’re going to want to keep your first website as basic as possible to relives some stress on that precarious budget of yours. But you fellow bootstrappers will be delighted to know that you can build your own website in a day (if you work really hard). And you don’t even need any prior experience to build a successful site.

A site hosting company is a business that provides a server for your website and allows it to be seen live on the Web. Essentially, they plug you into the Web for approximately $10 per month (I use Host Gator). Many times, your site hosting company will also offer you free site-building software with your monthly hosting service. This type of software helps you construct your own website using a simple plug-and-go format ( I recommend WordPress and Joomla).

The software incorporates preexisting tablets and preprogrammed coding, which means that your site is essentially already built for you. All you need to do is select a few elements that will help to personalize your site, such as selecting your favorite color schemes, uploading a photo of yourself, and adding content about your business. And it’s incredibly easy to add your own copy, usually just requiring simply copy and paste procedures. Other website programs include a content management site (CMS) that allows you to write your copy directly into the site and choose your formatting options.

Most of these complimentary site-builder software programs will be accompanied by simple instructions, but you can easily search for keywords such as “how to build a website,” “easy-to-create websites,” and “website building resources” to find even more extensive information on how to do it yourself.

After you have gotten your feet wet trying it out yourself, and you are ready to add new things it is a good time to talk to some web professionals about what is out there. I am one of those people that can set you on the right path, send me a note.

Where do you start? First, don’t concern yourself with thinking outside the box, forget the box altogether. Because by trying to come up with ways to think outside the box, you naturally start to align yourself with thought patters similar to other businesses trying to think differently. So, the key then is to think differently without thinking differently. Ha! How do you like that notion?

The point is, you’re all creative beings and hold an infinite amount of potential—you simply need to take a few minutes to relax and tap into your inner thoughts. You’ll be surprised at what you allow your brain to come up with when you give it a chance to plug into the subconscious and recall your past experiences and pair it with your expansive knowledge base. After you’ve given yourself some time to meditate and think deeply on how to make your business stand out, grab a pen and paper (or keyboard) and just start writing down all the different ideas that pop out of that beautiful brain of yours.

The key here is to allow for a stream of consciousness. As soon as you begin to question the legitimacy or plausibility of the ideas you come up with, you’re going to start suffocating the creative process—similar to waving your finger at your brain and punishing it for expressing itself. This is one of the leading reasons businesses have so much trouble being different, they don’t allow themselves creative license. Open yourself up and you’re going to love what you come up with. And you’ll be able to multiply your mental results by getting your team together and brainstorming together. If you’re truly a small business and don’t have any employees or teammates, then buy your friends a couple of beers and ask if they’ll come over and help you brainstorm. (Don’t have too many or they’ll have you convinced that standing on the corner naked screaming your site’s URL is a good idea.)

Here are a couple of quick ideas:

Fundraisers: There’s no shame in setting up a charitable event or fundraiser to garner lucrative exposure for your business. You will create the chance to help out a good cause and to get your name out in the public.

Chamber of Commerce: Many businesses seem to have forgotten about the good ol’ Chamber of Commerce. Joining this organization provides you with the opportunity to help your community while creating great business contacts.

Contests: Think of some contests that you can offer up to your business prospects and local community. Whenever you get people actively involved in something, you significantly increase the likelihood of lucrative conversions. Besides, they’re fun!

• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 2
• If You Hit Your Hand with a Hammer Every Day
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1

I figured I would continue on with my favorite Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns that I have found around the web. Happy Monday everyone!

Ego Boost

I love when simple concepts are the ones that make the biggest impact. This one is fun, innovative and feeds male ego at the same time.

Jaws Eats Bus Passengers

I am huge fan of the vehicle wrap. When done well you will always get attention. Your audience is bored waiting in traffic, it has movement and it is memorable. All the makings of a campaign that will be talked about at dinner tables and push your message along.

Half a Bus Stop

The last time I had a blog post that had the message to use less we had a huge discussion about green marketing and the merits and morals of advertising.

The impact this one creates is great. One of the best ways to get attention is to take a familiar object and turn it’s concept upside down. Good job Denver Water!

Is IKEA taking over the world

It would seem that I have accidentally created a public transit guerrilla marketing post I will continue with the theme. As the one above it is a great job of taking the familiar and playing with perception. I hope that it does not rain.

• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Guerrilla Bah-Bah LED Sheep
• 10 Great Guerrilla Marketing Examples
• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.

Guerrilla Teeth

What a great idea this one is, it really hits the message home in my opinion. After being a bit disgusted you can’t help but smile at this one. I am going to look to see if I can find some statistics on how the response was for the company.

Playful Playboy

This one feeds most boy’s imagination, some girl’s ego and for the rest it will generate conversation. This is a guerrilla campaign that could be used for both traditional and viral marketing for many years to come. You can get a lot of traction out of this one.

Virgin Virgin Virgin

I have had a lifelong fascination with everything Virgin. Richard Branson’s marketing and PR stunts are the best in the world. I bow down to “The Master of Branding”.

This one gave me a bit of trouble when I first saw it. I see it for it’s brilliance but have a problem with using historical monuments for commercial advertisements. I would like to hear your thoughts on this?

Maybe I am just being sensitive with this one!

Pothole Application. Does it cross the line.

As you all know I am big fan of pushing the limits of creativity and how to get your message out to the masses but when we get to a point when we endanger public safety that is where the line has to be drawn. With the adhesives and quality of the graphics we can create now something like this could cause accidents, injury and possibly death. I am pretty sure that is not the legacy that the company wants for there marketing.

That is it for this time, if you have any campaigns that you would like to see me feature in this series of posts,  let me know.

• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100
• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 2
• Guerrilla Bah-Bah LED Sheep

They are really making the most bang for there buck and my hat goes off to them. Here are some of the great examples that I have seen recently.

Reach out to a Child with Autism

This one follows along the line of the feed the hungry carts that you may have seen. These bags will do a great job of making heads turn and that is what it’s all about.

Drinking and Driving Bottle Caps

Another great thinking outside of the box idea. Who would ever think to use the bottle cap in this way. I just hope the audience for this is not to intoxicated to see the value of this message.

Unicef Does is Again

This is another one that has a lot of visual impact. Pair that with the blue baby stroller campaign that was done in the Finland.

Guerrilla Toilet Paper

This one is just plain funny. I wish I would have seen this one in person, I can’t help but still laugh at toilet humor. The good thing about doing something in a restroom setting is that your message get the persons undivided attention for a longer period of time.

For more examples check out More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Pt 1 Also a special thanks to Hasan for sending some of these examples over to me.

This one comes to us from Finland. Unicef wanted to raise awareness for childrens rights so they placed these blue strollers in crowded places in 14 cities with a baby crying audio track coming out of it. If you looked in the strollers their was a message “Thank you for caring, we hope there is more people like you. Unicef Be a mom for a moment”.

The part that makes me sad is the number of people that just walked right past a stroller with a crying baby and did not even give a glance in it’s direction. That part could have hit me harder because I am a new parent of a 5 month old but still…… no excuses in my mind!

Have a great weekend.

The video has almost had 3.7 million views and was posted on March 16th. That is 3.7 million seeing the Samsung brand!

Have a great weekend!

• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 2
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100