Use Other Companies Advertisements for Ideas

Create a collection of advertisements. Collect them from everywhere. Newspapers, magazines, postcards, and others. Although a lot of these advertisements are probably junk (not as far as junk mail, but as far as marketing quality), there are probably some of them that you can get ideas from. The more you have, the more you will be able to better determine which types of designs and marcom messages "stick out" amongst the rest. If you likes parts of a variety of ads maybe you can put the different idea parts together to create one great, effective idea. For example, you might like the design of one postcard's title, the photo layout in another, and the coloration in another. Don't copy them exactly ofcourse, but ya know, similar;)

Have a great idea? Or more to ad to this? Please comment and share with readers all around the world.

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Give Your Customers Free Food & Drink While They Wait

If you own a company such as a quick lube, think about offering your customers free food and drink. I've seen a few placing doing this, but they were kinda pathetic attempts. A little water container in the corner for example. Or maybe four day old coffee. Umm... yeah... that just ain't going to help ya. Try something good. Try donuts and GOOD coffee. Muffins, you know stuff like that. If people like what you have, they'll enjoy their stay. And ofcourse when they need a service done again, will they go to the business across the street that doesn't offer anything or will they go to you? YOU. and they'll probably tell their friends, who will tell their friends, and so on and so forth.

Like I said, make it good. Don't be cheap and just get a bunch of old junk.

As Seth Godin says, BE REMARKABLE!!

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Advertise Your Business By Wallpapering Your Waiting Room

I was looking at a house recently that had some interesting designs incorporated. One of the designs gave me a marketing idea (yeah, I'm always thinking marketing). When I went down into the basement, they had a room that was "wallpapered" with newspaper clippings. I know, you are probably thinking that something like that would be pretty darn ugly, but the way they did it was actually pretty nice. I wont go into how it was designed a whole lot, but it kinda had a rustic western look with part of the walls being covered with the newspaper clippings and part with rustic paneling (probably out of a old barn).

Anyways I'll stop with that before you think I'm half crazy. I still have to get in the other half about how this can be used for marketing, and here goes.

Make your waiting area kinda rustic (as long as it is fitting with your business, that is) and instead of all just newspaper clippings, paste up notes from your customers awards, testimonial notes, thank you notes, photos, and some newspaper clippings of community events you've been a part of. It depends on how you would design it, but everything could be black and white or everything could be full color or both. Be creative and let your mind wonder.

This type of wallpaper would serve several purposes including having a uniquely designed waiting room, informing customers about a variety of things, and keeping your customers "entertained" while they are waiting.

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Bathroom Marketing | The Importance of Keeping Your Bathrooms Clean

There are few things that turn me off more than a disgusting bathroom. You know the type. "Stuff" all over the floors, dirty(to put in polite terms) toilets, no toilet paper or towels and a mirror that looks more like something out of an alien war zone. Once you've been in one's like that, it's hard to forget. I wonder how many customers businesses lose over this issue? Maybe it's better I don't know...

So my advice, is take the extra effort to keep things looking nice. Keep things clean, well stocked, smelling great(air freshener doesn't cost that much) and the garbage cans emptied. Add a little decoration and try and get some music playing in there. Put interesting things on the walls.

You do that and I'll come the extra mile to your store instead of the one down the road. I'm pretty sure I wont be the only one.

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Unique Way to Guarantee Your Product / Service

How many times have you heard the phrase 100% satisfaction guaranteed? 100 times? Or maybe 100 times a 100. Maybe you’ve stopped noticing when you see it because it’s done so often. It’s pretty much pointless to even try to use that as an incentive towards making a purchase. 100% satisfaction guaranteed is SOO last decade.

If you want to do a guarantee, why not find a creative way of presenting it? Do what everyone else isn’t doing. Think outside the box for a change and try something no one else has tried. Of course it depends on you product and company, so I can’t tell you what exactly to use, but I can give you an example of something. If you are a coffee shop for example you could have a guarantee that goes something like this:

Hated your drink? Then here’s something to get buzzed about, we have a “Like it, or get your money back and a free double shot espresso guarantee.”

I don’t know about you, but I think that would get noticed at least a few more times than the same old, same old, “100%” line.

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Vinyl Wrapped Car Creative Advertising Idea

Put advertisements on your car and then park your car in an area with high visibility.

I was driving through a town recently and I saw a very good example of something like this being done. What I saw was a decent sized truck (about the size on an average U-Haul truck) parked in a parking lot along side a busy road. The truck had a huge picture of a tiger on it with the message “Think Big.” When I got closer I could see another line saying, “The Hamlin Print Company – Helping you get your message seen.”

Some towns have restrictions on the size of sings you can put out by the road, if your town doesn’t have any restrictions on were cars with advertisements can be parked, then this might be a good way of getting around that restriction. The truck doesn’t even have to cost you all that much, because it doesn’t really have to be in working order. The part that might cost you more is having the truck wrapped and having the design created. But you have to think of it in terms of 1.) effectiveness, and 2.) long term savings. If you are creative and come up with something that cuts through the clutter your return on investment should be pretty good. Also, with a truck like this, you can move it around to different locations, which expands your reach. You’d probably want to keep in one spot just long enough for most of the people to see it a few times and then move the truck to another location. Doing this will reduce the perceptual blocking that is liking to occur after a week or two. The long term savings comes in when you take into account that the signage on your vehicle can be put to use for a longer period of time.

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