Marketing – Page 41

Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar January 2014

2013 is almost over and the coming year of 2014 is fast approaching.

Time to take a look ahead at the month of January 2014…

…and events, anniversaries and other occasions that we can put to use for an event-driven marketing event or promotion.

The start of the New Year itself is a great reason for a promotion. At this time, most people are making plans for the year ahead and often looking to make a “fresh start”.

“New Year Sales” are a staple pretty much around the globe and no reason why you can’t make use of this.

Also, in 2014 Chinese New Year falls in January…

…on the 31st, when the “Year Of The Horse” commences.

Other events of note…

January 1 – New Year’s Day

January 4 – Blender Day (invented 1910)

January 6 – Birthday of Sherlock Holmes

January 8 – Elvis Presley’s Birthday

January 11 – International “Thank You Day”

January 19 – “Tin Can Day” (patent awarded in 1825 for canning process)

January 21- Martin Luther King Day (USA)

January 29 – Freethinker’s Day

More unusual events and anniversaries over at www.BlueMountain.com.

(Look for the ‘On this day’ section.)

Turning to events specific to particular countries…

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Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar 2014

One of the highest payoff activities in marketing is to prepare a marketing calendar. And it’s never too early to map out a calendar for the coming year 2014!

As well as this article to give you ideas…

…here’s a great post from copywriter Ray Edwards…

“How To Create A One-Page Marketing Plan”.

It’s taken from one of Ray’s regular podcasts, so you can listen along if you wish.

Now, this was originally published last year so it talks about creating a marketing plan for 2013…

…but the principles are pretty much timeless and apply to 2014.

In passing, included in that article is a GREAT resource for event-driven marketers…

…a comprehensive calendar of events!

Even better, there’s a specific calendar for every major country, so you can create your own list of events that are relevant to your local area!

With that said, let’s get down to business with a core calendar that can be used pretty much anywhere for the coming year 2014.

January – New Year (Chinese New Year on January 31 – “Year of The Horse”)

February – Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day

March – St Patrick’s Day

April (18-21) – Easter

June – Mid Year (mid-summer northern hemisphere, mid-winter southern hemisphere)

October – Halloween

December – Christmas

To fill out the schedule…

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So When Does The Christmas Marketing Season Start?

A Christmas themed cartoon from the great Tom Fishburne…

Original post at “Christmas creep” and well worth a read.

Christmas promotions from retailers seem to be starting ever-earlier. So how early is too early?

“It will be interesting to see how the Christmas Creep bandwagon continues in coming years, as retailers navigate the holiday shopping pressure and balance how best to listen to their consumers. Some consumers genuinely want deals earlier in the year. Others see it as an invasion. I imagine the best approach will be different for every retailer. What might work for Kmart won’t necessarily work for Neiman Marcus.”

In many cases, a lot of these promotions smack of desperation to me and marketers who have no coherent plan.

Of course I am a big advocate of planning ahead but that’s a different issue to actually launching a promotion.

And, of course, people differ. Some like to get all their Christmas shopping done early (even starting straight after Christmas on shopping for the following year!). It’s reported that over 40% of people do start their shopping before the end of October.

Others will pretty much leave everything to the last minute.

So there’s no one answer, but I’d suggest…

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Dr Who And The Mysterious Direct Response Marketing Time Lord

Marketing Time Lord Claude Hopkins

Not sure if an episode of Dr Who with the title of this post would attract much interest…

…but no matter!

Today (23 November 2013) is the 50th anniversary of the very first episode of the Science Fiction TV series “Dr Who”.

There’s no doubt the show has been tremendously successful. It attracts a cult-like following around the world.

Now, I confess I wouldn’t regard myself as a big fan of the show. When I was a child I certainly watched it and remember often being terrified at the various monsters The Doctor confronted (the Cybermen were particularly scary to me).

However, being reminded of a mysterious figure who travels through time to confront villains threatening humanity did make me think that one of the great men of direct response marketing is a little like that.

I’m talking about Claude Hopkins, direct response legend and author of the timeless work “Scientific Advertising”.

Now “Scientific Advertising” may have been published in 1923…

…and Hopkins moved on from this physical realm in 1932…

…but his influence continues to travel through time…

…rescuing many a modern day marketer from marketing blunders every bit as deadly in their way as the Daleks.

Advertising and marketing giants such as Drayton Bird, Jay Abraham, John Carlton and the late David Ogilvy all sing the praises of Hopkins and his masterwork “Scientific Advertising”.

And yet, outside of direct response marketing circles, Hopkins and his work is strangely little-known…

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We Interrupt Your Marketing For A Special Announcement…

Been a while since I posted a marketing cartoon from the great Tom Fishburne, so when this caught my eye I had no hesitation…

The original post is at…

“interruption marketing”

…and well worth reading.

Tom Fishburne draws attention to these comments from the great Seth Godin…

“Marketing is a contest for people’s attention. Thirty years ago, people gave you their attention if you simply asked for it. You’d interrupt their TV program, and they’d listen to what you had to say. You’d put a billboard on the highway, and they’d look at it. That’s not true anymore. This year, the average consumer will see or hear 1 million marketing messages – that’s almost 3,000 per day. No human being can pay attention to 3,000 messages every day.

“The interruption model is extremely effective when there’s not an overflow of interruptions. If you tap someone on the shoulder at church, you’re going to get that person’s attention. But there’s too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore. So our natural response is to ignore the interruptions….

“Interruption marketing is giving way to a new model that I call permission marketing. The challenge for companies is to persuade consumers to raise their hands – to volunteer their attention. You tell consumers a little something about your company and its products, they tell you a little something about themselves, you tell them a little more, they tell you a little more – and over time, you create a mutually beneficial learning relationship. Permission marketing is marketing without interruptions.”

Seth Godin is credited with coming up with the term “Interruption Marketing” to describe what we might call the conventional “one step” approach to advertising and marketing and wrote the book “Permission Marketing” as something of an antidote to that mainstream approach.

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