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It’s that time of year again. Short, dreary, gray days and long cold dark nights. (At least if you live in the frigid northeast). Time to think about getting away - there’s nothing like thoughts of a Hawaii cruise package to cheer you up and take the chill off. For info on your options, check out the TravelstoreUSA.com. This is a website with tons of info on a huge quantity and variety of trips. It would take you a few lifetimes to work your way through all of these. You can consult with their travel experts to make sure you get paired up with the right kind of trip for you. Whether you’re looking for a cruise, a hotel, or a vacation package, they have options to help you out. You can also check out their partner site Cruiselocators.com if you are particularly looking for cruise options. Good luck on your trip, don’t forget to send us a card.

I’m really no fan of real estate agents. Is there any other profession filled with so many vapid smiles and low-value-adding, yellow-jacket-wearing, shopping-experience-ruining part time disasters? Sure, you read about agents who are worth their wait in gold. Good luck finding one or getting a call back. So here is Seth Godin today with some advice for real estate agents: quit now. Hey, that’s pretty bold, especially since he was addressing a crowd of realtors when he gave that advice. But his point (which, it turns out, is regrettably not that everyone who sells houses should jump off a cliff, which would have been much more entertaining) is valid. To whit: get out of the commodity business. Find something unique, and create your own industry. “I am the world expert in under-priced townhomes in low income neighborhoods!”. Find some way to stand out, so that you are no longer competing with every other part-time dreamer within 200 miles.

I have free advice for the niche-seeking realtor who’s ready to hear it. Guaranteed to be successful, as well as 100% unique, as far as I can tell:

• Listen to what your clients tell you. Find out what they want, and then find similar houses to show them. It seems simple, but in my experience, most realtors focus on selling what they have rather than showing me what I want.

There are all kinds of things that people disagree about in this world, lots of opinions. But if there’s one thing we can certainly all agree on, it’s the need for affordable, high-quality, reliable small business hosting for our websites. That’s where Concentric Business Solutions steps in to offer what they call America’s most reliable web hosting platform. They have standard hosting plans which start at just $13.50 per month, and include 2 gigs of space and 10 domain aliases. This is the sort of plan which appeals to me, since I have numerous url’s which I need to host, even though all of the urls themselves are relatively low-traffic. So I can’t afford big-ticket hosting prices, but still need the domains to be reliably up and running at all times. They also offer some more unique services such as Groupware, which includes collaboration tools for your small biz, as well as perimeter email protection, which prevents the spam from even getting in to your firewall. This extra protective layer can help you to keep yourself virus free. Nice.

Good article here: Why “Harmless” Stereotypes Kill Marketing Campaigns. Stereotypes tend to have a negative connotation, but they are the shortcuts we need to use to make sense of our complex world. Life is much easier when you can put things into neat little boxes. The problem is that, while stereotypes typically have at least some grain of truth, they are not completely accurate. At best, they are a ‘lowest common denominator’, which by definition will be innacurate most of the time. It doesn’t help you that the LCD will average out over time. As a marketer, you sell to individuals, not averages.

I was reading something the other day which broached this topic. A marketer was describing the widely held belief that hispanics are family oriented. Ipso facto, the best way to market to hispanics must be to plaster pictures of large, happy families all over the marketing. In practice, this proved to be less effective than aspirational pictures (in this case, a nice suburban house with white picket fence, not a smiling face in sight).

In general, I think you need to check your assumptions. Ideally, let the data lead you to the best marketing approach. You trust your gut and all the things you ‘know’ at your own peril.

Perhaps you will soon be in the market for an Auto Loan. After all, springtime is coming, and it’s about time to spiff up that old junker you’ve been cruising town in. Or, maybe you need a Personal Loan to get some cash for spring break or that great new plasma tv you’ve been coveting. In any case, Complete Loan Source is an online source for fast approvals of all kinds of loans. They have a quick process where you fill out a form with some key information, and they can quickly evaluate what type of loan you will qualify for. There’s no obligation, so it’s an easy way to shop rates to be sure you’re getting a good deal. This is a painless way to get started on your cash-raising endeavor, and you don’t even have to leave your computer to get going.

Here’s a good one from the paper this week: Big Retail Chains Dun
Mere Suspects in Theft. Apparently, large retailers paid off enough lawmakers to pass various sham laws which allow the retailers to shakedown alleged shoplifters. Emphasis on alleged here. No crime must have been proved. The retailers are basically able to attempt to cajole and intimidate these people and attempt to extract ‘pre-legal’ litigation fees.

 Hey, great way to build customer goodwill.

Where would we be these days without all of our digital toys… er, I mean mission-critical professional tools. Just like our forebears needed picks and shovels, we need cellphones, PDA’s and digital cameras. And just like your pick and shovel used to need various accoutrements (a carrying case? shovel polish?), your PDA and phone requires accessories as well. Luckily for you, there is a site like SFPlanet which offers an absolutely huge assortment of Digital Camera Accessories and cellphone and pda accessories, as well as stuff to go with your mp3 player, GPS and video game system. They offer a 30-day money back guarantee as well as a price guarantee and fast shipping. So check them out the next time you need a new phone holster or camera case.

The Ezine Articles Blog has a good post on the Use of Controversy in Your Articles. In context, that article is about whether you should use controversy to attract attention to promotional and ‘expert’ articles you write. But I think it has broader application into your general marketing effort - your advertising, your whitepapers, your industry presentations. Many of the points raised in the article are valid regardless of medium. One that jumps out at me is:

Never insert controversy for controversy sake alone. Your ideas must stand alone apart from your controversial statements.

Now, from an intellectual and ethical position, that is certainly true. From a get-attention-at-all-costs perspective, it will certainly cost you some traffic. For example, consider Drudge Report, pretty much any of the British tabloids, or conservative talk radio (today I heard a talk show host obviously filibustering to fill air time making the case that if you want to require gun licenses, you should also require book buying licenses. Somewhat inapt comparison made just to get the rabble stirred up IMHO).

Obviously, creating controversy can be effective. For example, manufactured-controversy headling techniques such as ‘10 things they don’t want you to know about…’. But avoid the temptation to lower your moral bar and get down in the mud just for some attention. Consistent use of controversy squanders your goodwill and believability, both of which are precious commodities.

Marketers such as myself are always seeking ways to get more ‘mind-share’ from our customers. One time-honored way to keep your company on your customer’s mind is through the skillful use of Promotional Items. Now, if you’re going to go to the trouble of creating some schwag give-aways, I recommend that you skip the same boring pens which everyone else has been handing out since the 1970’s. Instead, get some fresh ideas at Gimmees.com, where they have thousands of different products, including lots of funs stuff such as frisbees, giant foam hands, and rubber duckies. If you want to get noticed, rule #1 is: don’t be boring. They also have practical items (which are actually likely to be used by the recipient) such as letter openers, funky paperweights and wifi detectors. Use your imagination to get more out of your next industry event.

Here’s a bit of humor for a lazy Sunday. Check out The Apple Product Cycle, a hilarious tongue-in-cheek look at the incredible media hype which gets attached to every rumored new Apple product these days. Funny stuff…