Ballard News Tribune:

While most people see only bland depictions of mountains or umbrellas when perusing the seemingly endless varieties of bottled waters on grocery store racks, Ballard resident Marie Nicholas saw something else: Opportunity.

With Nicholas’ Model on a Bottle, instead of a mountain, thirsty customers get musclebound and shirtless “Pro Fitness Model Hitch.” Instead of an umbrella, “Model Jayla Murray” in a black bikini stares out from the bottle.

The new business, owned and operated by Nicholas, has replaced company logos with labels full of scantily-clad models, musicians, athletes and potential celebrities – all unheard-of, but hungry for publicity.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

When you play golf, do you carry your own clubs or pay a caddy to do it for you? One golf course in Cedar Mountain, North Carolina has decided to differentiate itself from the other local course by offering a unique variety of caddy: llamas!

Llamas are available every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 9am to 11am at our Golf Course. Come on out and play a round, or just come by to see the friendly, four legged helpers!

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: trec_lit

Slate:

Given the equine subterfuge that precipitated the sack of Troy, Trojan condoms are curiously named—deception is not a quality one typically looks for in a prophylactic. Consumers, however, don’t seem to mind: Trojans reign supreme in America’s nightstand drawers and billfolds. The various types of Trojan—Ultra Ribbed, Magnum XL, Warm Sensations—account for 70.5 percent of condom sales in drugstores, giving the brand more than four times the market share of runner-up Durex.

The brand’s longevity is its chief strength, because when you’re selling condoms, name recognition is everything. Cheapskates may be content to buy CVS Allergy Relief Tablets in lieu of Claritin, but even the stingiest shoppers are reluctant to gamble on unfamiliar birth control. So, consumers stick with the same brands their parents used—and in the case of Trojan, which debuted in 1920, the one their grandparents used. Newer brands like Trustex and Hot Rod have their fans, but they’re minnows compared to mighty Trojan.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Earlier this week, Jet Blue announced an all you can jet plan for the month of September:

Enjoy unlimited travel with our All-You-Can-Jet Pass! For just $599 you can take JetBlue anywhere you like, as often as you like, from September 8 to October 8, 2009. Use your All-You-Can-Jet Pass for business, for pleasure, to visit your favorite cities or to meet with a client. You might as well just do it all! With more than 50 cities to choose from, and for just $599, it’s a deal you can’t pass up.

This kind of pricing structure is incredibly disruptive in the airline industry, because most flights cost about the same amount.

Think about this kind of pricing for your business. Is there a way that you could get people to prepay for the ability to use your service an unlimited amount? One example would be a pizza restaurant that offered a membership for $100 per month (prepaid) that allowed their customers to stop in and get a medium pizza anytime they wanted for free.

Does this get your imagination going?

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Velocity Marketer and Velocity Marketer Hosting are proud to announce that development of system additions is moving right along.

In the past week we have added Velocity Marketer Advertising and …

[Read More]

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

“Tips” are useless.

“Systems” are unapproachable.

“Techniques” are manipulative.

“Moves,” however, DO work.

What ever concept you choose to go with when marketing your product or service, your concept should almost explode in a way inside peoples minds. This is also known as an attention getter, something that is so spectacular they can’t resist it, recently seen on Open Forum.

Make sure your concept and it’s message is clear and easy to understand. You don’t want your targeted market have to solve an algebra problem just to understand what you are trying to tell them.

Include a great head shot in your concept and be sure to make it a memorable one. Choose something unique that will make people want to follow you as soon as they look at your picture. Maybe even try doing something funny in that picture such as wearing a funny sign or goofy looking outfit that somewhat matches your concept, anything to once again grab their attention long enough to read your concept message.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Convenience store retailers are tapping into the popularity and reach of social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to drum up more business.

On its Facebook page this week, Quick Chek is offering a free iced coffee to all its Facebook fans when the chain attains its goal of reaching 1,500 fans.

Meanwhile on Twitter—another popular online social network—Kum & Go launched what it is calling “Twitter Tuesdays.” The c-store chain each Tuesday will select one Des Moines-area Kum & Go location as the “Secret Store.” From 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., one clue per hour will be given out via Twitter to direct Kum & Go followers to the secret store.

The first eight people who find Kum & Go’s 1959 Ford at the secret store and provide the person in the car with the secret password will each win a set of two-day passes to the 80/35 Music Festival, taking place in Des Moines. Kum & Go is one of the major sponsors of this year’s 80/35 festival, which is now in its second year.

Photo by petromarket.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

The impetus to regulate online marketing may be gathering steam. On June 18 a House of Representatives subcommittee held a hearing to take a closer look at how advertisers gather and use information on consumers’ Web-surfing habits.

Up to now the government has had a hands-off policy toward online marketing, giving companies relatively free rein in how they use tools that track what people do online and then use that data to deliver tailored marketing messages. Although regulation is likely to be far off, it would surely rewrite how Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, and a wide range of other Internet companies grapple for share in the $25.7 billion online ad market.

Advocates of regulation say Internet companies need to be more up-front about their use of so-called behavioral targeting, which includes placing “cookies” and other software designed to discern a computer user’s tastes and preferences—information that marketers can use to better deliver online ads.

Photo by svilen001.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

One of the great things about the Free ebook (Free to read online anyway) are the SIDEBARS that tell you how so many Free Promotions were structured.

You can see and read the list here: Sidebars

This wasn’t in the sidebar, though.

It’s how FreeConferenceCalling.com makes money.

Personally I’ve used the service, and I’ve liked it. There were no ads or other discernable ways they made money.

I thought “some idiot is wasting a lot of venture capital on this one”. But it turns out they do have an ingenious way to make money!  The book Free, which is “Free” tells how. You can download it for Kindle, Iphone, at Google Books and even a free audio book at ITunes!

Free: The Future of a Radical Price