Here are a few new marketing and promotional ideas for all sorts of businesses. Generally these ideas work for online businesses but can be adapted as required.

A one-hour coupon.

Offline businesses that want to increase the traffic to their websites can announce an “internet coupon” good for a free drink (or whatever). The coupon would be up on the site for an hour, sometime on a Friday, say. Visitors will return again and again to try to be there at the right time to get the freebie. If you collect pay-per-click advertising fees, this repeat traffic might be especially profitable.

Free gift article teaser.

A free gift is certainly not a new marketing idea, but it hasn’t been done much in internet article “resource boxes.” My click-throughs from articles increased when I started putting in the author’s resource box, “For more information and a free gift, visit…” The gift is usually a short course, or an e-book. If you don’t want to write an e-book, you can find one with free distribution rights.

Product user contests.

If you have a product that’s used in many ways or many places, this is a great promotional gimmick: a contest to see who has used their cell phone, watch, or whatever in the wildest place or the most unusual way. (”I took my walkman to the north pole!”) Customers could post their stories and photos directly to your company web site. They wiould return repeatedly to see new stories, and the results of the competition.

Pay for article placement.

Many of us distribute articles to generate traffic to our web sites, and many also pay to advertise. Since articles are especially good marketing tools, why not pay to have other webmasters put them on their sites? This is done for free now, but not often enough. Maybe offer a small one-time fee, with a minimum time commitment. Explain that leaving the article there forever can generate search engine traffic.

And more off the wall, “outside the box”…

Put ads on private cars, advertising on sidewalks, have a contest to see who can get your product mentioned on and seen on TV – there are endless possibilities for new marketing and promotional ideas.

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