Welcome to Spark an Idea Thursday. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you [...]

A new year means a fresh start. People feel invigorated and ready to start something new. This, actually, is a great marketing tactic. Let’s look at how you can use it.

I don’t know about you, but I am SO ready for 2009! Ready to throw 2008 out the window and see better things in 2009!

Last year I posted my resolutions for 2008. I want to review those first and then list my new resolutions.

I love this time of year. Call me crazy, but I love buying gifts for others. I love anticipating the excitement the recipients will have when they open the gift.

And that extends into my clients. Every year I get them gifts. And I always get warm thanks and positive feedback.

Last week I questioned whether Black Friday would be a slower-than-usual sale day for the holidays. In looking at the results, it seems it wasn’t slower. According to Business Week, Black Friday retail sales were $10.6 billion, a 3% growth from last year.

I think it’s appropriate to write this post today, the traditional beginning of Christmas shopping. Now, I’ve rarely been masochistic enough to get up at the crack of dawn to punch my way to the front of the Elmo doll line, but historically, this has been a tremendous day for shoppers looking to score great deals for the holidays.

I got an email this morning telling me the ElfYourself campaign that had such phenomenal success last year was back this year. Yay! I had such fun playing with it and blogging about it last year, I was glad to see it return.

I thought for Halloween I’d throw some interesting facts about the marketing and sales on Halloween products.

My virtual pal David Meerman Scott has done it again. If you recall, I interviewed him a few months ago about his latest book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR.
Now he’s got an ebook out on Viral Marketing called The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free. Once again, [...]

Now that we’ve officially crossed the threshold of Thanksgiving, it’s officially time to panic. Christmas is just right around the corner! The end of the year tends to be chaotic as businesses try to wrap up their activities for the year, but don’t let your customers slip through the cracks. By remembering them during this [...]