26. Improve your building signage.

27. Get a booth at a trade show or expo attended by your target market.

28. Give a speech or volunteer for a career day at a high school.

29. Sponsor an Adopt-a-Highway area in your community to keep roads litter-free.

30. Donate your product or service to a charity event or auction.

31. Have a Yellow Pages ad listed under your main industry and in related categories.

32. Volunteer your time to a charity or non-profit organization.

33. Create a loyalty program to reward existing customers.

34. Create an opt-in email or print newsletter for your customers. Fill each edition with specials, tips and other timely information.

35. Send hand-written thank you notes to important customers every chance you get.

36. Use brightly colored envelopes and unique stationary when sending direct mail pieces.

37. Show product demos or related videos on a television on the sales floors during store hours.

38. Book a celebrity guest for an event at your store. Use people in your industry or television news anchors or local authors.

39. Create window displays in locations away from your shop. Airports, hospitals, and large office buildings occasionally have display areas they rent to local businesses.

40. Team up with a non-competing business in your area to offer a package promotion.

41. Pick the slowest day of the week to hold a one-day sale.

42. Create a warm, welcoming waiting area for your customers.

43. Provide extra customer service training for your staff.

44. Sign up for a newsletter or join online discussion groups in your industry.

45. If possible, loan your facilities to other groups for a meeting place.

46. Create a unique lapel pin based on the products you sell to wear at meetings.

47. Choose a regular customer to spotlight as a Customer of the Month. Create a brief write up to submit to the local newspaper about the customer and be sure to give he or she a copy of the article as well as have one framed to hang in the store.

48. Pair up slow moving items with related products and repackage as a special buy.

49. Start a blog. Write about your industry or detail in-store happenings.

50. Offer your customers discounts for each referral they provide.

Marketing is most effective if done in coordination with other exposure. Enhance the above efforts with additional signage, newspaper ads, displays and radio ads. Remember to tailor each event for your target audience. If your message isn’t being delivered to the right person, it may be a wasted effort.

Hope this gave you some interesting ideas to tackle some real world Marketing situations it’s always good to think outside the box and to differentiate yourself, your companies products and your companies services from the rest of the industry!