What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla marketing is a technique used to generate a frenzied buzz around a product or service using unconventional promotions, loads of imagination and in most cases, a very small ad budget. The concept is to attract the maximum amount of attention with the least amount of money.

For the small business owner, guerrilla marketing is an ideal advertising solution that pushes the limits of creativity with potentially amazing end results. The goal is to develop a creative, unexpected and definitely public campaign that attracts hoards of attention! A good public disturbance, so to speak ;) such as free product giveaways, contests or the unleashing of some crazy stunt using an over sized, inanimate object. Videos can reach an international audience overnight while billboards and pictures speak volumes without having to say anything at all.

If you're lucky, you create an advertising campaign that goes viral!

Jay Conrad Levinson developed the term Guerrilla Marketing. In the following video, Jay describes his technique as "the truth made fascinating" and states that a great guerrilla marketing campaign needs to consist of "time, energy, imagination and information".

Video: What is Guerrilla Marketing? Jay Conrad Levinson...



Pics: Guerrilla Marketing campaigns in action...

Tax Filing Deadline is April 30th, have you filed your taxes?

Just a quick reminder to Canadians... April 30th is the income tax filing deadline!!

Many people are under the impression that if you have a small business you don't need to file your income tax return until June 15th, period. This is incorrect!

- If the end result on your tax return states you owe Revenue Canada (the government) money, you have to both file your taxes and pay the outstanding balance by April 30th! If you do not do so, you will be charged with a late filing fee along with combined interest payable on the entire amount left outstanding.

- If the end result on your tax return states you have a zero balance owing or a refund amount coming back to you, then yes, your tax filing deadline is June 15th. 

Please contact Revenue Canada; Business & Self Employment sector @ 1-800-959-5525 if you have any questions.

Remember, the onus is always on the taxpayer. Having a 'Lack of knowledge' or 'playing dumb', simply doesn't work. In the end, it's best to just file on time. Putting off the inevitable by avoidance, just prolongs the torture ;)

8 Marketing Techniques to Grow your Business

The following tips, once applied, will assist your business to grow by offering reasons for current customers to stay interested while also attracting new, potential customers. 

Ask yourself these two questions first:

What makes our business special?
What is our unique advantage against the competition?

Then apply these 8 Marketing Techniques to your Business... 

- Continuously add new products and services to your website. 
- Become an invaluable resource, the 'go to' place for your niche market.
- Assist your customer base by providing a seamless, easy to use web interface.
- Provide free information and resources pertinent to your site, your customers needs and wants.
- Remain competitive in all aspects of your business. Offer incentives to purchase with you!
- Maintain a high level of customer service, sometimes that's all that sets you apart from the others.
- Learn to adapt to changing needs within society, your customers and potential, future customers.
- Promote the benefits and end result of doing business with you ie; your guarantee, discounts, customer support, faster service, easier transactions, cheaper costs etc.

Get Satisfaction and Digital Point Forum - Two very helpful resources for both online marketers & business to business enquiries.

If you've been following my recent posts regarding various pay per post blogging options you may have found a lack of information to assist in your journey. Not from me silly ;) but from the actual companies themselves. It took me a few searches and some backtracking to finally realize that all the help I need is found on the website Get Satisfaction.

Get Satisfaction is an online community of fellow bloggers, tweeters, users, consumers and companies sharing and expressing themselves with help, advice, thoughts and opinions.

For example; IZEA connects bloggers with advertisers via SocialSpark, Sponzai, IZEA etc. When the bloggers and the advertisers require assistance to perform their required tasks the faq's and help sections aren't broad enough to cover the huge spectrum of questions. Hence, Get Satisfaction which connects IZEA, their platforms, bloggers, advertisers and even the end consumer together, within a community. From a business to business perspective, this community helps to reduce support costs for companies by enabling customers and users to get answers from each other first, in a public forum type of setting. Questions and answers are archived and easily searchable by everyone.

Digital Point Forums has been a huge wealth of information for me as an online marketer and entrepreneur. There are thousands of searchable questions and answers along with what I feel to be a very helpful like minded community. If you find you have questions regarding affiliate opportunities, Google Adwords or Adsense, search engine optimization, social networks, link development, ecommerce, domain names, adult sites, copy writing and legal issues.

Advertisers & Bloggers - An Income Opportunities Update

As you may have read in previous posts I'm exploring online income sources via blogging, social media platforms and affiliate marketing (amongst other things ;) Just last month my research lead me to a few interesting prospects one of which was SocialSpark which offers income earning opportunities by way of sponsored blog posts.

Once signed up with SocialSpark I created a profile that includes a small descriptive bio about myself and added four of my published blogs, on various topics. I've since received 3 paying offers and missed out on a fourth due to my lack of speed on acceptance! The site itself offers numerous opportunities for both the advertiser and the blogger. Some opp's involve payment for a written post as per the assignment while others involve a written posts with payment considered on a per sale, per sign up, per click basis and mutual guest posts.

Not all opportunities posted by advertisers are accessible to everyone. Your location, sex, language and blog topic/s are all factors used to determine whether you qualify for an opportunity. The standards for criteria are maintained and implemented to ensure the correct target audience is being 'spoken to' and seems to be a fair process.

The following links take you to the sponsored posts that I've done on behalf of SocialSpark and the following paying advertisers...Enter to Win with the Kraft Dinner Gotta Be Canadian Contest,  To the business community - Plan to change the world, sponsor a child!, Review - SocialSpark. I've also signed on to opportunities within my initial post Earn money online with both Twitter and Blogging and have turned down certain opportunities due to my own criteria ;)

...that's the beauty of being self-employed, you have the option to either take or not take opportunities presented to you with SocialSpark or any other offer that comes your way.

Thanks for the visit please feel free to comment!

Basic MS Excel Spreadsheets Tips

At one point I was actually intimidated with the thought of having to create an Excel spreadsheet... I didn't even know what a spreadsheet was let alone how to design one! I'd been so used to the pen and paper approach using accounting ledgers and booklets for record keeping, not rows and columns that grow, shrink, move, vanish or tabulate with just one click.

Overtime however, I've managed to incorporate technology and allow spreadsheets into my world. Creating simple things like grocery lists and honey-do lists to start then branching out to incorporate business contacts, inventory and website/blogging information.

Basic Tips for Excel Spreadsheets...

- Columns run vertically; up/down
- Rows run horizontally; left/right
- Each box is called a Cell
- Wrap text to remove large white blanks across your spreadsheet
- Shade rows or columns to aide in visual organization
- Become familiar with Copy/Paste & Click/Drag
- Use the undo feature whenever necessary
- Titles and dates are important for sorting, charts and analysis
- When printing you can choose whether or not to print the grid guidelines
- Hide information when printing and when creating a file that's viewable to all
- Ctrl + S to save a document; Ctrl + P to print the document...
- To add a row or column right click on the area and go to 'insert'

Enter to Win the Kraft Dinner Gotta Be Canadian Contest!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Kraft Dinner Gotta Be Canadian Contest!. All opinions are 100% mine.

Kraft Dinner, one of Canada’s favorite brands, is looking for an Official Canadian Correspondent to travel across Canada via train, and share their experiences online. This is an amazing opportunity to explore our country in style and enjoy some awesome prizes!

Since childhood, KD has remained one of my favorite lunchtime meals. When served up with sliced hot dogs, a cold glass of milk and reruns of the The Flintstones...I'm a Smilin'! :o) To my fellow KD fans, this contest officially rocks!

Enter the Kraft Dinner Gotta Be Canadian Contest! today for your chance to win prizes that include...

- A 16 day trip from the Pacific to the Maritimes for 2 people (valued at $16,000)
- $1,500 in spending money
- A MacBook Pro® to document your trip
- A Sony bloggie™ camera to show off your trip!

**** All you have to do is submit an essay or video, and tell Kraft Dinner why you should be picked to be the Official KD Canadian Correspondent. Once you have entered, you can get all your friends and family to vote for you to make the top 10! Voting will be based on Canadian spirit, charisma and passion of the entrant, originality of the composition/video, and overall quality of the composition/video.

Please visit the sponsors site for more information.

Gotta Be KD!

Good luck!

Earn Money Online with both Twitter & Blogging!

In business, being a Blogger and a Twitter user has become an exceptional platform for communicating with both current and potential customers, clients and associates. I've since learned that for dedicated, consistent, popular Tweeters and Bloggers, there's even a chance to earn money by monetizing them both! Once sponsored you simply implement your marketing techniques, 'Shout It Out' and profit while doing so!

I've mentioned affiliating myself with SocialSpark and posting a review (view here). I've since found them to be associated with another company that will pay you for tweeting on Twitter depending upon the amount of leverage you have ie; followers. As well, both Sponzai and Pay Per Post enable earnings via blogging. Sponzai is an online marketplace that connects you with sponsors who wish to have you create a guest post and Pay Per Post connects you with advertisers who pay you to write blog posts.

- To earn more from your tweets try out Twittad, this Social Media Affinity Network (referral link) also has mobile options for those on the go and the creative bunch at Magpie here (referral link) are confident you'll gain loads of bling from your tweets (pssst I haven't earned anything, as of yet, from either).

- Analyze your Twitter account (referral link) and it's followers; who's active, who's 'paying attention', their location and if they are male or female etc. plus have a chance to earn income with a one click in-stream advertising platform. I have earned money with this site and love their pay per tweet schedule...you tweet it, you get paid, period (it doesn't matter if it's clicked, viewed, if someone purchases or not!!)

Each of these income earning opportunities will give you the opportunity to accept or deny a campaign so, to tweet or not to tweet is totally up to you.

To the business community... Plan to change the world, sponsor a child!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of SEO 5 Consulting. All opinions are 100% mine.

As an avid user of life's everyday amenities I was reminded last night, thanks to an 8 hour power outage, that my life truly is privileged. Having no electricity, no hot water or cold drinks was all it took to remind me that others around the world suffer far greater than I ever have and on a daily basis.

Imagine yourself being a child in any of the world's poorest regions where thousands of children under the age of 5 die daily because they lack access to things we take for granted – clean water, sanitation, medicine, food and shelter. It makes my trivial concern over the lack of internet and choice beverages seem absolutely lame and puts life and what is important into perspective, for me.

If you've ever wondered how you could make a difference in this world, please take the time to consider Plan Canada. The Plan was founded in 1937 and was originally known as the Foster parents Plan. The program runs in 66 countries worldwide and does include Haiti. The Plan gives children, families and communities the tools they need to break the cycle of poverty and to build sustainable solutions for improving their own lives. Each year Plan Canada's work impacts the lives of more than 3.5 million families and their children in over 25,000 communities.

It starts with just one child. Join others today and sponsor a child whose life will truly benefit from your kindness. For just $35 a month, you can invest in grassroots programs that will help local people in poor communities build schools, train teachers, empower girls, dig wells, run health clinics, start small businesses, and much more!

All donations are tax deductible.

 Plan Canada is a well respected charity that is registered with the Canada Revenue Agency. 

Please call Plan Canada at 1-800-387-1418 

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