1.11.11: Celebrate This One Fine Day

Tiffany Weimar - January 11, 2011

Marketers, it’s your time to shine! Days like today offer once in a lifetime marketing opportunities, literally.  Restaurants, hotels, casinos, beauty salons, and others are offering amazing discounts in celebration of January 11th, 2011.  Whether it’s Papa John’s offering 2 pizzas for $11.11, Atlantic City resorts offering 11 hotel rooms for $11.11, or salons giving manicures for $11.11, companies nationwide are using today as a chance to gain new customers while rewarding their current customer base. 

In the online space, expect to capitalize on discounts seen through emails and social media channels.  If you’re on Twitter or Facebook at 11:11 am or 1:11 pm, I’d look for some special offers as well.  Using social media to promote these offers are an awesome way to enhance brand awareness and interact with your constituents in real-time.  

Throughout the year, marketers are given unique opportunities to be creative.  Unfortunately, many marketers are so caught up in their day-to-day “To-Do’s” that they fail to think through taking advantage of upcoming inimitable events.

In the spirit of 1.11.11, I have formulated five online marketing ideas to capitalize on in the future.

1. Dates! 1/11, 2/22, etc…  These are all great opportunities to offer exclusive daily promotions.  Be creative by playing off of the date exclusivity (Today, you will see 11% off, $1.11 for “x” product, etc…).
2. Holiday Promotions.  This year, we saw some e-tailers take advantage of “The 12 Days of Christmas”, offering a different promotion each of the days leading up to Christmas.  Penetrating social media outlets on this offer made the marketing opportunity even better, as it encouraged consumers to continue following the companies each day.
3. Weekly Offers.  In the online interactive marketing industry, some companies offer promotions on specific days.  For instance, “Mobile Mondays” was created by an agency to host a Monday Twitter Chat with the goal of giving expert advice on mobile advertising.   
4. Black Friday.  This is every shopper’s dream (or nightmare!).  In 2010, “Cyber Monday” (the Monday after Black Friday) was a huge success.  Take advantage of this opportunity by creating special promotions for these two heavily anticipated sales’ days.
5. Create unique promotions for each media outlet.  Having a mobile website offer or Facebook only discount promotes each marketing channel, ultimately applauding customer loyalty and encouraging recruitment of new followers/customers.