Picking Stocks

The Number Crunchers love all sorts of indexes and ratios when picking stocks. But R&D/price and debt ratios and PEGs only tell part of the story. What about some other measures to treasure? Marketing Multipliers: Gotta have cool designs, great names, famous brands, smiley sultra-models / likeability. Tricky to assess: Sometimes ugly stuff is perceived as cool. Service Smarts: Read More …

Charity Match Website

Here’s a win-win for charities and advertisers. It’s a site where companies get good publicity in exchange for matching contributions to charities. Plus it’s a way for philanthropic, benevolent souls to get more bang for their buck. Basically, works like this: Charities and companies with existing matching-contribution programs sign up, agreeing to link to the Read More …

Paypal Piggy Banks & Advertising Coins

Let’s hope that ads eventually make all Internet sites free. But now you’ll find publications like magazines that charge dollars for reading current articles, or for accessing archives. How about some ecoonomy of scale? Charge way less, so you get more customers, producing as much revenue if not more. Here’s a way for Paypal, or someone other online paying Read More …

Pimp the State of the Union

Seriously, why should a big-time TV event like this fail to generate any revenue for anybody? The networks run no ads, the government gets no rights fees, and a handful of major networks alienate chunks of their TV-addicated audience. So revamp the speech to have commercial breaks, and sell the exclusive rights to one network, or one broadcast and Read More …

Ultra Magic-8-Ball Idea Generator

The mother of all Magic 8 Balls. Has a much bigger window. And when you shake it and turn it over, three of the 20 message triangles float into view within that window. For example: “Edible.” “Music.” “Money.” Let it percolate. What bubbles into your brain? Edible Music? Song lyrics printed on flat candy? Chocolates Read More …

More Ideas for PhoneZones in Stores

What if stores had PhoneZones where customers could tap into all kinds of customer service options through their cellphones? Rohit Bhargava starts a discussion on his Influential Interactive Marketing blog, saying a photograph of a barcode could give  shoppers immediate access to all sorts of price and product information. I’d like to see it do even more, like fetch a salesperson, tell what’s in Read More …

Easy Action Plan to Begin a Business: Teach a Class

One worry I have is that many of the ideas here are tricky to turn into a business. But here’s a way to make money right away, have income to write off expenses, get feedback, find possible collaborators, and collect information that could become a book: Teach an evening class at a local high school. Want to write a Read More …