Today is a very special day—it’s 09/09/09, which is the last set of repeating single-digit dates that we will see for almost a century. It’s all over the Internet and consumer marketers are taking full advantage of this play on numbers.

The 99 Cents Only Stores have a huge countdown and prize giveaway. The company also garnered a lot of PR with the nine, 99 cent weddings that will take place on 09/09/09.  Pei Wei sent an eblast exclaiming “The Great Ramen Exchange is coming 9-9-09!”  Apple launched its new iPod nano and iTunes 9 and was rumored to maybe even launch a digital album on this auspicious day.

Consumer marketers are always looking for reasons to celebrate and generate sales. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; in fact it’s quite ingenious. Often times in B2B marketing we are so focused on the customer’s needs that we don’t take advantage of opportunities to get them excited about our products and services the way consumer marketers do.

We’d love to hear about great B2B marketing tactics that really made a splash with their customers and their bottom line. Have you seen a B2B campaign that took advantage of a fun date, seasons or holiday and really knocked your socks off?

Strategic Planning
Bursting with information
Gets you ROI

It’s time for a little 5/7/5 (Haiku) dissection. Ahh, |R|O|I| the most appreciated 3 letters in the business, and the 3 letters we work hardest to produce. But where does it start? It starts with |stra|te|gic|plann|ing|.

Strategic planning doesn’t just take into account the 4P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, Place), but also:

• the Process of how consumers obtain your product or service,
• the People who represent your business (hello sales team!)
• and the Physical environment or how your product or service is delivered.

Remember this from marketing 101? It’s the Extended Marketing Mix and it’s a whole lotta fun for the account team!

I would get into how to create a plan, but there’s no need to bore you when you can just Google or Bing your way to other fancy sites that dissect planning. 

But, consider the common ground for Haiku and strategic planning. Creating syllable arrangements in lines of 5/7/5 takes a lot of brainpower, writing and rewriting (it is also helpful to have two different colored pens). Strategic planning takes a lot of the same in order to get the plan just right, to make sure the messaging is resonating with the audience, and the client gets ROI (something crucial in the current economy).

So next time you are wondering why that plan cost you your right arm, think of it as turning a 5/7/5 Haiku into a 5,000/7,000/5,000. Now that would be difficult!

Take a stab at creating a B2B marketing Haiku on a topic that you want the Think Tank to discuss. Submit it in the comments and we’ll address it in an upcoming post.