Congratulations to this weeks geek Jeff. This weeks questions are…

1.  He was 30 years old when “The Lord of the Rings” started shooting and is the oldest of the four actors playing the hobbits in the Fellowship.

2.  The member of the cast of “The Lord of the Rings” that had based his character on J.R.R. Tolkien.

3.  He was most afraid of taking helicopters to the filming locations, particularly the mountain scenes in “The Fellowship of the Ring”.

4.  He was the only member of the Fellowship to have his boat sunk twice, while shooting and rehearsing the boat scenes in “The Fellowship of the Ring”.

5.  The prosthetics worn for his role had harsh effects on the skin around his eyes; it peeled off and turned pink!

Our weekend projects up until the new year will focus on creating plans. This weekends project is to create a Marketing Plan. If you own a business or even a site you should really look at creating a marketing plan. We will outline what a marketing plan should have and some suggestions on things you should look into in 2009.

Take out some paper or use your favorite text editor (or better yet blog about it).

Business Summary
This section should be an overview of your business. You should include the following…

• Brief description of your company
• A mission statement
• Outline of your offerings

Strategic Focus and Plan
This section will focus on what it is you want your marketing to do and where you fit in your market place. You should include the following…

• Your marketing plan over all vision
• The objectives of your marketing
• Competitive comparison and analysis
• SWOT analysis

Target Market Development
This section will be where you should define each product and the various target customers. You should include the following…

• A detailed explanation of the type of person that buys what you sell
• A break down of what triggers people to buy it
• A summary of why people use what you sell

Budget and Promotions
This section is where you should break down a monthly or yearly budget. Also determine any promotions you want to push either each month or during peek or non peek times.

Suggestions for 2009
There are patterns in marketing you should know when planning for 2009.

Economic Downturn
Advertising is down a dramatic amount for the 4th Quarter of 2008. Not just online but in all mediums. Companies that pulled back on marketing during economic crises are out of business.  Do not stop marketing just do it smarter. Focus on PPA and less on branding.

Social Media Focus
If your not involved in any social media then change that. Start a blog, twitter, use Facebook, get Linked-In. Your business needs to have a presence in the social media world and now is the time to do it. Once you have a presence then start to be social where your target markets are being social.

Start Selling Experiences
Stop thinking you sell a product or service. In 2009 try to picture what you sell as an experience. See how your customer see the experience of buying and using what you sell. Try and find a way to have consistency all the way through and enhance it.

If you get stuck let me know in the comments.

Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet? Me neither. Before you brave the overly crowded shopping malls this weekend for some last minute gift ideas, take a moment to see what’s going on in the blogosphere too. Who knows? You might find some inspiration among the cats and Canucks.

Jeff Kee remained adamant against Twitter for some time, but it seems like this young professional is finally starting to see the light. In following the Web 2.0 trend, he has produced Krunchd.com, TinyURL on Steroids. With other URL-shortening services, you get a single URL. With Krunchd, you get as many as you’d like.

Steven Sanders hasn’t been to Sears since he was a young boy, so he was quite surprised when he actually spent some time shopping around at his local store. He got himself a free $100 gift card and he’s got another $100 gift card to give away, courtesy of IZEA. Check out his post on how you can win.

Raul (Hummingbird604) is quite happy living in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver, but he is starting to notice that Fraser is becoming the new Main. The two major streets are only separated by six blocks, but they currently have a very different feel to them. The gentrification process on Main Street has worked wonders; Fraser will surely be next.

Vancity Allie was lucky enough to attend Trevor Linden’s retirement night on Wednesday, documenting the experience through a photo essay of sorts. She was even lucky enough to get a picture with the former Vancouver Canucks captain himself! Number 16 is only the second jersey (Stan Smyl was the first) to be retired by the Canucks organization.

Alex Shalman, like the rest of us, needs a break his holiday season. In finding how to best make use of any available downtime, Alex has discovered no fewer than 30 ways to relax like a cat. Our feline friends always appear to be quite laid back, so it makes sense that we can find some relaxing inspiration from them.

A cartoon created by artist John West.

If you have an idea for a future comic or would like to submit your own BlueFur cartoon let us know in a comment.

If you have been watching our counters the last few weeks you would have noticed our twitter followers was flirting with the 600 followers milestone and our RSS subscribers around 500. It was a race to see which milestone would happen first. Rightly so twitter won.

If you are not currently subscribed to our RSS or twitter your missing out on…

• Important news on our hosting which can effect your account.
• Tutorials, scripts and ideas to help you improve your site.
• Business topics to peek your thoughts on technology.

With the new year almost upon us now is a good time to subscribe to our bog as we are introducing new and exciting topics in the weeks to come.

When putting together a marketing effort for your company, regardless of the actual format, it is of paramount importance that you keep a consistent message. This applies not only to the branding itself, but also how you present your company’s products or services.

I recently received a mailout from Air Miles that was meant to promote the use of the card, specifically the Air Miles American Express credit card, every time that I went grocery shopping. I suppose this is simply to encourage collectors to use that method of payment more often, generating more Air Miles and, as a result, more revenue for the company that runs the Air Miles program. I can see why they would want to do this, because many people may not think to use their Air Miles credit card when picking up a carton of milk.

The problem that I saw with the promotion was the message that was found within. I’m paraphrasing, but it essentially proposed a situation where I would spend $500 a month on groceries every month for an entire year, earning enough Air Miles for entertainment, travel, or other rewards. And therein lay the issue. The message was specific enough to mention an exact dollar amount ($500), but not a specific reward. If they were not going to mention a specific reward possibility (like saying that it would generate enough miles for an iPod), then they should not have mentioned the specific amount of spending.

Do you agree? Even if the specifics of a program change over time, the mailout could have simply included some fine print stating that the example is for illustrative purposes only and may change without notice.