I am trying to promote a standup comedy contest and get people to sign up as contestants. This one is directed towards people working in publicity, PR and marketing. While I have had an easy time getting people for past contests (which were for comedians in general), this one’s more difficult because I need to find comedians who work in marketing – two different groups with virtually no overlap. Oh – and also in/around a particular city. How would I go about finding this overlap?

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Jay’s Answer: A two-pronged approach: contact local comedy clubs (especially those that have open mic night) and local Chambers of Commerce. What you ultimately want are funny marketing people that can help fill a house (and let them help you market the event!).

We are an IT consulting company, specializing in ERP Solutions, particularly Microsoft Dynamics AX. We are attending a user group tradeshow in a couple of months and we are looking for ideas to drive traffic to our booth. We are interested in high value traffic, not the drop your business card for a chance to win kind of traffic.

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Jay’s Answer: I would think that you don’t simply want traffic – you want qualified leads visiting your booth. So, why should someone want to talk to you? What will make it worth their time to interact with you face-to-face (instead of looking at your website)? How are you dramatically better than your competition?

A game should reflect your marketing positioning, and not simply be a game for game’s sake. Otherwise, people will come for the game and not remember anything about your company.

A new bus bay at our Public Transportation Center has just been built and we’d like to have a grand opening event to showcase the many attributes before the first bus drives through. Although our Transit Center and original bay was built only 5 years ago (although built to look like a historic landmark to match other Down Town buildings), our service has grown with leaps and bounds- so this new transit bay is a much needed addition for all of the fixed route buses, trolley’s, shuttles, Greyhound buses, etc. that come through our Transit Center on a daily/hourly basis. In addition to the space, we have taken this opportunity to add real-time bus stops in this new bay that show where each bus is on each route- and when that bus will reach the Transit Center (based on new GPS technology installed on each bus). We’ve also installed another jumbo-tron showing each route and the estimated time each bus will arrive (like at the airport) inside the transit center building- all of which are powered by solar panels.
We live in a small community- and our Public Transportation (although recently given a facelift) still holds a negative stigma (only low-income people ride the bus). We feel like this grand opening event, like any thing else we do, has the opportunity to shed a positive light on public transit and what it offers to our community. Any thoughts on a grand opening idea?

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Jay’s Answer: How about a series of party buses rolling through? For example, a jazz band arrives on the first bus, then play, then leave. 30 minutes later, a magician arrives, etc. The message: “The easy way to find fun on the bus”.