You can create your own holiday to promote your business or your cause, or “just because.”

Here in the United States, we celebrate Independence Day every July 4th. But are you also celebrating these other July events: Embrace Your Geekness Day, Nude Recreation Week, National Baked Bean Month, Cow Appreciation Day, and National Ice Cream Day? These are just a few of many observances in July. And of course, July 7th is Bonza Bottler Day. It occurs each month when the number of the month is the same as the number of the day (e.g., January 1st, February 2nd, etc.) and it is heralded as “an excuse to have a party at least once a month.”

Each of these holidays was created to bring attention to a business, a cause or the individual responsible for coming up with the holiday. Creating your own holiday is a great way to get free publicity. You may be interviewed on television or radio, or information about you and your holiday may appear in newspapers and magazines and on Web sites. I have appeared on radio from coast to coast to talk about my holidays, such as Get Paid to Shop Week, Take Charge of Change Week, and Someday.

There is no master authority that has to approve your holiday. Just create it and start promoting it. An easy way to generate awareness of your holiday is with listings in calendars, such as Chase’s Calendar of Events. It is used by the media when they are looking for story ideas, so you may get calls for interviews just from being listed. Most libraries carry Chase’s, so visit your local library to see examples of holiday listings. The book includes information on how to submit your holiday, or you can visit their web site: http://www.chases.com/.

A quick search through Chase’s Calendar of Events reveals Eat What You Want Day, Anonymous Giving Week, National Kite Month, Home-Based Business Week, and many, many more. You may wish to name a holiday after your book, celebrate your industry, or set up an activity that focuses on your product.

Tom and Ruth Roy of Wellcat Herbs http://www.wellcat.com/ devote a section of their Web site to the more than 80 holidays they have created. Their holidays include everything from Happy Mew Year for Cats Day (January 2nd) to Falling Needles Family Fest (December 30th).

The Roys are also behind Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. It was March 26th, but even if you missed it this year it is not too late to make up your own holiday.

You don’t have to be listed anywhere, though, to declare a holiday. Send out media releases announcing your holiday. Write articles about suggested holiday activities. Post the articles at your web site, and offer them to other web sites, e-zines and newsletters. Use your holiday as a way to give your marketing and promotion efforts a timely publicity angle.

Hmmm . . . I wonder where I can get a greeting card for National Underwear Day.

If you want to attract new customers while building greater loyalty among your current customers, include your customers in your marketing and promotions.

Copyright Cathy Stucker

Do you want to attract new customers while building greater loyalty among your current customers? Include your customers in your marketing and promotions. By creating greater awareness of your customers (and their businesses) you may help to build their businesses and increase their demand for your products and services. Whether or not using customers in your marketing causes them to buy more from you, your willingness to showcase them will cause them to feel more attachment to you and will encourage them to remain customers for a long time to come. Here are a few ways you can make this work for you.

Ask your customers to share their success stories and get their permission to use them. How have they benefitted from their association with you? Have them share their stories on audio or video or in print and use them in your marketing. In their ads, Sterling Bank in Houston has their small business customers tell how they grew their businesses with the help of their Sterling bankers. It sends a great message about the bank, and increases awareness of the featured businesses.

Tell your customers’ stories in your newsletter. If you publish a print or online newsletter, include profiles of your customers and tell how you worked with them to help them succeed. Or, use the stories in your print ads. A photo of a happy customer accompanied by the story of what you did for them is very persuasive.

Audio and video recordings of customer stories can be incorporated into your television and radio advertising. Hearing customers in their own words is a powerful way to communicate the benefits of doing business with you, and your customers will appreciate the visibility they get when they are featured in your ads. You can also use streaming audio and video files at your web site.

Feature links to your customers’ web sites from yours. It doesn’t cost anything to add a few links, and customers will appreciate the extra visibility. It may also help improve the search engine rankings, not only for your customers’ web sites, but for yours as well.

Make connections between customers. Do you have customers who could benefit from knowing other customers? Perhaps you could make referrals to bring them together. Or, host a networking event where they can get to know each other.

Include customers in your publicity. The media like to have multiple sources for stories, perhaps to back up what you are saying or to provide another point of view. In one case, I was able to get a client included in a story and she was able to get one of her clients into the story, too! Your clients will not only appreciate that you got them publicity, they will be impressed with your media “pull.”

Promoting your customers as well as yourself is a great win-win for your business. Look for opportunities to create a greater bond between yourself and your customers by including them in your marketing and promotions.

As the Idea Lady, Cathy Stucker helps entrepreneurs and professionals attract customers and make themselves famous. Get free marketing tips at http://www.IdeaLady.com/

Looking for a claim to fame? Need a unique story to interest the media? Just have way too much time on your hands? Any of those might be a good reason to set an official world record.

The Guinness World Records(TM) folks have been keeping track of all kinds of interesting feats, facts and phenomena since 1955. Their data base currently includes more than 40,000 categories of record makers, from fastest winkle picker to golf ball stacking.

To find out how you can qualify to set a world record, go to the Guinness web site: http://www.GuinnessWorldRecords.com/. Although the online data base is not complete, you can view listings for many of the records, and even see photographs and video of some of them.

There are categories such as longest lecture, most miles walked on a treadmill in 24 hours, largest CPR training session, most trees planted in a day, smallest kite flown, and many more. Some records get more competition than others. According to their web site, every month brings attempts to break the radio DJ marathon record. Kevin Cole of Carlsbad, New Mexico, holds the record for the longest spaghetti strand blown out of a nostril in a single blow. That one probably doesn’t have as much competition, but it may not be the record you wish to break.

Of course, there are lots of categories for the largest and smallest, and the youngest and oldest, etc. One of the existing categories may be a good fit for you. If not, come up with a brand new idea. The Web site includes guidelines for the types of categories they will and will not accept.

Could you set a record that would bring you media attention or bragging rights in your industry? One category is most haircuts given in one hour. (In case you are wondering, the current record is 23.) A hair stylist could try to break that record while raising money for charity by taking contributions from the victims, uh, customers she serves while setting the record.

Before attempting to set your record, make a proposal to Guinness. They may accept your proposal, reject it, or suggest that you attempt to break an existing record. If accepted, they will give you specific guidelines to follow as you make and document your attempt.

It can take four weeks or longer to get approval of your proposal, so be sure to allow plenty of lead time if you want to time your attempt to coincide with another event. There is no charge to submit a proposal, but if you need a quick response you may pay for Fast Track service to get an answer within days rather than weeks.

Use your record-setting attempt to drum up media coverage (they love events with visuals), and include your record in your bio and future press kits. Frame your Guinness certificate and display it prominently. Put photos or video of your record-setting activities on your Web site.

See you in the record books!