When business is soft, companies often seek out new customers at the expense of their hardcore fans — shifting dollars from retention to acquisition. Facebook offers an inexpensive way to aggregate your fans and to unleash their inner evangelist on your behalf.

Click here to see how Toasted Head Wines recently fired up their fans on Facebook.

To truly cut though, your message needs to be surprising and relevant. Surprise alone is simply not enough. You can always surprise simply by putting a gorilla in a jock strap — but unless you’re selling animal undergarments, no one will remember your message.

The same applies to shaving heads, which was relevant for Ubisoft’s Hell’s Highway promo, but not for some copycats (click here).

It is tempting to go for the quick hit with a guerrilla stunt especially in difficult times. Often these come in the form of “random acts of kindness” which, next to faux protests, are stalwarts of the Guerrilla 101 playbook. Just say no.

Click here to see how some brands like HSBC turn random acts into everyday experiences.

If all roads lead to Rome then all marketing roads lead to your site. With marketing dollars tight, now is the time to revisit your website to make sure it is working as hard as it can for you. Are your visitors seeing what you want them to see and doing what you want them to do? Are they finding what they are looking for?

When The Receivables Exchange revamped their site, time per visit increased dramatically and prospects became customers (click here).

No doubt many of you have tried Twitter and left the site scratching your head. Don’t feel bad, some 60% of those who sign up don’t go back. That said, there are a couple of smart new reasons for brands to revisit Twitter. First, you never know when you might need to use it as a direct line to your customers. Domino’s recently used Twitter to squelch a potential PR nightmare.

Second, it can enhance other marketing activities like tradeshows and banner ads, as Volvo found out with its XC60 campaign (click here).

Every brand seems to want an iPhone app these days but few have made it big. Those that have are quite instructive — offering genuine utility or colossal cool. Kraft Foods iFood Assistant puts 7,000 recipes at users fingertips for the cost of one song. Zippo’s lighter app offers a burst of “magic” as users can actually blow on the virtual flame.

And Adidas recently launched a very hip app that delivers directions to the graffitti hotspots of Berlin directly to your iPhone (click here).