Guerrilla Marketing Definition - Explained

This term has, at times, sounded a little extreme to me. I wondered if it entailed camo-clad rebel sales people pouncing on unsuspecting consumers forcing them to buy THEIR products at gunpoint. However, when I broke down the guerilla marketing concept, I realized just how it actually was a way to get maximum results from minimal resources. Bear with me, you'll be glad you did.

Guerrilla Marketing Definition

As defined straight from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia:

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; [1] and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.[2] The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.

Wow, I don't feel threatened by that at all! As a matter of fact, I can see how this sort of marketing method could build great long term relationships. But there are a lot of factors involved in that definition. Sounds like it could be a bit complicated to properly utilize all aspects.

The Guerrilla Marketing Breakdown

Why don't we break this down a bit and really look at a few guerilla tactics in simpler terms.

* They engage our imagination instead of our pocket book; they can be inexpensive to implement - sometimes free! What avenues can we use that may take our time more than large marketing budgets? Is Social Media passing us by because we are busy planning our next ad campaign? Maybe just being social could take a few minutes a day, but begin building relationships that will last forever. Folks all over the world are making a difference in 140 characters or less. According to Fox News, even matching up with new employers, a huge necessity.

*Our personal commitment in time and effort will be necessary, especially now, when we want to hold on to as much profit as possible. Perhaps we could write a blog creating a platform where other like-minded consumers want to visit to catch up on the latest industry news, or just share ideas and innovate on others. Blog writing may take some time to build a following, but when used with Social Media, can really solidify YOU as a brand.

*Consumers are looking to build relationships and partner with like-minded folks who have their best interest in mind, not be hard-closed by aggressive salespeople who may quickly move on to the next prospect. Mentoring is one of the best ways to build relationships. Can you offer some tidbits of wisdom, perhaps a video bootcamp that helps others to move closer to reaching their own goals, all the while, strengthening their alliance with YOU as a brand. Offering consumers, to your industry, the answers they beg for - at no cost- creating a simple 'how to' video once for people to use for years to come is one simple example of guerilla marketing. Letting them know they can come back to YOU for the answers they seek.

*These tactics may be so attention getting, that the consumer doesn't realize they have just been closed, but they were shocked, realizing that someone else relates to how they feel. If you took the time to do the most important online market research of all- keyword research- would you find the problem statements that other folks ask with supplication? Would this small task, once mastered, hone you in on the people who are looking for you? We can't provide what others' need until we find out what that is.

Guerrilla marketing may be the best answer for a couple of reasons: (1) the current economic climate, considering purse strings being tightened the world over on expensive ad campaigns, and (2) the most profound reason: because the multitude of consumers are turning to the World wide Web for the answers they seek; not only for what to spend their hard earned cash on, but for answers on how to make more of it in these tough financial times.

Don't wait to learn more about this and other powerful marketing methods.

Guerrilla Marketing - How to Use Leaflet Distribution to Gain Free Publicity For a Web Site

If you have a new website or business that you want to promote, but you have a limited budget, how do you advertise at minimal cost to get visitors? Using some of the ideas from guerrilla marketing, one of the first approaches you should consider is leaflet distribution. The leaflets can be printed about the size that would fit into your hand easily. In a brief and informative way, the leaflet captures peoples' imagination and whets their curiosity enough to want to visit your web site to get more information.

The cheapest and easiest way to produce the leaflets is to print them on a single A4 or US Letter sheet, arranged in a 2x2 grid, then use a guillotine or paper cutter to split them into individual leaflets.

What can you do with leaflets like these once you have produced a pile of them? Here are some examples of why these leaflets are so useful:

• You can have a bunch of them ready to give to people who ask about your web site, showing the URL they can go to for more information.
• You can leave a small pile of them in places where people are likely to spend time waiting and reading magazines, such as in doctor's and dentist's surgeries, the hairdresser, the library, and so on.
• You can post them through letter-boxes.
• You can put them on car windscreens as you pass them.
• You can leave them in shops - at the checkout, for instance, when people have to wait and potentially spend several minutes looking at them.
• You can put one into magazines or newspapers.
• You can leave a few at kebab or hotdog stands, or at take-aways and fast-food restaurants.
• You can leave them anywhere you sit, or wait in line, as you go about your daily business.
• You can stand in the street giving them away to passers by.

The use of these leaflets is so flexible that your own imagination is the only limit. The results will not happen overnight, but the more you distribute, the more people will see the leaflet, and either remember the website, or pick up a leaflet and take it home. The more people see the leaflet and go to the website, the more your web site traffic will increase.

Just imagine the effects of these leaflets over time. If you leave some in a fast-food restaurant, dentists, doctors or hairdressers, for example, a small pile of leaflets could be sitting there for weeks before they are eventually taken away. In the meantime, with a captive audience spending many minutes looking at the stack of magazines, your leaflets will be seen by dozens and potentially hundreds of people over the next few days. It is inevitable that some of them will go to your web site, and you have gained traffic at almost no time and expense to yourself.

Over time, as you start to build this into your daily routine, you will automatically start to take leaflets with you everywhere you go and everywhere you travel. You don't need to do anything more.

As long as you only leave a few leaflets in places where you ordinarily go about your daily business, you will get free advertising. The only cost is printing out a new batch of leaflets every few days. Spend some time with your word processor and produce the leaflets yourself.

As long as you don't carpet bomb an area with leaflets littered absolutely everywhere and get complaints, using leaflets is an excellent way to steadily raise awareness of your web site in your local area and beyond. If you travel away from home, don't forget to take a stack of leaflets with you! Over time, tens of thousands of people will see your leaflet. That's pretty good advertising for a free idea!

Guerrilla Marketing - How to Be Effective to Any Target Market

A term frequently thrown around in the 21st century is "new media." With the emergence of social media and digital content, new media has become a large portion of people's lives. With very little research regarding the effectiveness or stability, companies are reluctant to pursue marketing campaigns where the ROI isn't clearly defined.

However, as the economy suffers, the best way to make money is to think smart. The belief is that if you spend more money on advertising/publicity, you will get more impressions or buzz. Of course, like with any investment, your expectations can fall very short.

In no way has guerrilla marketing been the lone execution in establishing a product or company, but it's a cost effective way to jump start a brand's image and street cred. It can also be used to incite short-term recall or to re-iterate a company's stance on certain issues (speaking through their brand).

One thing guerrilla marketing shouldn't be is a major expenditure. Yes, the ideas behind the execution should probably be insightful and inspiring - but it shouldn't cost you money. This is where your creativity and strategic thinking come together for smart, effective executions. Guerrilla marketing should always summarize a positive characteristic of your brand, but never summarize your entire brand.

Whether you're a large, fast-food brand or a small independent sewing company, the gist of guerrilla marketing are the same: it's a low cost medium to add personality and build awareness for potential consumers.

Examples can be found among city streets or local town halls. Here are some tips, supported by examples, to help ensure that your guerrilla marketing campaigns are successful.

1. Respect and Inform

There's nothing more annoying than a political flyer that assumes your level of intelligence is below that of a monkey. Not one consumer will embrace your brand if they feel the brand has disrespected them as a person or as a part of a bigger group. Although it is creative to be somewhat controversial, you must tip-toe this line carefully, as your image has a lot to lose by going overboard.

A great example of this is from my own experience. A college-campus food company had a specific execution in their men's urinals. The mat in the urinal read: "In Your Hands, You Hold the Power to Stop Rape". A powerful, straightforward piece of copy that lingers in the minds of males, even if only for a few seconds. It acknowledges an audience and respectfully educates them at a position that is appropriate to the message and receiver.

2. Don't think "outside the box" - Look at the box from a different angle

Whoever came up with the phrase, "think outside the box," never took full advantage of exploring the content inside the box. Thinking outside the box generates subjective ideas that are likely hard to relate or just too far fetched for the average consumer. As a brand, you must respect the target's level of intelligence instead of trying to compete with it. If you want to speak to them on a personal level, you don't want to leave or try to shake up their "box." Instead, look left, look right, and stand at a different angle from the corner. I know this is all metaphorical, but the point is this: don't rise above consumer mindset, it will only give you more work trying to explain your actions.

3. Think about how you can help your community, your consumer, and your brand

Companies benefit from building a trusted, reliable community of customers that will not only speak well on their behalf but continuously use their product. To support the "target triangle" (consumer, community, company), some smaller brands choose local sponsorships or simply rely on word-of-mouth service. However, there are plenty of ways to break the hustle and bustle to bring a spotlight onto a win-win-win situation.

KFC, in the midst of its "re-freshen" movement, decided to forgo a segment of their traditional advertising to pursue a cheaper and interactive route: repairing potholes. This had a profound effect on the community - as potholes are a major issue to frequent drivers - as well as KFC's image. Not only was this a buzz-worthy execution, but it worked to provide solutions to more than one problem.

4. Catch them during their "routine"

Advertisements have become so numerous that we see thousands upon thousands of them just in a day's work, the majority of which we simply process and forget. However, using unconventional material or an unusual presentation can halt people in their tracks, causing them to take a step backward and ask themselves, "what was that?"

A good example is an ad for Crisis.org.uk, which required no durable ad space or use of Photoshop to create a stunning effect. Instead, a little bit of realism and hard-hitting copy did the trick just fine.

There are several other great examples of cost-effective marketing that depend on the product's purpose, but even when a product can "sell itself," marketing can strengthen the brand's overall dominance in the consumer arena. Unfortunately, with advertisements shot at us from every angle, we have become almost 'immune' to certain mass media executions. A movement to quality instead of quantity has slowly taken over the advertising and marketing spectrum, while every brand wants to know exactly where their consumer leaves footprints. With data collection and an increase in information availability, we will see various, strategic guerilla campaigns that will strike a chord at the hearts of their brands' core consumers.

Guerilla Marketing Examples & Guerilla Advertising Strategies For Sales Professionals

Guerrilla Marketing- is a phrase coined by Jay Conrad Levinson as a take no prisoners way of marketing (not to be confused with prospecting tactics taught by most sales organizations) Guerrilla marketing can be an inexpensive way to market for the entrepreneurs who are on a "shoe string" budget. Guerrilla marketing can be used to generate new business right in your own back yard.

This strategy is highly recommend to first time entrepreneurs and independent professionals who are having a hard time prospecting for new clients.

Guerrilla Marketing can be defined as going after conventional goals using unconventional methods. Most business owners and sales professionals usually start out by throwing money at their marketing campaign before investing in their marketing education.

When using guerrilla marketing the focus is to find as many ways to market your service with little or no cost at all. It essentially about the creativity that you can bring to the marketplace.

"7 Steps of a Guerrilla Marketing Plan"

1. Call to Action-What do you want your customers to do (i.e buy your product or services)

2. Competitive Audience-who are your competitors and what are they doing

3. Target Audience-Who is your core audience and what is the best medium to reach them through)

4. List of Marketing Weapons (Tools)-What tools are you going to use (signs,special reports,newsletter)

5. Positioning -How to your want to be perceived in your niche market by your audience

6. Company Identity- Do you want to be known as the cheapest guy or the most expensive, the most classy, the quickest the easiest?

7. What's your marketing budget- How much do you have to put toward your guerrilla marketing campaign.

"Guerrilla Marketing Strategy"

An example of guerrilla marketing would be referral marketing. As you all know referred customers are the best customers. The great thing about referral marketing is that it can be absolutely free.

If you already have some existing customer base ask them for a referrals but offer them something in return. For example a free offer of your product or service next time they purchase. When the person or people they referred to you buy give them the same offer.

Another example will be advertising in high traffic areas. Lets say you have a restaurant you can make an offer and post it on a sign professionally from a FedEx Kinkos for less than $35.

Create a picture of a delicious plate your number and address. You can tie balloons around the sign or make it in the shape of a person on the side of the road. This will drive tons of traffic to your business since they are already in their car.

Public speaking is another guerrilla marketing tactic. There are many organizations both for profit and non that are always in need of a speaker to keep there events exciting and valuable. With the right educational approach this can prove to be a perfect way to generate leads and position yourself as an expert.

Be sure to present valuable educational content that is relevant to your product and service but leave the sales pitch out. Studies have proven that with a good follow up process more than 50% of the audience will turn in to paying customers.

Writing Articles in your local papers is a favorite for guerrillas. Public relations usually proves to be more profitable than advertising and the media is always looking for a good story or at least content for their columns. Try submitting press releases on interesting ways that your bringing value to the marketplace.

Database Marketing- If you have been in business for at least a while than you should at least have a list of you current customers. These are often the best prospects because its always easier and less expensive to sell to people that have already bought from you. Try offering special offers to previous customers and customer appreciation discounts.

"Guerrilla Marketing Tools"

Print materials- flyers, Signs, Special Reports, On or offline newsletters, postcards, banners, seminars are all good guerrilla marketing tools. Try anyone of these tactics with the right tools and your guerrilla marketing campaign is sure to get off to a good start.

Print Wall Stickers - Guerrilla Marketing

The current direction of today's businesses is to keep up with the ever-changing market trends to survive Guerilla marketing through print wall stickers is an effective medium in targeting potential customers. This method is very ideal for small and medium enterprises who wish to be efficient without wasting too much cost and manpower. Below are practical print wall stickers ideas to boost your branding:

Optimize your Print Wall Stickers in Four Steps:

1. Plan ahead. Avoid wasting your time and valuable resources by plotting your promotional campaign way ahead. Be sure to study and identify places that your potential customers frequent most. These will be the "battleground" for your guerrilla campaign.

2. Think of an eye-popping design. The objective is to grab your potential market's attention. Conceptualize a design that would call people's attention even in the busiest section of the city. You only have 3 seconds to hook them to your print sticker so use the most awe-inspiring image you can get hold onto.

3. Use Screaming colors. Yes, it is highly recommended to use attractive colors like orange, green and red for your poster. However, the color elements shouldn't compete with your brand message. Use colors to highlight significant text and downplay less important print wall elements.

4. Get straight to the point. Communicate your message in the fastest and clearest way possible. Keep in mind that you will have to deal with an audience of extremely short-attention span. Ambiguity is a no-no. People will be too busy to focus and figure out your message.

5. Go for quality. The impression that people will get upon first seeing your print wall sticker is crucial. This will determine the success of your promotion campaign. The quality of your sticker will be in the hands of your chosen printing company. Considering this, it is best to search and choose for the best printing site that offers excellent overall printing services, not to mention highly competitive prices.

Marketing, guerrilla style, demands optimum maximization of resources. Your print wall sticker should instantly connect with your target audience, thus the quality of your promotional material is of great importance.

Guerrilla Marketing Online - Effective, Low Cost, High Impact Tactics

Times are tough across the boards. Yes, some people are thriving and having the best year they have ever had (like ours at Taz Solutions, Inc.) but I could only imagine the year we would have had had this been an up-economy. This downswing in spending has been causing massive cuts to marketing. These massive cuts to marketing are causing massive decreases in sales. Rather then sink your ship, now is the time to think out-side the box.

In both up and down economies there are a set of tools and tactics that we employ regadless. These tactics are referred to as Guerrilla Marketing.

As a certified Guerrilla Marketing coach, I bring the entire Guerilla Marketing philosophy to our company in our online and offline efforts.

In fact, Guerrilla Marketing Online has recently been even more impactful then our offline efforts from an ROI standpoint. We're able to get a much quicker response by leveraging the power of the web.

If you're not familiar with Guerrilla Marketing - check out their site, it will change the way you think about marketing forever (click on Guerrilla Marketing). Boiled down, Guerilla Marketing is low cost, high impact. Rather then using a ton of money, you use time, energy and imagination.

Online Marketing doesn't need to need to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, most of it can be done free of charge!

Here are six examples of Guerrilla Marketing Online in Action:

• A fan of the social networking site Ecademy hosting a virtual Anti-Facebook Party
• A media firm hosting it's holiday party on secondlife.com and inviting their customers
• Gary Vaynerchuk starting a blog from the ground up voying to make an impact on his audience. He crush's it by posting a vast amount of useful, transparent and thoughtful content. To date, he has a massive loyal following and some pretty exciting deals taking place.
• Starbucks launching Starbucks Ideas to get FREE Ideas on how to grow their business
• Zappos.com using Twitter to give special twitter online offers
• Matthew Ferry giving away his famous webinar worth over $500 to support his loyal followers (and rocking in over 1000 registered people)

There are millions of ways to practice Guerrilla Marketing Online, it's all about getting creative and putting a little bit of sweat into the process. I promise you, now is the time to really kick your marketing up a notch, you can't afford not to!

What Is Experiential Marketing and How Does It Work?

Experiential marketing is a relatively new phenomenon within marketing circles. It has been heralded as a completely unique approach when compared to traditional tactics as its main emphasis is to connect with the consumer, giving them an experience that will they remember, subsequently helping them to remember the product or brand being marketed. Essentially it is by engaging peoples' emotions and thought processes that memorable and successful campaigns are completed.

Experiential marketing has one underlying aim, this aim is to enter consumer minds, creating thoughts that connect with fun and pleasure. It is through the cognitive connections between enjoyment and the particular brand that success will be achieved. Understandably, creating experiential marketing campaigns is not easy; finding the original concept that relates to the target audience is a difficult and arduous task. This fundamental process involves researching the consumers in the audience, understanding how they think, feel and react to certain situations so that it is possible to market the product or brand on a level that they will be able to receive.

The senses play a massively important role in experiential marketing. Marketers are well aware that when designing campaigns it is vital to incorporate impressive, striking visuals that catch the eye, sounds that stir the emotions and in some cases an experience that will be both enjoyable and memorable.

For those still in the dark about experiential marketing it is likely that you have already been involved in a campaign. At most major events, there are some brands pushing their latest product, either by allowing consumers to try a free sample or by getting them involved in using it, playing it and generally interacting with it. That said, experiential marketing does not always have to focus around a product, equally it can be used simply to promote a new brand, or a brand trying to change its image in the public eye.

Importantly, this form of marketing, particularly if associated with a brand must be coherent and uniform. There is little point, for example if you have an old brand, that is not seen as modern or youthful and holding a brief, one day event that is promoting the brand as youthful is unlikely to change many minds. Instead a longer term process of changing people's perceptions through experiences is likely to achieve success.