guerilla marketing

Guerilla marketing solves the marketing problem for many small business owners. Typically, marketing is seen as a costly and time-consuming process which many business owners know little about. With so may businesses failing within the first three years of operation, we must accept that marketing drives your business forward and it is important to use it effectively.

Guerilla marketing tactics have been around for some time, although their potential has only just begun to be acknowledged through Internet marketing. Guerilla marketing is a breath of fresh air to small businesses--it offers a cheap and, quite often, more successful campaign than common marketing strategies such as newspaper ads, direct mail, and phone sales. As a result, guerrilla marketing has led people to begin thinking creatively in terms of marketing their businesses effectively, especially when dealing with limited resources of cash flow or staff.

What Is Guerilla Marketing?

Guerilla marketing involves being original, breaking the rules, and looking for alternatives to traditional marketing methods. It leaves behind the traditional methods of advertising: print, radio, and TV. Using alternative advertising methods such as word-of-mouth, stickers, posters, flyers, etc. is extremely cost-effective based on the results these methods can generate. The aim of guerilla marketing is to attract customers who will use word-of-mouth marketing to refer your business to their family, friends, and colleagues.

Some examples of guerilla marketing tactics are attention-grabbing slogans or statements, being unusually helpful to make a customer remember you, staging PR stunts, and using mobile marketing campaigns. It also involves monitoring your competition to stay well ahead of them. Part of guerilla marketing is doing whatever you can to ensure that you'll be seen as a leader instead of a follower.

Partnering complementary companies to yours is another great idea. You could do cross-promotions with them to double your exposure to the public. For example, if you own an editing business, you might partner with a printer and a graphic designer and each of you could then include each other's advertising with your own.

Practical Guerilla Marketing

One of the best features of guerilla marketing is that it is practical. This is not about "image" marketing, where everything depends on your logo, slogan, or brand image. Instead, guerilla marketing involves finding fresh and original ways to lure in new customers, keep those new customers loyal to you, and urge them to refer others to you.

If your customers develop a loyalty to your business, they will be more likely to continue to choose you over any new and flashy competitors. It is also less expensive in the long run to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. Finally, maintaining loyalty is key to repeat sales!

A customer who will always use your services or product is invaluable. If your business satisfies customers during every transaction, many of them will become lifetime customers. You can rely on the strength of you product to build these relationships, or you can speed up the process--guerilla marketing can get you there.