Guerrilla Marketing is about Being Unique
According to Wikipedia, Guerrilla Marketing is described as:
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; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. 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.
Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.In other words, you need to do something unique in such a way that people are going to be talking about it for a long time. In my opinion, the T-Mobile campaign is probably one of the best in recent memory; paid actors simply filled the train station and in unison began dancing a choreographed routine. It was remarkable really, to the extent that individuals not paid to participated started dancing, have a look. As stated above, the hope is that the campaign will turn viral and really with very little dollars expose a message to a large number of potential consumers. To date, the T-Mobile Ad on YouTube.com has well over 17 million views. Now let's just guess that the production and time of the dancers cost around $34,000 (probably much less), then their cost per viewer is only .002 cents. Add on top of that the fact that they continue to have more eyes viewing their performance online still over 1 year later and the video has received over 23,000 YouTube ratings. I honestly can't tell you what kind of financial numbers they achieved as a result of the campaign, but what I can verify is that when it comes to Guerrilla Marketing they hit a home run. Thinking of starting your own campaign? Here are 5 Simple Guerrilla Marketing Tactics you can easily employ.
- Do Not Disturb – Heading to a blog expo anytime soon? Get some door hangers printed up with your business information on it and possibly a link to something free on your site. Get the attention of everyone in your market this way, and it’s super cheap as well. Noone else I know has been doing this so you’ll stand out for sure.
- Pay it forward – when you’re heading into the movie theater, pay the persons way behind you and tell the cashier to give them your business card. You’re not guaranteed that the person will become a client but I bet the word of mouth on that one would be pretty big.
- Fake publicity stunt – you could have people picket your storefront with signs that read “This business is too nice” or “Company X is too good at their job”. Theres a million fake publicity stunts, use your imagination and I bet it’ll work no matter how weird or out of the box it seems.
- Guest blogging – This is for the bloggers out there, or even the freelance writers. Guest blog on other blogs largely related, or semi-related to your websites niche. Opening other peoples eyes to your name and your website is always good promotion, especially if you’re an awesome writer. Not to mention networking with other bloggers is great for business as well.
- Business Cards – STOP! Don’t skip this one. So many people see this and think you’re going to tell them to print cards and hand them out. I’m not! What you do with these cards is head to every library or book store in your city and find the section that relates to your business. Open each and every book and place a business card somewhere in the book. This is great targeted marketing and only costs you a few bucks for the cards and an afternoon of placing the cards.
