GuerrillaMarketingTechniques

33 Techniques for Guerrilla Marketing

Here are 33 techniques that are often used for GM (Guerrilla Marketing, aka substituting brains for money in the marketing wars):

Flyers to the home or office are cheap and cheerful and often effective. Don’t forget to include a call-to-action like ‘Free Quote’ or ‘10% off’ or ‘Fill in the attached ballot and return to … to win great prizes’ or ‘One Hour Free Consulting’. You can use a variant of the Flyer—the Handbill. It’s a bit different in the sense that it is exactly what it sounds like—a ‘bill’ that passes from your hand to a potential client’s hand directly. It is an old marketing concept but it can be remarkably cheap and effective. And you know that it got to the recipient for sure.
Lawn signs. If politicians use them, it’s because they work and are cheap. On-site signage is great—pylon signs, lawn signs, sandwich boards, window decals, whatever—they are cheap and they keep working 24/7. Hey, maybe you want to bring back the walking billboard (a person wearing a sandwich board) or better yet—a person wearing a sandwich board giving out handbills which have a call to action on them…
SEO. Search Engine optimization can do wonders for your web site. By increasing your profile in search engine results, you can turn your web site into a big lead generator for da nada. SEO includes things like link trading with all your friends’ web sites so that more sites link to you. Search engine algorithms look for how many sites link to you as an indicator of how important you are.
Give your company or organization a name and a web site address that are identical so you don’t waste any effort branding different names.
Get yourself a three (or at most four) word tag line that is clever and says something about you and that will help people remember you. Combine it with a great logo—you only get a few micro seconds to grab their attention so make it good.
If appropriate, use PSAs (Public Service Announcements). You would be surprised at how much media (especially radio and newsprint) you can get with PSAs.
Get testimonials for your flyers, web site, etc. Satisfied clients and customers are often willing to be quoted and cost you zip. People always seem to read the reviewers’ comments on the movies of paper back novels even though they know that they are always going to say things like: “It was a page turner, couldn’t put it down.”
Keep a customer data base and keep in touch with past clients—the best place to find new business is from existing clients and customers. Start a newsletter.
Go to trade shows and conventions and use giveaways (promo items) that are branded with your logo, company name, tag line, contact info and some type of call-to-action.
Network like crazy and use your employees’ and suppliers’ networks too.
Reverse sell to your suppliers. See if they can buy from you as well as sell to you.
Engage in (creative and legal) publicity stunts.
Use posters in public places.
Offer gift certificates.
Offer coupons.
Offer free services to opinion leaders and local stars.
Get a free endorsement or plug from a local celebrity.
Let people buy your branded promo stuff—nothing is better than people paying you to walk around in your t-shirt advertising your company or organization.
Put your face on everything—people like to buy from people they like and trust and faces count even (or perhaps more importantly) on the Internet.
Put out media releases every time you do something newsworthy and ‘feed the press’ regularly. Make the title catchy—how about Third Wall Theatre Group in Ottawa who put out a press release with the title: “Directors Stab CEO in Boardroom Uprising” to promote Julius Caesar. They got attention in a hurry from the media.
Bid on jobs even if you know you’re going to lose—you end up knowing everyone involved with the process; you can build up your network this way for next time. It’s a kind of win-by-losing strategy.
Try negative cost selling—it’s huge and works really well. Show the client (preferably with a spreadsheet) how he or she either makes money from buying your products or services, or reduces costs or both. This requires a level of understanding about your client’s business, which you should have anyway.
Create a market survey’ people like to be asked for their views—they’ll answer your survey, which will also generate information and leads for you.
Do some polling—people love to be asked their opinion on just about anything.
Create a scoring test on a subject of interest—that’s how a lot of magazines sell subscriptions; “Do you have what it takes to please your husband/wife? Just answer these 25 Questions to find out how you rate...”
Follow the trail of really bad marketing to see who needs your help in your industry.
See if you can get volunteers to help you.
See if you can create an event that’s fun and helps promote your business and doesn’t cost you anything.
Put a message on your car, your employees’ cars; use license plate holders if you don’t want to decal your vehicles.
Support worthwhile causes in your local community.
Find out who else benefits from your products and services other than your direct customers and make them your strategic marketing partners.
Explain your value proposition in five separate points or less—give people a few simple, compelling reasons to buy from you.
Find sponsors or patrons for your business or organization. Create something that they can sponsor and benefit by.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of GM. If you know of another example of GM, please add it to our list by going to:

http://www.dramatispersonae.org/GuerrillaMarketingAndFinance/Surveygm.htm

and giving us your example. Hey, now that’s Guerrilla Marketing in practice too.