Guerrilla Marketing - Over 90 Field-Tested Tactics

To see over 90 field-tested Guerrilla Marketing tactics follow this link.

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The New Secrets of Guerrilla Marketing (by Jay Conrad Levinson)

The most important things you need to know about marketing are in this column. In the few minutes it takes you to read this, you'll learn more basic truths about marketing than you'd pick up with a score of MBA degrees under one arm and all the marketing books ever written, including mine, under the other.

As marketing continues to change, the secrets of guerrilla marketing continue to change. Originally, there were three secrets, then seven, then twelve. Now, I'm going to clue you in on the 15 secrets that guarantee you will exceed your most optimistic projections, however dreamy they may be.

MEMORIZE THESE 15 WORDS THEN LIVE BY THEM.

I'm giving you a memory crutch so that you'll never forget these words, each one representing a major guerrilla marketing secret. All 15 words end in the letters "ENT." Run your business by the guerrilla concepts they represent and your marketing dreams will come true.

1) COMMITMENT

You should know that a mediocre marketing program with commitment will always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment. Commitment makes it happen.

2) INVESTMENT

Marketing is not an expense, but an investment -- the best investment available in America today -- if you do it right. With the 15 secrets of guerrilla marketing to guide you, you'll be doing it right.

3) CONSISTENT

It takes a while for prospects to trust you and if you change your marketing, media, and identity, you're hard to trust. Restraint is a great ally of the guerrilla. Repetition is another.

4) CONFIDENT

In a nationwide test to determine why people buy, price came in fifth, selection fourth, service third, quality second, and, in first place -- people said they patronize businesses in which they are confident.

5) PATIENT

Unless the person running your marketing is patient, it will be difficult to practice commitment, view marketing as an investment, be consistent, and make prospects confident. Patience is a guerrilla virtue.

6) ASSORTMENT

Guerrillas know that individual marketing weapons rarely work on their own. But marketing combinations do work. A wide assortment of marketing tools is required to woo and win customers.

7) CONVENIENT

People now know that time is not money, but is far more valuable than money. Respect this by being easy to do business with and running your company for the convenience of your customers, not yourself.

8) SUBSEQUENT

The real profits come after you've made the sale, in the form of repeat and referral business. Non-guerrillas think marketing ends when they've made the sale. Guerrillas know that's when marketing begins.

9) AMAZEMENT

There are elements of your business that you take for granted, but prospects would be amazed if they knew the details. Be sure all of your marketing always reflects that amazement. It's always there.

10) MEASUREMENT

You can actually double your profits by measuring the results of your marketing. Some weapons hit bulls-eyes. Others miss the target. Unless you measure, you won't know which is which.

11) INVOLVEMENT

This describes the relationship between you and your customers -- and it is a relationship. You prove your involvement by following up; they prove theirs by patronizing and recommending you.

12) DEPENDENT

The guerrilla's job is not to compete but to cooperate with other businesses. Market them in return for them marketing you. Set up tie-ins with others. Become dependent to market more and invest less.

13) ARMAMENT

Armament is defined as "the equipment necessary to wage and win battles." The armament of guerrillas is technology: computers, current software, cellphones, pagers, fax machines. If you’re technophobic, see a techno-shrink.

14) CONSENT

In an era of non-stop interruption marketing, the key to success is to first gain consent to receive your marketing materials, then market only to those who have given you that consent. Don’t waste money on people who don’t give it to you.

15) AUGMENT

To succeed online, augment your website with offline promotion, constant maintenance of your site, participation in newsgroups and forums, email, chatroom attendance, posting articles, hosting conferences and rapid follow-up.

These 15 concepts are probably the reason that many start-up guerrillas now run highly successful companies. They are the cornerstone of guerrilla marketing, now the most popular marketing series in history, published in 37 languages, and required reading in many MBA programs worldwide. Just 15 words, but each one nuclear-powered and capable of propelling you into the land of your dreams.

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Top 10 Guerrilla Marketing Myths (by Jay Conrad Levinson)

The path to entrepreneurial success is mined with booby traps disguised as words of wisdom. Guerrillas can distinguish the facts from the fables.

There are many marketing myths that ought to be tucked away where you keep the collected works of the Brothers Grimm, Aesop and Mother Goose. They may be fun to read, but they are disastrous to any marketing campaign. Heaven help us, there are hundreds of these myths circulating, but we'll deal only with ten of them here because if I wrote about all of them, your computer would probably crash while laughing in disbelief.

Myth: It's good to have a lot of white space in advertisements, brochures, and other printed material.

Truth: Your prospects and customers care a whole lot more about information than blank space. They want to know what your offering can do for them, not that you can afford to run a lot of white space. Usually white space substitutes for powerful ideas, a list of benefits and a fertile imagination. Attention should be drawn by substance, not emptiness. Yes, white space is aesthetically pleasing, but profits are even more delightful.

Myth: Use short copy because people just won't read long copy.

Truth: People real long books, long articles and long letters. They read whatever interests them, and the more they're interested, the more they'll read. If you give people more data than they need, they'll either buy from you or they won't buy. If you give them less, they won't buy -- period. Studies show that readership of marketing materials falls off dramatically after the first 50 words, but stays high from 50 words to 500 words. That means your non-prospects will turn the page in a hurry, but your prospects will read hang on to every word, trying to learn as much as they can.

Myth: It is costly to purchase television time.

Truth: This myth was once the truth, but cable and satellite TV have obliterated it. The cost to run a prime time commercial in any major market in the U.S. is now $20 or less, often as low as $5. Better still, cable TV allows you to cherry-pick where your commercials will run so that they air only in communities where your prospects live. You can advertise on CNN, MTV, ESPN, A?, The Discovery Channel -- any satellite-delivered programming. And cable companies will produce your spot for a cost near $1000, a far cry from the $197,000 average spent on production in l996.

Myth: Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Truth: The idea is to sell the solution, not the sizzle. The easiest way to sell anything is to position it as the solution to a problem. If you look for the sizzle and not the problem, you're looking in the wrong direction. Your prospects might appreciate the sizzle, but they'll write a check for the solution. Your job is to spot the problem then offer your product or service as the solution. If you think solutions, you'll market solutions. If you think sizzle, you'll sell sizzle. You'll find that the path of least resistance to the sale leads right through the problem to the solution.

Myth: Truly great marketing works instantly.

Truth: First-rate sales work instantly. Great limited-time offers work instantly. But great marketing is not made up of sales and limited-time offers alone. These will attract customers, but they won't be loyal and they'll be won by whoever offers the lowest price. Great marketing is made up of creating a desire for your offering in the minds of qualified prospects, then peppering your offers with sales and limited-time offers. But a program of fast-buck marketing usually leads to oblivion. The best marketing in America took a long time to establish itself. Just ask the Marlboro man. Or the Green Giant. Or that lonely Maytag repairman. None of that marketing worked instantly, but it has worked for decades and still does.

Myth: Marketing should entertain and amuse.

Truth: Show business should entertain and amuse. But marketing should sell your offering. This widespread myth is based upon studies that show people like marketing that entertains. They like it but they sure don't respond to it. Alas, the marketing community nurtures this myth by presenting awards based upon glitz and glitter, humor and originality, special effects and killer jingles. Those awards should be given for profit increases and nothing else. The only thing that should glitter should be your bottom line.

Myth: Marketing should be change regularly to keep it fresh and new.

Truth: The longer that solid marketing promotes a product or service, the better. Guerrillas create marketing plans that can guide their efforts for five or ten years, even longer. How long have people been in good hands with Allstate? How long have Rice Krispies snapped, crackled and popped? Do you think these marketers would be more successful if they kept changing the marketing around to keep it fresh? I think not.

Myth: Marketing is successful if it is memorable. 

Truth: Marketing is successful if it moves your product or service at a profit. Memorability has nothing to do with it. Whether people like it or not has nothing to do with it. Studies continue to prove that there is no relationship between remembering your marketing and buying your offering. All that matters is if people are motivated to make a purchase. So don't aim for memorability as much as desirability because that leads to profitability.

Myth: Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.

Truth: Bad publicity is bad for your business. No publicity is a lot healthier for you. People just love to gossip, especially about businesses that have done something so awful that the media exposes it. Guerrillas love publicity but avoid bad publicity because they know it spreads faster than wildfire.

Myth: All that really counts is earning a honest profit.

Truth: Good taste and sensitivity also count. Marketing, as part of mass communications, is part of the evolutionary process. It educates, informs, announces, enlightens and influences human behavior. Because it does, it has an obligation to offend nobody, to present its material with taste and decency, to be honest and to benefit customers. If it does that and earns profits too, it is true guerrilla marketing.

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