Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla Marketing is a form of marketing through which consumers are targeted in places where they least expect.  The term guerilla is taken from “guerilla warfare” which is characterized by unexpected attacks and ambushes when and where the enemy least expects it.   *-In the marketing world, guerilla marketing is one of the most creative ways to advertise products and services.  There are many different ways one can use guerilla marketing on numerous platforms; I am surprised more companies have not caught on.  People remember things that surprise them and make them feel out of place.  Guerilla marketing is demonstrated on the streets targeting high concentrations of pedestrian traffic, roads and highways in highly trafficked locations, and even online; but all guerilla marketing locations appear  where people do not expect to be marketed to. Guerilla marketing is not meant to sell, just to spark a thought or idea that can lead one to want to buy.  Like our COO Duran Inci always says “Nobody likes to be sold, but everyone likes to buy.”

The term Guerilla Marketing stemmed from Jay Conrad Levinson’s 1984 book simply titled Guerilla Marketing.   The book contains hundreds of guerilla marketing methods and techniques, but also encourages marketers to get creative and come up with their own strategies as well.  The book emphasizes free and inexpensive forms of publicity.

Guerilla marketing can present itself in many unique ways.  One of my favorite guerrilla marketing techniques was right before the most recent Batman movie (The Dark Knight) came out; I saw an airplane skywrite the bat sign in the middle of the day.  Its Guerilla advertising at its best; it makes an indelible impression on you because it’s unique, highly visible and completely unexpected; sort of shock value.  Guerilla marketing can take place in shopping malls, overt images or posters or promotions, super markets, theme parks, or anywhere where there will be a large number of people.  All different types of companies in many industries take this marketing strategy into action; Cell phone companies, tech industry leaders, movie/production companies. Food and beverage distributors might be the industry that takes the most advantage of guerilla marketing.  How many times can you recall getting offered a free sample of something for free!  Free is unexpected, which is why it is a great strategy in guerilla marketing.  Red Bull is one of the best examples of this.  Many times I was on campus in college, at the beach, gym, or someplace where people would need energy and the Red Bull team would be there handing out free samples.  Here are some more good examples of guerilla marketing:

Online, guerilla marketing is seen on many popular sites that we frequently visit.  Most are in the form of pop-up ads, surveys and special offers.  Sometimes these examples can cross the line into spam territory, so if you’re thinking about going this direction, be careful because you could be labeled as a spammer.  The first time you saw an unexpected ad while checking your email; that’s guerilla marketing!  When you see advertisements geared directly toward your interest on Facebook; that is also considered guerilla marketing.  Digg.com is now doing pay per Digg advertisements; when I first noticed it, I thought it was another great form of online guerilla marketing.  People usually don’t expect to see Digg submissions that are purely meant for the sales of products and services … usually advertisers get banned for that.

How can we use guerilla marketing online?  Like I said before, it takes some creativity.  Some ways that we use guerilla marketing online is through social media and networking sites.  Let us take Twitter for example.  If we build a twitter account and establish a large number of followers, we have a great platform to start guerilla marketing.  You don’t want to just push your products or services overtly, you have to take a personal approach, gain credibility with your followers, and then the last step would be to throw in an unexpected plug for your business.  Start off by making personal connections with your followers.  Comment on their blogs, re-tweet their tweets, make @replies that respond to whatever they are tweeting about, and never stop following new people.  Throw in some personal tweets of your own, and maybe a cool news story or two that you find interesting.  This way, you gain “twitter-cred” and won’t seem like a spammer.  When the time is right and you have a strong standing in your online social network, you can gain a lot of positive results by tweeting your own content, products, or services.  Your followers don’t expect you to market to them; they have some trust in you, so when they click on your ads they are more inclined to follow through.

The same approach can be used for Digg.com, just instead of tweets; you apply this process to Digg submissions.  The most important thing in these two sites is to create a very credible profile that provides a number of things.  You can’t only be a resource for your own content, products, and services, but a resource for news, jokes, quotes, and other information that you may think y our friends/followers might desire.  This is my favorite way to guerilla market online, what’s yours?

What is considered guerilla marketing one day may become the norm and therefore, by definition is no longer guerilla marketing.  Guerilla marketing is when we are caught off guard; if we come to expect something and it becomes a trend then the essence of guerilla is absent.

Do you have a guerilla marketing idea?  Do you need help to actually develop and implement the idea?  Contact us and we will be happy to help.