It is now time to be unconventional and bold so you can get your brand out there with style and impact. Start applying your thinking and risk-taking creativity into your everyday environment … then get ready to make a marketing splash! One can achieve exceptional results on a restricted budget. I don’t want to waste time by talking about conventional methods and the big costs attached to it. Let’s rather focus on a new beginning and what we need to do to get those results through a strategy called Guerrilla Marketing.
Here are some of the key elements that will assist you in creating your ‘Guerrilla Strategy’. Remember, big results with a limited budget are the key to an effective on-going campaign.
1. Be controversial:
Go straight to the heart of a controversial industry topic, define your stance and defend your perspective. Participate in some healthy discussion and listen to opposing viewpoints in order to take full advantage of this strategy. Get your business known in unusual ways, change the status quo, walk on the wrong side of the road. Just be different and stand out.
2. Give it away for free:
Give away your product or a service in order to benefit from increased referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. For example, you can have a weekly Facebook competition, and in this way determine the recipients of your give-aways. Then announce the winners with photos.
3. Follow-up aggressively:
Don’t be afraid of annoying your prospective clients. If you don’t follow-up aggressively you will lose out on opportunities. Daily follow-ups are vital to building your top line. In the process, adopt the attitude of not taking no for an answer. Just keep going and eventually your prospect will respect your tenacity and do business with you.
4. Throw a networking party:
Hosting a party is one of the best ways to network. So consider throwing an end-of-year party, autumn party, mid-winter specials party etc. and invite clients and prospects to mingle and get to know one another. As the common denominator at the event, you and your business will likely be the focus of conversation.
5. Do something wild:
Do something your community has never seen before. You want your promotional event to attract many customers and potential customers. Send out a press release and attract the media. Who knows, you might even get on the front page!
Jay Conrad Levinson identified the following principles as the foundation of Guerrilla Marketing:
- Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy and imagination.
- The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profit, not sales.Concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
- Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many products and services.
- Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals and more transactions with existing customers and larger transactions.