Part One: Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla Marketing is an essential part of any advertisers plan of attack; be it on online only business or a company looking to establish it’s brand into the virtual space, Guerrilla Marketing cannot be ignored. In the first installment of this series, I spoke about defining a advertising budget and briefly outlined a few aspects of marketing that I believe are proven and mainstream. The first of which is Guerrilla Marketing techniques.
For anyone that needs a definition of Guerrilla Marketing, simply look to YouTube for examples. In my previous blog entry, I mention how companies such as Old Spice understands the value of viral marketing, (in this case, in a video format), and is considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing.
Guerrilla Marketing is often times relatively free if you’re willing to do the ground work yourself. As marketers, it’s your job to spread the word about the company you own, or work for. As such, taking advantage of free measures such as YouTube and Blog entries (eh hem), is powerful because it not only shows that it’s possible to create something out of nothing, but that the traditional model of marketing doesn’t always need to be pursued in order to be noticed. Why pay thousands of dollars on commercial and TV placements when you’ve got YouTube? (Admittedly, this is a bit of a gross generalization, but the point still stands). For those looking for an official definition of Guerrilla Marketing:
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 value of this can be immense if properly put together. Outside of the typical viral marketing video, however, are some other efforts that can be utilized. These include:
Internet Forums – Being an active part of a community which you seek to serve is often times a great way to earn recognition. Establishing yourself as an expert (without resorting to putting your fingers in your ears or saying ‘Told ya so!’) can be a great way to earn trust in a community that is seeking advice on topics that you may know more about than the average person. Tailoring your forum persona and profile are critical in this step. Also, this is a great way to build in-bound links in the SEO aspect of Guerrilla marketing.
Blog Posts – It’s not exactly news that fresh content is what’s best when considering natural rankings in Google. Natural ranking improvements, often referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can be considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing; it doesn’t cost anything (if you know what you’re doing) to implement, and writing a paragraph or two a day (or if you can’t learn to shorten your entries, like myself, a daily thesis would work) is a great way to push the idea that you know what you’re doing, but also a great way to show up in search results naturally. Typically, my blog posts, when searched by Google by the title, are indexed and ranked in 2 minutes. That’s power.Advice to Business Owners on Guerrilla Marketing techniques: I’m not an expert, and the best thing you can do to capitalize on this phenomenon is to educate yourselves. Find out what makes your niche tick. Chances are, you alreayd have this information cached somewhere in the back of your brain and don’t realize it. Once you dig that up, you can begin to understand what it is you would need to do to effectively implement a Guerrilla Marketing scenario. And since you’re actively working in a field which the primary audience has something in common with your personality, ask yourself: What would I like to see?Until Next Time,– Chris
