Guerrilla Marketing – Doing a lot with a little

Posted by Kevin Respress on Oct 2nd, 2009 | 2 comments home title

Jay Levinson, a long-time major ad agency executive, first popularized the term ‘Guerrilla Marketing’ in his 1984 best-selling book of the same name. In the generation since then, the guerrilla marketing label has morphed into a ‘hip’, catch-all banner which dozens of authors and speakers use to encompass marketing for small businesses, as well as various techniques in the digital, viral, and highly imaginative (I.e. alternative) categories.

In 2006, the average American company spent the equivalent of 4% of their revenue on marketing (exclusive of selling expense). Whether you’re spending above or below that level isn’t our issue today. The question is what are you accomplishing? Often, our marketing budgets are spent without much thought, either based on longstanding habits or in response to the most recent ad-selling solicitations and ‘special deals’ that have come our way. This type of ‘unthinking’ marketing is what guerilla marketing hopes to change!

Levinson’s checklist of ‘200 weapons of Guerrilla Marketing’ makes his original book worth owning. For most of us, a lack of vision and hands-on integration regarding marketing – in essence, how we communicate our offerings and brand in a compelling way – is a big stumbling block. Levinson’s 200 weapons are broken down into eight categories, as follows:

Mini-media (e.g. brand identity, stationery, classified ads, circulars, personal letters, yellow pages, elevator pitch, door hangers, canvassing, etc.)
Maxi-media (direct mail, print/radio/TV ads, billboards, etc.)
E-media (website, e-mail/newsletters, forums/webinars, sponsored links, etc.)
Info-media (customer tracking, case studies, seminars, speaking, publishing, brochures, demonstrations, catalogs, directories, etc.)
Human Media (behavior, attire, circles of influence, networking, teaching, training, satisfied customers, A-list customers, affiliates, etc.)
Non-media (gifts, trade shows, PR, community involvement, events, nametags, etc.)
Company Attributes (positioning, name, theme/tag line, brand awareness, operating performance, testimonials, location, buyer convenience policies, etc.)
Company Attitudes (ease to do business with, demeanor, caring attitude, neatness, passion, core values, focus, attention to details, etc.)

Reviewing the list above, it’s clear that we tend to underestimate or squander the number of on-going ‘marketing’ opportunities we have. Most companies tend to focus on fewer than 20 of the 200 marketing weapons. Meanwhile, nearly all of us can benefit from sharpening the weapons that we already use as an on-going part of our marketing toolkit without adding any cost!