Graham McGregor: The magic of Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing focuses on low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results. Photo / 123RF

COMMENT: Guerrilla Marketing is a term that was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book Guerrilla Advertising.

Guerrilla Marketing focuses on low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results.

The good news about Guerilla Marketing is that there are hundreds of different ways to use it.

Here are six examples of Guerrilla Marketing to get you thinking:

1. Have a memorable business name

Daniel Feiman is the managing director of a business consulting firm that used to be called Diversified Solutions & Finance. Daniel changed his business name to Build It Backwards and the results were immediate.

His name recognition shot through the roof; and suddenly, conversations were about what his business did and how they did it.

Business opportunities increased dramatically. People on airplanes ask Daniel what his shirt means as it his his company logo and website address on it.

Look at your own business name.

Does it reflect what you do?

Is it memorable?

Does it make people ask you …anything to engage in a meaningful conversation?

Conversations lead to possibilities which lead to prospects which lead to business

Daniel shared a good example of another business with a memorable name: CFO4Rent.

This is his friend & colleague, Gene Siciliano who does exactly what his name implies.

2. Use free video to give added value

Paul Copcutt is a Personal Brand Consultant. He use free video tools like Vidyard to record reviews of peoples LinkedIn profiles to point out areas where they could communicate their personal brands better and stand out on the platform.

This works well with people when he makes a new connection and has directly generated $20-30,000 per year in LinkedIn consulting fees for Paul.

Paul has discovered that video is an effective medium to convey a message, explain something or make an emotional connection.

Businesses could use the video tool that Paul mentions to film a quick new customer welcome, show instructions, introduce a new team member or account manager etc.

3. Send a helpful resource to a key centre of influence

In the last month I've had two business owners ask me if they could send me a copy of a business book they had written. (Both people were called Robert.) Robert Gerrish is the author of the One Minute Commute and Robert Lingard is the author of Sabotage & Subversion-the 10 principles of Business Guerrilla.

These two business books had some useful information that I found interesting and here I am talking about both authors to my NZ Herald readers.

What useful resource could you send to a potential key centre of influence for your business?

4. Use the network of another business

This is a terrific Guerilla Marketing strategy to use.

A while ago I created several marketing programmes to help real estate sales people improve their sales results.

My problem was that I knew very few real estate sales people.

So I contacted a real estate trainer who already had a great database of existing real estate clients.

I made this real estate trainer an attractive offer where we could sell my marketing programmes to his clients and we would split the revenues from sales.

We sold tens of thousands of dollars of my marketing programmes by using some simple emails combined with easy to read sales pages on our websites.

In this case I just tapped into the network of another business who already had the types of customers that I was looking for.

Which business networks could you tap into to grow your own sales?

5. Use stickers that attract attention

Dylan Gallagher owns a tour company in San Francisco called Orange Sky Adventures.

They do tours of Yosemite, Coachella and beyond. A Guerrilla Marketing strategy they use is stickers. They hand them out to their guests at the end of each tour, and like magic, they appear everywhere - on water bottles, laptops, parking meters and in front of San Francisco hostels.

Then, when a potential customer sees our stickers - they Google his company, see their social proof of over 100+ five-star reviews, and they make the sale.

Other business can use this method by figuring out who their customers are and getting their brand stickers in front of where they hang out.

6. Give away a useful digital resource that other people will share for you

A few days ago I was helping an elderly relative to fold their washing. And we both complained about how hard it was to fold a fitted sheet and make it look good.

So out of interest I did a Google search on how to fold a fitted sheet.

To my surprise the first video I saw on folding a fitted sheet has now been watched by over 19 million people.

This video was uploaded to YouTube nine years ago by a lady who has a business called Living on A Dime which is all about frugal living.

For a tiny investment of time to create this short video this business owner has had positive exposure to over 19 million people.

What a great example of Guerrilla Marketing!

In this column I only have space to mention a handful of Guerrilla Marketing straegies. (And there are over 237 more that I could give you.)

If you would like more detailed 'how to' information on how to use guerrilla marketing in your own business just send me an email.

(My email address is at the top of this column.)

"When you can do a common thing in an uncommon way; you will command the attention of the world." - George Washington Carver

Action Exercise:

How will you use guerrilla marketing in your own business this month?

- Graham McGregor is The Added Value Marketing Expert™. Register at his website www.addedvaluemarketing.com and Graham will give you a free copy of his brand new free guide 'Easy Sales with Added Value Marketing'. (This guide contains ten time tested strategies that any business can use right now to create easy sales and delighted clients and is with Graham's compliments.)