The word “guerrilla marketing” conjures up humorous pictures for me. I have seen professionally-dressed combatants in black coffee, making propaganda posters and tweeting memes via their laptops on satellites.
A bit of a disappointment, however, the guerrilla marketing industry doesn’t have any connection to the freedom fighter profession.
Similar to guerrilla fighters who use unconventional tactics when engaged in guerrilla warfare, marketers using guerrilla tactics employ surprising and innovative strategies to market the product or service they are promoting.
It’s a clever method to get rid of the old and overused traditional methods of marketing that the majority of consumers have a hard time understanding, and to approach things from a different perspective.
This makes it an extremely efficient marketing tool that you’ll want to utilise to enhance your business.
Then, dab a little green paint onto your cheekbones and get deep. In the deepest part of the jungle of marketing guerrilla.
Table of Contents
What is Guerrilla Marketing?
Definition:
Guerrilla marketing is an assortment of tools, strategies and methods to communicate directly with customers and create a lasting and memorable impression.
Like the tools of a referral program and tools, experiential marketing is focused on creating experiences of lasting value that motivate consumers to share and promote the brand. The main objective of guerrilla marketing is to make customers remember the brand’s products in a manner they’re not used to.
It was used by a person who is known as Jay Conrad Levinson. Jay’s 1984 novel Guerrilla Marketing was so successful that it was ranked in Time Magazine as one of the most influential books on business management, with sales of more than 21 million copies. Its influence was so great that it was referred to by many as the most influential business book written. It is now translated into 62 languages around the world.
In Jay Conrad Levinson’s novel, Jay Conrad Levinson outlined a unique but highly effective set of tools for marketing, which are still widely used today. I’ll discuss the strategies and give examples of how you can implement them in the following paragraphs.
Is Guerrilla Marketing effective?
Guerrilla marketing is an extremely effective marketing strategy, particularly for small companies. It’s inexpensive and employs tactical methods like word of mouth, social media, or other forms of marketing, which have been proven time and over again extremely efficient.
Through its subtle, clever and imaginative nature, guerrilla advertising is the perfect method to boost brand recognition as well as brand loyalty and branding exposure.
How much does Guerrilla Marketing cost?
One of the factors that makes the guerrilla marketing strategy so appealing for many businesses is that it is cost-effective. Guerrilla marketing relies on inspiration and creativity rather than monetary investment.
Similar to a guerrilla combat marketing guerrilla must be creative, artistic and creative when it comes to developing effective strategies for marketing guerrilla. In a way, they utilise inexpensive and innovative strategies to not only attract the attention of prospective customers but also to adapt methods of marketing that have been used before to draw in their existing customers.
So, what type of guerrilla advertising can be used to help promote your company?
Types of Guerrilla Marketing
There are numerous methods to practice guerrilla advertising. Based on the budget of your marketing and the overall creativity of your marketing staff, you may want to test one of these varieties of marketing guerrilla.
1. Event Ambush Marketing
Of all the marketing concepts you’ve heard about this one may sound like one of the most bizarre. Be patient. Event ambush marketing draws the attention of a crowd who are currently at an event or in a crowded setting.
It is usually an event in the music industry, a sporting event, or even at the subway station.
Someone in this situation may be unwilling to leave, because they’ve been paid or are so engaged by what’s happening before them that they can’t be left out of the event.
These types of situations provide guerrilla marketers with a special opportunity that they aren’t very often able to get their target audience’s involuntary but undivided focus.
Stella Artois pulled this off in an amazing (and unpopular) campaign during the US Open, where they placed their advertisements around the tournament as if they had been the event’s official sponsors (though they weren’t).
The initial expenses of an ambush event marketing aren’t too expensive. In most cases, an event ambush is not the result of the consent of a sponsor for the event. Thus, it’s an extremely affordable and effective way to market.
Examples of Event Ambush Marketing
- Flash mobs: A flash mob is a group of individuals or performers who, suddenly and usually without warning, can ambush a public space, grab spectators’ attention, then perform for a short time and then disperse quickly.
- Signage strategically placed: If you’re not the event’s sponsor,r isn’t a guarantee that you are able to benefit from crowds of people who are gathered in an area of concentration. The use of signs in the streets around an event could be extremely potent.
2. Astroturfing (Paid Endorsements)
Astroturfing is one of the most controversial and possibly less effective methods of guerrilla marketing. Like astroturf, which is artificial grass that is a copy of the real grass, Astroturf marketing employs fake endorsements in order to create social evidence.
The most well-known type of astroturfing we can see in modern marketing is to create publicity or hype. The most common method of creating hype is through blogs or online forums, or even at an office.
One of the best examples is McDonald’s admitting that they compensated approximately 1,000 customers. Customers who were compensated stood waiting in line for an extra quarter pound in some of the Japanese establishments, like they couldn’t wait to grab a bite of one of McDonald’s best-known hamburgers.
People are also compensated to write positive reviews or make positive comments about a business’s products or services, frequently on social media in some form.
The majority of reviewers have never purchased or used the services of this business; they’re simply leaving reviews that can convince other people to pay money through the astroturfing company. If you’re operating review outreach ethically, you’ll need to tidy your contacts first. Using an email searcher to locate accurate contacts prior to verification can make the process more efficient, and an email verification tool can help to stay clear of the bounce rate, traps for spammers and even harm to your domain’s reputation.
It is vital to understand that Astroturfing has its own significant disadvantages.
If potential customers get wind of this method of marketing, this strategy is likely to cause a bad taste in their mouths, and it could have negative consequences for the company. This could harm their reputation as well as the legitimacy of their services and products, or even cause legal actions.
Why should a company take on everything?
Since astroturfing isn’t just very cost-effective but can also be extremely efficient by reducing traditional marketing strategies and expenses. This is often a risk of harming a company’s image very appealing to certain companies.
Examples of Astroturfing Marketing
- Influencer marketers: Using influencer marketers can be an effective method of exposing the product you sell to a huge audience. Influencers, as a matter of fact, are astroturfing their followers by advertising a product they believe they like and trust, while getting paid to endorse it.
- Affiliate marketers utilising affiliate marketing is another excellent example of the use of astroturfing. Popular bloggers, YouTube stars, etc., endorse a product or service to their followers, and in return, get the proceeds of sales that are made. It is similar to running a referral program, which rewards you for referring others.
3. Buzz Marketing
Buzz marketing is a form of marketing that goes against the grain of the practice of astroturfing. It draws endorsements from genuine sources, especially from prominent individuals or celebrities, and utilises this to boost the brand’s visibility and visibility.
An adorable and excellent example of buzz marketing is the Tweets of two Starbucks customers. They’ve created a deeply emotional, yet positive and natural experience to their experience with the Starbucks brand. It’s not just about improving Starbucks ‘ image, but also about promoting their products.
In contrast to astroturfing and astroturfing the prominent endorsements and recommendations are delivered naturally and organically, without having to charge for these endorsements or recommendations. Buzz marketing is based on the power of organic and amplified word-of-mouth and the buzz generated around its brand to reinforce its product as an essential purchase.
Buzz marketing can be extremely effective; however, it is often difficult to create since it usually happens without warning or the need. As difficult to attain the buzz marketing method, it’s extremely economical since it typically requires little effort, as it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Examples of Buzz Marketing
- Controversial content – People enjoy the excitement of controversy. Something slightly scandalous is a great topic to discuss. Use this to your advantage and make content that makes people talk.
- Be creative and take a step out of the norm in marketing. Something that is a bit bizarre and unique is another method of getting people talking about your brand. It will aid in encouraging customers to share your posts with their friends.
4. Experiential Marketing
Experienced marketing can be described as an advertising strategy that entices and motivates customers to take part in the success and growth of a company. In contrast to the traditional model of marketing, in which customers are passive consumers in consuming advertisements, the experiential marketing industry holds the conviction that consumers are active participants in marketing campaigns.
Experiential marketers utilise creative marketing to stimulate the co-creation of a campaign to aid customers in developing an emotional bond and establishing a strong relationship with businesses. This creates an advantageously mutually beneficial relationship. The brand can ensure regular business, and the client is able to access items and services that they truly love and believe in.
For instance, at the FIFA World Cup in Zurich, Coca-Cola set up a VR experience for spectators to play a game of soccer. Although the idea of a VR experience like this isn’t available to all marketing professionals, it’s an excellent example of how brands could make their customers feel more involved in their company in a fun and engaging way.
The cost of experiential marketing could be as low or as expensive as the business wants to do it. Everything from as low as a gathering led by a group of volunteers to as lavish as a soaring and unforgettable experience like an industry-themed celebration.
Examples of Experiential Marketing
- Take a step out of your comfort zone: If your business revolves around something controversial and difficult to talk about, why not design an event that sparks conversations?
- Gamify your product: Why not bring a sense of excitement into the lives of people and make it a part of your brand? Let your customers have the chance to compete and play for something, while giving them a sense and an emotional connection to your product.
5. Grassroots Marketing
The grassroots approach to marketing is among the guerrilla marketing strategies that are particularly beneficial for small companies. Instead of spending a lot on expensive advertising campaigns, companies can interact with their audience via the same path or with an agreed-upon vision.
Nooma sporting drinks is an excellent example of marketing that is grassroots. Jared and Brandon, two brothers from Cleveland, have launched their brand by leveraging the health-conscious athlete’s needs for a healthier beverage that is also helping to support the local sporting events that are in their region.
A guerrilla campaign for the grassroots typically has a limited client base, hoping that the group can spread the message of a company or mission to a greater group of people.
The Grassroots Marketing approach often uses less traditional, innovative, unconventional, and imaginative marketing strategies. It is typically less expensive than traditional marketing strategies while being able to deliver large-scale outcomes.
Examples of Grassroots Marketing
- Employing emotional marketing to leverage the emotions of people is among the most effective methods of engaging them to spread the message of your company and its products.
- Donate to a worthy cause. The perception of being the person to be trusted can dramatically change how the public perceives your business. A desire to support an ideal cause could provide grassroots causes with a huge boost in popularity.
6. Stealth Marketing
Stealth Marketing is an espionage campaign that targets customers with clever and innovative strategies for marketing strategies. Most often, this kind of marketing promotes a product or service without the person even realising that they’re being targeted.
There are a variety of tactics employed by stealth marketers, one of the most popular being placing products in the market and using undercover marketing. Like the one used by FedEx, as seen in Tom Hanks’ very popular film ,Castaway.
The purpose f stealth marketing isn’t to create immediate revenue or sales, but rather to generate awareness, excitement, and enthusiasm for the brand and its products. This strategy of advertising will result in consumers becoming more inclined to receive direct advertisements in the future.
This is an inexpensive marketing strategy that is very beneficial to a company.
When implementing a guerrilla marketing campaign, like stealth marketing, marketers are able to eliminate frequent and expensive marketing campaigns and concentrate on more cost-effective strategies, such as placing products.
Examples of Stealth Marketing
- Product placement is the placement of a product that is paid for in a different work. It is usually television or film with a specific purpose for promotion.
- Undercover Marketing: A marketer or an advertiser presents a product to the public in a manner that does not appear like marketing. It’s somewhat unusual and a bit sneaky, but it’s an effective marketing technique.
7. Street Marketing
Street marketing campaigns utilise non-traditional strategies and advertising space to get a higher level of brand awareness and attention from consumers as opposed to traditional ad campaigns.
Street marketing is often found in areas where you might not think to look. People expect to see advertisements on billboards that are hung high in the sky, they anticipate seeing ads on screens that are eye-high when they stroll through city streets;, h however, they rarely find advertisements placed on manhole covers, embedded in street art or printed on street crossings.
Here’s an overview of the way Ghostbusters employed a street marketing technique called guerrilla marketing. They took over Waterloo Railway Station in London with a massive Puff Marshmallow Man, positioned there before the release of a film.
People know to see ads on billboards in the city and other similar places; however, they’re not used to seeing ads in unique and unexpected places.
That’s the entire reason why spotting ads that aren’t expected frequently makes people stop and take note. It might only be only a few seconds, but it’s enough to get them thinking about the company’s product. This usually will result in an eventual sale.
Examples of Street Marketing
- Product placement is old-fashioned, but it’s a great idea: The placement of products, no matter the location, can affect your company. Not just in the immediate future, but also for a longer time to come.
- Undercover marketing: Like product placement, it is a method of introducing an item to the market without appearing like an advertisement. It’s an extremely effective marketing strategy, especially in a way that people aren’t aware of who they’re being targeted by. It’s usually subliminal and goes under the radar, but it’s extremely efficient.
Final Thoughts
Guerrilla marketing is an extremely efficient method of marketing, and when properly implemented, could be a low-cost but effective marketing strategy that your company can use to stand out from its competitors. If you’re interested in implementing these strategies to increase the effectiveness of your business, check out our pricing options to begin your own referral program today.
As with any other good guerrilla fighter, add a few unconventional strategies, throw in a little risk and be ready to be controversial. You’ll be on the path to taking your business to the next stage.
