Guerrilla Marketing Tactics For Entrepreneurs

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla Marketing is marketing and advertising tactics that do not cost a lot of money, but can get out an effective campaign about your service or product. This is usually low cost or free. It is called Guerrilla tactics because you are pretty much outmaneuvering traditional and costly methods of advertising. Basically you will be able to run circles around any advertising agency when you have this down and implement all the tools you need to become a pro Guerrilla Marketer.

Instead of using traditional methods such as paying for a TV or radio ad, or putting an ad in the newspaper that can run in the thousands, Guerrilla Marketing tactics are simple, cheap and effective. Not to mention sheer genius.

When you can get someone to advertise for you and they act as if you are doing THEM a favor to advertise your product, company or service, then you have run an effective Guerrilla marketing campaign.  It is true that people WILL thank you for helping them advertise YOUR business!

What are some Guerrilla Marketing examples?

We are going to run through a few examples of this form of advertising so you get the general idea. This is basically how you run a Guerrilla Marketing campaign in your local area, city or town. I have read articles, books, private calls, business coaching and attended seminars where i have heard this information so I will be sharing from my memory what I have learned over the years.

--Free Newspaper or Magazine Advertisement

--Free radio spots on all the hottest stations in the area, or even in the US

--Free hand delivered ads given directly to people with most spending power within a given community

--Next to free billboard ads

--Business to Business Cross Promotions

In the next section I will give you examples on how to utilize the first two of these methods to increase the revenue of your business.  In a subsequent article, I will outline the last three methods.  Let's get started!

The following methods will astound you if you have never heard of this form of advertisement for you service or business. Prepare yourself for an eye opening lesson in Guerrilla Marketing warfare.

--Free Newspaper or Magazine Advertisement

The Review...

If you have a product or book that you want to advertise, the best way is to get a newspaper or magazine to review your product or book. So in other words, say you have a book that you want people to buy and read. You send your book to a magazine that specializes in your topic. Say you are a fisherman and you wrote the best guide to catching a walleye pike or a sockeye salmon and you want people to read it. You choose a magazine, such as Field & Stream and send an autographed copy of the book to them, asking to review it and write up in their magazine what they think.

Or you have invented the hottest new baby toy out there that will increase learning development among the 0-2 year old set. You send one of your toys to your favorite parenting or baby magazine and ask them to review it.

What if you are the hottest vintner in the area and your new Zinfandel just can't be beat? You want to attract local customers to your winery by sending a complimentary bottle of wine to the local food critic in your newspaper, or to the Fine Dining Guide writer or recipe section editor of the newspaper. Ask for a review of your wine in their paper.

Many times writers and editors are looking for products to review and also for articles to write. So when you send your book or product in to the newspaper, you are helping them do their job better while helping yourself to more sales!

The Interview...

What if you don't have a book or a product? What if you offer a service such as massage or hypnosis? Let the newspaper or magazine you are writing to know that you are available to be interviewed and explicitly state why YOU are the best at what you do and also how you do things differently than your average massage therapist or hypnotherapist.

There are two ways to go about this method of attracting clients.

The first method is to get the Lifestyle editor of your local newspaper to come receive a complimentary massage at your location and then review it in his or her article OR they can come get a massage then interview you as a human interest piece.

The other method is to hire a new freelance writer, such as a fresh college graduate eager for work. Locate this person through your local college or even craigslist. Have them conduct the interview (you are more than okay if you tell them the questions to ask), have them write the article and then they will submit this to the local newspaper using the writer's guidelines and rules of that newspaper. They will get paid for their first article and you will have free advertising! It only cost you a little bit of time!

--Free radio spots

How would you like to have your new product featured on all the hottest radio stations in the area, or even throughout the US?

What if you had a new product or book or service that will help people and you want it to launch huge, right now? Well if you have a website that you want to promote where you sell this book or product or advertise this service, this is a great idea.

It will cost you a little bit of money, but it will be worth it. In a word, the secret is T-Shirts.

You put your website on a hot designed T-Shirt with cool artwork on it (you want people to wear it!). If you cannot come up with an insanely cool graphic design yourself, again, call the local college and find a recent grad in the graphic art design school who can't wait to design your shirt for next to nothing! Offer this person like $50-100 and allow their signature and website to appear on the shirt somewhere, like hidden in the design itself.

So here is the scenario: You invented a cool necklace that will save mankind from DNA damage caused by gamma ray exposure. (let's just pretend you did for the example's sake). You get a T-Shirt with a smiling dragon wearing your necklace that says Gamma Rays Won't Get Me, www.gammarays.com. If the shirt is black with white graphics and writing, or something really amazing that stands out in a crowd, people will want this T-Shirt.

Buy these shirts in bulk, over 100 at a time, and call ALL the radio stations in the area, saying that you are giving away free T-Shirts to promote your business. Every time you send in 10 T-Shirts, the DJ will mention your name, business website or 800 number, gamma ray necklace and also give away your shirt. When the lucky 10th caller wins, he gets to become your walking billboard. He wears the shirt, and you get free gamma ray exposure (lol no pun intended!). This could be 10 free radio promos in a week!

Repeat this process with radio stations all over the US if your business or product is not local specific and pretty soon, you will have a lot more money coming in from your walking billboard T-Shirts!

I hope this has given you some great ideas to get started in your business and marketing efforts. Check out my subsequent article forthcoming to learn more: More Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Entrepreneurs --coming soon!

Have a blessed day,

Mermaid Girl