Image via Brogan and Partners
Cutting through the noise in a world filled with marketing messages can be challenging for your business. Guerrilla marketing is one strategy for your brand to break the power structure by doing things a little differently.
We often hear the term “guerrilla marketing” being thrown around these days. It is being used to define a wide range of marketing efforts. But what exactly is guerrilla marketing?
Guerrilla Marketing is a marketing approach that tries to achieve organizational goals while employing low-cost, unusual, innovative, and fascinating tactics. Additionally, guerrilla marketing is used when a fresh startup employs an underground marketing approach to achieve success and surprise the business world.
Image via Start Business
The goals of guerrilla marketing are pretty simple: utilize unusual strategies to promote your brand on a low budget. Forget about newspaper, TV, and radio commercials; think outside the box.
History of Guerrilla Marketing
Here is a brief history of how guerrilla marketing fits in.
In early times, marketing was primarily about large-budget promotions with large sums paid to advertisers. The primary function of advertisements was, for the most part, to educate the target clients in a reasonably non-creative manner.
At this time, the primary goal of an advertisement was to teach people something they were completely unaware of. It didn’t matter what medium it was, whether it was television, newspaper, radio, or posters; the ad was always trying to teach the customer something new.
Over time, advertisers observed that their marketing strategies were becoming less effective. Customers were also tired of being advertised to, and businesses struggled to create an impression on them. So, by now, everything in the advertising world had shifted.
In 1984, the worldview started to shift when marketer Jay Conrad Levinson coined Guerrilla Marketing. Jay Conrad’s ideas for achieving massive advertising results with little money had hit the book stores.
Image via Francisco Torreblanca
Jay Conrad Levinson previously worked as the Senior Vice-President of James Walter Thompson and as the Creative Director and Board Member of Leo Burnett Advertising. Levinson’s book presents new approaches to and counter-attacks on traditional types of advertising.
His book Guerrilla Marketing popularized the concept of more subtle marketing. Even Levinson, the author, couldn’t have imagined how much his ideas would influence tiny businesses at the time to follow his statements after the book was published.
According to Levinson, your campaigns must be surprising, one-of-a-kind, outrageous, and creative. In addition, it must create a buzz.
It all comes down to adopting unique advertising methods for the least money. The concept usually removes radio and television commercials, forcing you to think outside the box. Do you see what we’re getting at here? Consider the “box” to be your campaign: make it crazy, outrageous, shocking, witty, distinctive, and so creative that people can’t get enough of it. Then, of course, you’ll need to back up your claims and offer a product that’s worthy of all that attention.
The concepts that small business owners gained from his book completely changed how they played the advertising game. Small businesses were able to attract more attention than the big dogs for the first time. This marketing strategy continues to develop and grow organically.
Guerrilla marketing is another developing marketing technique proven to be a practical approach to a successful marketing strategy. We can’t simply overlook the value of attracting clients’ attention because this defines the success of your business. To achieve this, we have to employ the most innovative methods possible.
Willing to take a risk on using guerrilla marketing as a strategy? Check out our blog post on the 12 Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns to Inspire Your Brand.
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