Guerrilla marketing is a bit of a broad term… but for general understanding, it basically means any form of lead generation and brand building that is a) low cost, and b) unconventional.

These are the ideas that require ingenuity and time, but not necessarily huge budgets or “official” marketing channels.

These “guerrilla” campaigns get people talking, and that’s half the point – by being unconventional, these clever marketers do something unexpected…

And that means standing out among the crowd.

There’s a lot of noise out there, and most of it comes from all the traditional marketing and advertising channels we’ve trained ourselves to ignore.

This style of marketing actually takes the message back to the people. Guerrilla marketing can be interactive, community focused, service-oriented (instead of only sales-oriented), and above all… engaging and entertaining for the prospect.

The options are endless when it comes to this style of reaching out to people… the most important part is to be creative and sincere.

Here are six examples of guerrilla marketing from the real world:

1. Think Tank

“Last year, I invited members of a local school counseling department to sit down and tell me what they need when it comes to mental health services in the community for their students.

I asked, simply, ‘How can we best help you to help your students?’ At first, they didn’t know what to say, thinking I brought them there just to tell them what we had to offer.

After that, they opened up for over an hour and told us exactly what was lacking with regard to referral resources for their students. They walked away knowing that we were going to fill in some of those gaps, and (more importantly) that we are a place they can approach when they need something more.

We walked away with a deeper referral partnership, which resulted in many referrals last year. We’ll check in with them again this year to see what has changed and to remind them we are still here to help.

All it cost was the time it took to tell them we cared, and to ask, ‘How can we help you?’”

Deb Legge PhD, CRC, LMHC,
Influential Therapist
Twitter: @VideoTherapist

2. Sneaky Handouts

“The most successful tool has definitely been spreading the cards everywhere I go… My latest campaign involves NYC’s new Citibike Bike Sharing Program.

I printed a batch of Cheek’d cards that read, ‘my bike likes your bike,’ and I’ve strategically placed them on the baskets of as many bikes as I could.

I’m getting tons of hits from the codes on those cards – it’s working as planned and driving traffic to my website.”

Lori Cheek
Cheek’d
Twitter: @Cheekd

3. Frequenting Local Businesses

“Building relationships is the key to small business. Spending five to ten hours in the marketplace each week builds incremental sales, and a brand recognition for the business.

Spending time in the marketplace is different depending on the business. For restaurants, it means taking a map and carving up the 1 to 3 mile radius around the restaurant into 20 or 30 segments.

It will take a month or two for the business owner to reach these potential customers: businesses, homeowners’ associations, apartment building managers, school principals – are all contacts to be made.

Results for restaurants equal consistent 8 to 10% incremental sales growth year over year as the business grows. Why?

Most competitors don’t take the time to do this and rely on paid advertising.”

Jay Bandy
Goliath Consulting
Twitter: @goliathgroup

4. Community Involvement

“Our best guerrilla marketing idea is a tad boring but it works – volunteer to lead a committee or project with the chamber or other business group, or at least be part of the committee.

Just going to the monthly luncheon to sit at a round table, hear a speaker, eat the chicken, and leave doesn’t do much, but digging in with a smaller group where you really get to know people almost always leads to something good.

Here’s the kicker though. Never do good works with the intention of getting something out of it. Do it because it needs to be done. There is a principle of giving that just returns good when good is done unselfishly.”

Charles Gainnie
W.L. Gaiennie Company
Twitter: @wlgaiennie

5. Join Forces

“Topcor is a handbag accessory manufacturer, so it was a natural to partner with a company that creates purses. By cross-promoting our brands – Laga Handbags and Clipa handbag hangers – we were able to leverage both fan bases by simply swapping product with each other.

We offered contests and giveaways on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. We even exhibited at tradeshows together and shared booth space, which extended the time buyers spent in our booth.”

Trish Sweeney
Clipa
Twitter: @theclipa

6. The Press

“Our number one guerrilla marketing tip is to court reporters and bloggers, which can yield great results and save you money in terms of marketing and advertising.

There’s no need to overpay for SEO and advertising services if you can get your company’s name into print or online news articles by providing quality information and content to journalists.

That’s free advertising that you cannot buy or find anywhere else. All it takes is a little bit of your time to offer your opinions or stories to get your company’s name out into the open.

If you get published, there are huge SEO benefits that can come your way. Furthermore, anything you can gain from marketing and advertising snowballs from there without any further action from you.”

Ian Aronovich
GovernmentAuctions.org
Twitter: @govtauctions

As you can see, there’s no shortage of potential avenues for getting your company’s name out there… and more importantly, forming a connection with prospects.

In your corner,

Charlie

P.S. For more tips and tactics to engage with your customers, leads, and prospects, check out the Predictable Profits Insiders’ Club!