Great advice from the old Guerilla marketer
Sometimes people ask my opinion on stuff. I know, I know. Like, last week, one of our dealers asked what I thought about investing in radio advertising. Hmmm I thought about it for a moment then I remembered reading a really good book called Guerilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business by Jay Levinson. This was a best selling business book way back and is a great reference if you’re looking for some marketing guidance. Here are some quotes from the Amazon page where you can order the book:
What Is Guerrilla Marketing Today?
Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. Every bit of contact. That means a lot of marketing opportunities. It does not mean investing a lot of money. The meaning is clear: Marketing includes the name of your business; the determination of whether you will be selling a product or a service; the method of manufacture or servicing; the color, size, and shape of your product; the packaging; the location of your business; the advertising, public relations, Web site, branding, email signature, voicemail message on your machine, and sales presentation; the telephone inquiries; the sales training; the problem solving; the growth plan and the referral plan; and the people who represent you, you, and your follow-up. Marketing includes your idea for your brand, your service, your attitude, and the passion you bring to your business. If you gather from this that marketing is a complex process, you’re right.
Marketing is the art of getting people to change their minds — or to maintain their mindsets if they’re already inclined to do business with you. People must either switch brands or purchase a type of product or service that has never existed before. That’s asking a lot of them. Every little thing you do and show and say — not only your advertising or your Web site — is going to affect people’s perceptions of you.
Traditional marketing has always been “me” marketing. Visit almost any website, and you’ll see “About our company.” “About our history.” “About our product.” “About our management.” But people don’t care about you. Me marketing makes them sleepy. That’s why guerrillas always practice “you” marketing, in which every word and every idea is about the customer, the visitor to a Web site. Don’t take this personally, but people simply do not care about your company. What they care about is themselves. And if you can talk to them about themselves, you’ll have their full attention.
Traditional marketing would have you believe that advertising works, that having a Website works, that direct mail and e-mail work. To those antiquated notions, guerrilla marketing says nonsense, nonsense, and nonsense. Advertising doesn’t work. Not anymore it doesn’t. Web sites? Get serious. People learn daily that they are paths to financial oblivion and shattered dreams. Direct mail and e-mail used to work. But not anymore. So what does work? Guerrillas know that marketing combinations work. If you run a series of ads, have a Website, and then do a direct mailing or an e- mailing, they’ll all work, and they’ll each help the others work. The days of single-weapon marketing have been relegated to the past. We’re living in an era when marketing combinations open the doors to marketing success. I know a small retailer who runs small ads and short radio spots — all directing people to his Web site. That Web site motivates people to visit his showroom, where he sells his $3,000 beds briskly, effortlessly, and profitably. The ads and spots, combined with his Web site, are the marketing combination that brings home the bacon for him.
Traditional marketing is, for the most part, unintentional. Although it embraces the big guns of marketing — radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and Web sites — it tends to ignore the little details, such as how your phone is answered, the décor of your office, the attire worn by your employees. Guerrilla marketing is always intentional. It pays close attention to all the details of contact with the outside world, ignoring nothing and realizing the stunning importance of those tiny but supercharged details.
To read more excerpts on this just click HERE.
