31st October, 2020
In todays post I thought I’d write about guerrilla marketing, asking what is guerrilla marketing and when/why companies use it. Those who use guerrilla marketing campaigns rely on bold and in-your-face promotions, the goal is for this content to go viral, reaching a bigger and wider audience for free!
A key part of guerrilla marketing is choosing the right time and place, the right springboard to launch your product, service or message. Please think of guerrilla marketing as a marketing tactic. It is when a company uses the element of surprise to promote themselves, a “shock factor” contributing to its success.
The perfect guerrilla marketing campaign should connect with a consumer, having an impact and leaving a message. The customer should want to share, tell others, revisit or watch again. I’d say guerrilla marketing is about being unconventional and/or being different. So here is the million dollar question; “how can you get people to talk about you or your brand with other potential buyers?”
Types of Guerrilla Marketing
Below looks at the different types of guerrilla marketing campaigns used by companies across the globe. These are several unconventional marketing techniques, designed to catch our attention…
Ambient Marketing
Think about the world around us, a beer mat, a coffee cup, the toilets at a service station… Ambient marketing is all about unusual places and unusual ways to place your ad (not on a bus stop or a billboard). Think different, think message, think impact…
Ambush Marketing
The ROI of brand exposure at a big event, millions of eyes and ears focused on a time and place – who doesn’t want this! That said; as you’d be competing against other “paid advertisers”, please be careful! Many big sporting events will have special laws and trademark infringement policies in place to protect against ambush marketing. You should always think before using official names and/or trademarks. Misleading consumers or using media that is not yours will probably come back to haunt you.
Stealth Marketing
This is when we see brands but don’t see brands, think about the movies (James bond having an Aston Martin and Omega watch) or think about UFC (Proper Twelve and Monster drinks). Stealth marketing is simply product placement in the background.
Viral and buzz Marketing
I guess this stems back to “word of mouth”, an old school marketing technique that is still to this day one of the best! We have to build confidence and support in a brand, getting customers to believe and/or invest in its products or services. To create quality does take time, this means a big investment in product and distribution.
Grassroots Marketing
Why not set out to target a smaller group of people, in the hope that they will spread your message to a much larger audience. This is grassroots marketing, it’s low cost and has big potential. Think about mid-tier influencers on social media, a retweet, a DM or a share could reach many thousands, costing you far less than a few thousand flyers!
Astroturfing
As per the rubbery grassy stuff, this term represents a fake or artificial appearance of support. Did you know the UK has a trading regulation which prohibits “Falsely representing oneself as a consumer.”, worth keeping in mind before you buy 100+ Google Business reviews or several thousand Instagram followers / likes, organic is best!
Street Marketing
This kind of marketing is often confused with ambient marketing (mentioned above), however it is more confined to streets and public places. Street marketing is also about placing ads in locations where people would not expect to see them. For example; projected onto a building, a manhole cover or zebra crossing.
Marketing Agency in Portsmouth, Hampshire
I hope you have found some value in this post, there is certainly a lot to digest and consider when it comes to guerrilla marketing. I guess the most important things to note are; keep it legal, make sure you don’t offend or insult anyone, and know your audience.
Boxing clever and thinking outside of the box is great, however we don’t want uncertainty about a brand, or any misrepresentation of a message. A Warren Buffet quote springs to mind;
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
Thanks for reading, find out more on our Digital Marketing page.
Until next time, keep it Tidy!
Mike