Guerrilla Marketing - Introduction

Introduction

Levinson's book include hundreds of "guerrilla marketing weapons," but also encourages guerrilla marketers to be creative in devising unconventional methods of promotion. Guerrilla marketers use all of their contacts, both professional and personal, and examine their company and its products, looking for sources of publicity. Many forms of publicity can be very inexpensive, or even free.

Levinson says that when implementing guerrilla marketing tactics, small size is actually an advantage. Small organizations and entrepreneurs are able to obtain publicity more easily than large companies, as they are closer to their customers and considerably more agile.

Yet ultimately, according to Levinson, the guerrilla marketer must "deliver the goods". In The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, he states: "In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. It must build trust and support. It the customer's needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits."

Levinson identifies the following principles as the foundation of guerrilla marketing:

• Guerrilla Marketing is specifically geared for the small business and entrepreneur.
• It should be based on human psychology rather than experience, judgement, and guesswork.
• The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
• The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
• Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.
• Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
• Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
• Guerrilla marketers should use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
• Use current technology as a tool to build your business.
• Messages are aimed at individuals or small groups, the smaller the better.
• Focuses on gaining the consent of the individual to send them more information rather than trying to make the sale.
• Commit to your campaign. Use Effective frequency instead of creating a new message theme for each campaign.