In this post, you will find guerilla marketing ideas to turn your advertising strategy around.
Dear marketers reading this, we’ve been scammed.
We’ve been played like 5-year-olds who believed that it was Santa who ate the cookies (hellooo? Cookie Monster, d’oh!)
I don’t know what to think of this world anymore.
Why we’ve been lied to about Guerilla Marketing
I have spent the past few days looking for guerilla marketing ideas for a client project I’m working on.
I had collected quite a few of them when it dawned on me.
The search results were all wrong.
I remember looking at this amazing guerilla marketing example, and as I was writing down takeaways and notes and how-to’s, I figured out it was not guerilla.
And then I went back to my Pinterest account. I was looking for a needle in a haystack, but there it was.
You see, I love collecting guerilla marketing ideas on my Pinterest account because it helps my creative process. Consider it self-learning.
But guerilla marketing goes beyond plain ol’ smart advertisements.
And however cool your marketing campaign looks, Susan, calling it “guerilla” doesn’t make it so.
What is guerilla marketing?
Guerilla marketing is a set of marketing actions employed to launch a marketing campaign at a fraction of the cost it normally would cost, with multiple times the impact of the money spent on that.
In other words, guerilla marketing acts as a magnifying glass for the impact of a marketing campaign launch.
In my words, Guerilla Marketing is like the Banksy side of Marketing.
What is guerilla?
The definition of guerilla marketing relies heavily on the definition of “guerilla warfare” (also spelled “guerrilla”).
Guerilla refers to a non-tactical army, loosely organized, fighting a bigger, more organized force.
Types of guerilla marketing ideas
I did my fair amount of research to find whether these so-called “guerilla marketing types” exist.
Even though I found none of these types to be underpinned by scientific research, I will present them for the purposes of comprehensiveness.
Here’s a mashup of the most important bits:
1.Street Marketing the more recently coined term for the outdoor guerilla marketing type, refers to all marketing actions taking place outdoors, bringing street elements into play.
2.Ambient Marketing refers to marketing practices which help promote a product by interfering with the flow of things and placing ads at unconventional places.
3.Event Ambush marketing is when marketers take advantage of the audience of one event and use it to promote their own product or service or you can Buy Facebook comments.
Of course, as with most daring guerilla ads, businesses might be faced with legal issues by such practices.
4.Guerilla projections involve mastering the installation of hidden projectors onto high-rise buildings at high-traffic streets to generate buzz. Yes, imminent legal risks involved.
5.Experiential marketing, aka participation marketing or live marketing, is the design of immersive, pop-up experiences which invite users to “talk, live, breathe” the brand.
These usually provide sensory and emotional bonds between consumers and brands.
6.Viral marketing is, ironically, named after the aspiration of the impact brought on by the marketing action.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably read a similar comment by yours truly.
My main criticism lies in that “viral” cannot possibly represent a conscious choice on behalf of the marketing team designing it.
No one can guarantee that an idea can go viral, it is a decision that lies with the audience, not the marketers.
As such, it cannot be classified as a guerilla marketing type, since most ads have similar potential (and all marketers have the same aspiration)
What are the elements of guerilla marketing?
To write the book on guerilla marketing, I need to establish the components of a successful guerilla marketing technique.
These are the characteristics of the majority of guerilla marketing examples I have collected:
Guerilla marketing campaigns are highly targeted in terms of location where they are launched.Authenticity is key. If it’s been done before or looks like something else, it’s not guerilla.It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.Guerilla happens when and where your target audience least expects it. But it must be well-timed, still.Execution must be perfect on the first go. Guerilla marketing is not replicable or scalable.Guerilla marketing does not replace your promotional plan and advertisements. It generates buzz for you to Buy Facebook Custom Comments.