Have your marketing strategies and tactics become stale and predictable? Do you tell yourself not to rock the boat because what you're doing seems to be OK, even though you get a nagging "been there, done that" feeling when you click and post marketing content? Listen to your inner voice! It's telling you that outdated marketing tactics will not deliver the results your organization needs. While there's no shame if the menu at your restaurant features a couple of grandma's recipes from World War II because customers love them, the ways you communicate with those nostalgic customers must be in step with the here and now. You may have gotten comfortable with the marketing tactics you've been using for the past few years and your customers may be comfortable, too---and that's exactly why it's time to stir the pot and shake things up!
Even before the pandemic shutdown pulled the rug out from under us, companies large and small, local and global, B2B and B2C, have experienced intense competition, mixed with political, economic and social instability. Forbes Magazine recently introduced the acronym VUCA---Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous---to describe the current economic landscape. Freelancers and small business owners are especially vulnerable to unstable circumstances. Well-chosen marketing strategies, executed proactively, are integral to your company's survival.
Guerilla marketing playbook
Like grandma's century old recipes that are still beloved by many, another 20th century throwback that can be adapted to the 21st is Guerilla Marketing, a term coined by the business writer and advertising executive Jay Conrad Levinson in 1984. Guerilla Marketing borrows the mindset of guerrilla warfare, the Spanish term for a band of soldiers who wage war not as part of the regular troops but as an independent unit that makes surprise raids behind enemy lines and attacks larger, better-funded forces.
Guerilla marketing campaigns use innovative, unconventional promotional marketing tactics whose goal is to shock, surprise and ultimately delight the audience. When at their best, guerilla marketing campaigns are memorable and known to drive (good) publicity and brand awareness. Guerilla-style campaigns are often relatively low-cost and have been used successfully by Freelancers and neighborhood businesses, as well as multinational conglomerates. Below are suggestions for guerilla marketing tactics you may want to consider:
- Grassroots Marketing A marketing approach that relies on modest resources. Companies that use grassroots marketing often employ frugal marketing strategies that rely on people's time (such as handing out flyers) as opposed to larger marketing strategies. Often done by small companies and community organizations, grassroots marketing is marketing at its most simplistic.
- Viral or Buzz Marketing A marketing technique that focuses on word-of-mouth publicity. Often deployed in social media, this guerilla strategy relies on one user sharing a company's content with those in their social network. Instead of trying to generate excitement by itself, guerrilla marketing relies on enthusiastic customers to organically raise awareness of a product or company.
- Projection advertising Entails placing large, captivating ads often on the sides of buildings or blank walls. This style of guerrilla marketing often allows companies to personalize promotions, especially for events. Instead of a more permanent form of advertising that requires capital investments or long-term agreements, projection advertising may be more informal and require less upfront capital.
- Ambush Marketing Large sporting events and concerts are favorite locations for unauthorized guerilla marketing "ambush" campaigns. Some companies that use this strategy, also known as coat-tail marketing, and are assumed to be official event sponsors although they are not. Popular within event sponsorships, ambush marketing may be employed as a guerrilla marketing strategy by companies looking to save money yet capitalize on a major event that is occurring.
Solutions that matter
Regardless of how you shape your company's marketing campaigns, it's essential that you understand what customers are looking to achieve or resolve when they do business with you (or others like you). With the knowledge of what customers prioritize and value, you'll know what creates demand---and that means half of your marketing job is done. You can then create a theme with talking points and images that communicate the solution your audience wants. If you can also place your marketing text and images in an unexpected location (maybe outdoors) that your audience frequents, you will have realized the essence of guerilla marketing.
What's in it for the customer?
Unexpected turns of phrase or doubles-entendres may stroke your sense of creativity, but remember that the purpose of your marketing messages, whether you go guerilla or conventional, is to inform (and reassure and reinforce) your audience that your product or service will solve a problem and achieve the objective, whether you're selling gardening gloves or cashmere sweaters. Your text must succinctly, clearly and perhaps also cleverly, answer the question that customers and prospects silently ask---"What's in it for me if I buy this"?
Make sure they get the message.
It's been said that one picture is worth 1,000 words and there's no doubt that the image(s) you use in your campaign can get attention, but don't let your images overwhelm the message you intend to communicate. All marketing thrives on creativity, whether guerilla or conventional, but you don't want your images to overshadow what you're promoting. The marketer's goal is to persuade the audience to find the product or service so interesting that s/he desires to buy it.
Thanks for reading,
Kim
Image: The Richard Oscar Burgess House in Providence, RI is best known for its head-turning design created in 1984 by The Armory Revival Company. By leaving a section of the house only partially painted and attaching large simulations of Crayola crayons on the wall, the house is both a marvelous spoof of the obsession about paint color that not infrequently preoccupies new owners of Victorian-era homes and a celebration of mid-1980s urban revitalization.
No comments:
Post a Comment