Marketing a Small Business
When you start a new business, especially a small business, you will have nightmares about two areas:
• Obtaining new business
• Continuing sales through existing customers
The answers to these problems are commonly misunderstood. Most new entrants into business will answer both the above questions with "advertising".
The problem with this answer is that advertising is only one part of many options that can be used to obtain new custom, and maintain sales from your existing customer base. To be successful in business you need to understand 'marketing'.
For many small business owners, marketing is often seen as a costly and time-consuming process: add that to the lack of knowledge in the area of marketing, and it is then easy to understand why many small businesses fail in their early stages.
Therefore, we must all appreciate that marketing is one of the main forces that drives your business forward, and so it is important that we use it to some, effective, degree.
A form of marketing known as "Guerrilla Marketing" has been around for sometime, although its potential has only just begun to be acknowledged through the marketing of Internet businesses.
Guerrilla marketing is welcomed by small businesses as it offers a cheap, and often, more successful campaign than common marketing strategies such as newspaper adverts, mail shots and telesales. As a result, guerrilla marketing has lead to people thinking 'outside the box' to market their business more effectively with, usually, limited resources of cash flow, staff or even a real alternative marketing angle.
What is Guerrilla Marketing?
A 'Guerrilla' was the name given to an assistant that helped Wellington force back Napoleons troops during the Peninsular War using their unusual and unpredictable tactics.
This is what is being applied by 'Guerrilla marketing' - being original, breaking the rules, and looking for alternatives.
Guerrilla marketing may sound new to some people, but that may be a result of people using such marketing by another name.
Guerrilla marketing is cost effective, sometimes FREE. Along the lines of 'viral' (generally word of mouth) marketing, guerrilla marketing aims to attract customers that will refer your business to others such as friends, family and work associates. It is all about getting the maximum attention of the public by using minimal resources.
Making wild statements is probably the key to guerrilla marketing: "Looking for a quick loan? Forget us, we take 3 MONTHS to process your application". The conclusion here would be that you do not begin to take loan repayments until the 4th month.
This statement would therefore make people be intrigued to why it takes three months, and consequently use your service: the 'inverted' statement, or 'reverse psychology', was the key to getting their attention.
Although larger businesses integrate guerrilla marketing to a huge extent, it has been proven to work just as well for small businesses, and can you blame them for trying: it's cheap!
Such marketing worked best with Internet businesses (i.e. on-line businesses like credit-to-cash) and arguably, still does. However, there are certain areas of guerrilla marketing that can be adopted by off-line businesses and as you will see, are very effective. So that we include all businesses, we will cover both angles.
Source: www.bizhelp24.com
How is Guerrilla Marketing different from traditional marketing?
Guerrilla marketing means marketing that is unconventional, non-traditional, not by the book, and extremely flexible. Ten factors make it different from old-fashioned marketing:
1. Instead of investing money in the marketing process, you invest time, energy, and imagination.
2. Instead of using guesswork in your marketing, you use the science of psychology, laws of human behaviour.
3. Instead of concentrating on traffic, responses, or gross sales, profits are the only yardstick by which you measure your marketing.
4. Instead of being oriented to companies with limitless bank accounts, guerrilla marketing is geared to small business.
5. Instead of ignoring customers once they've purchased, you have a fervent devotion to customer follow-up.
6. Instead of intimidating small business owners, guerrilla marketing removes the mystique from the entire marketing process, clarifies it.
7. Instead of competing with other businesses, guerrilla marketing preaches the gospel of co-operation, urging you to help others and let them help you.
8. Instead of trying to make sales, guerrillas are dedicated to making relationships, for long-term relationships are paramount.
9. Instead of believing that single marketing weapons such as advertising work, guerrillas know that only marketing combinations work.
10. Instead of encouraging you to advertise, guerrilla marketing provides you with 100 different marketing weapons; advertising is only one of them.
Source: www.onevision.co.uk
Guerrilla Marketing - An (Extreme!) Example
A good example of guerrilla marketing occurred in August 2002 where Acclaim, a computer game company, offered people £500 plus a free gaming console to change their name to 'Turok': the title of a forthcoming computer game release. The response was massive with over 3,000 applicants. However, only five people would win the prize.
Similarly, in the early days of the Internet when there was lots of venture capital around, an on-line American company offered $5000 to those who named their child after one of their products. The scheme generated a healthy response.
Guerrilla Marketing – how not to do it!
An example of ill-advised guerrilla marketing can also be found with Acclaim Entertainment in October 2002, just a couple of months after their success guerrilla marketing stunt (see above). The computer game company introduced a marketing scheme to promote the release of their latest motor car racing game: Burnout 2.
The game, released on 11th October 2002, was promoted with Acclaim vowing to pay for any speeding fines issued on that particular date. Unsurprisingly, the Department of Transport immediately hit back insisting that the promotion would only encourage unnecessary speeding and dangerous driving.
Although the scheme itself was not illegal, the proposal of paying for fines may have encouraged people to break the law. This raised much opposition from the Department of Transport and from much of the public. However, the extent to which the scheme was covered in the media certainly marketed the game alone.
Another example came in August 2002 where the leading mobile phone company - Vodafone - endorsed two men to 'streak' at an International Rugby game with the corporate logo painted on their backs. As you can imagine, not only did the couple find themselves in big trouble, but Vodafone also landed themselves in the frame for legal action.
Illegal stunts do, more than often, get the attention of the public through the media, but for a small business, it is fair to say this is not the most effective (and legal!) approach for marketing your business!
Source: www.bizhelp24.com
Marketing a Small Business and Guerrilla Marketing