What is Guerilla Marketing?
Guerilla Marketing is a set of marketing ideas, strategies, and actions utilized to launch a marketing campaign at either extremely low cost or just a fraction of the price.
“Guerilla Marketing” term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in 1984. It describes unconventional and cost-effective marketing ideas for small businesses to get them noticed amongst big brands.
It is proven to be really effective for small businesses around the world. It is easy and simple to understand, yet creative and out-of-box to experiment.
So, if you are a small business owner, Guerilla marketing strategies and tactics can do wonders for your marketing campaigns.
When To Use Guerrilla Marketing Strategies
You might get excited with Guerrilla marketing because :
- It is inexpensive, most of the the cheapest
- It is exciting
- It can bring phenomenal results
- It can make you trending on social media
- It spreads brand awareness
- It establishes your brand’s identity and positioning.
So, it is very easy to get spoiled with crazy marketing ideas. There are even more chances to spend a lot of time and effort to go for all kinds of strategies that don’t go anywhere.
Sometime you get impressed by the idea alone and not whether it suits your brand or not.
And then there are many risks with such kind of marketing tactics as well. So you need to be very affirmative about what you want to do and when you want to do.
The timing, location, your brand identity and there are many factors at the play.
Here are some concerns you need to focus on before getting into Guerilla marketing :
Understand Who Are Your Customers and How They Respond
If you do not who you are targeting, all of your efforts will be misguided, and hence unable to give you desired results.
It even confuses the audience. Sometimes if it even succeeds to draw attention, it won’t make sense to them when they are not the target audience.
Remember, you don’t want everyone’s attention. You only want relevant people to notice your advertisement.
It’s better to really understand your audience, how to connect with the sentiment you are putting across and how they might respond.
You need to bring everything to the picture in order to put it out.
There are many ways or fronts that your ad might fail to deliver even if it succeeds at one.
And that’s why you need to do proper research on how this campaign can turn out.
Factors like location and whether your marketing tactic is interactive or not are very essential for the success of the campaign.
Building A Unique Connection With Target Audience Through Guerrilla Marketing
Understanding your audience is one thing, and knowing them enough to build a unique connection is another.
So guerilla marketing works because it plays with the mind of the people. It either outsmarts them, surprises them or makes them wonder.
If it is not done right, you might get attention but not in a positive sense.
So clearly, surprising isn’t enough. You need to put across a thought, build connection with them to really bring them back to you.
Lot of times it includes a lot of interactions, so you need to know them well enough to play along.
You need to make something relative and that is only possible when you know where they are coming from.
Whether Your Idea Is Compelling Enough or Not On A Big Scale
The lack of ingenuity is amongst the most common factors for the failures in executing an ambitious guerrilla marketing idea.
Lots of campaigns go for that pitfall because they do not foresee whether their ideas withstand the test of scale and conviction.
Sometimes it gets the attention part right but doesn’t really make the customer act on it or even think about the brand or product.
Best way to look up all the successful ideas that worked before and really examine yours in a critical light.
Whether You Can Deliver This Strategy Or Not
So even if you are confident about your grand guerrilla marketing strategy, you need to be sure whether you can pull it off or not.
You need to have physical resources to really make your idea real at a grand scale.
it is essential you look for what you require to fulfil your strategy, and too on the required scale and conviction.
Also, there is a significant amount of investment there as well.
So, you need to check all the boxes before you get into the execution of your guerrilla marketing idea.
Finding The Right Employees And Skill Set
Just like figuring out whether you have physical resources to deliver the strategy, you also need to see whether you have the right employees and skill set to make it successful.
Your team can be great with Guerilla marketing ideas and strategies. But execution is a different animal altogether.
You need a specific set of skill sets and experience to execute such grand scale cost-effective guerrilla strategies for marketing your brand.
There should be dedicated employees or marketers who have experience in pulling off such campaigns.
Numerous sets of tasks are required to be done simultaneously in this process where teamwork is required as well.
Selecting The Right Type Of Guerrilla Marketing Strategy
This might not be a popular opinion especially when you intend to adapt Guerrilla marketing for your small business.
You also have to consider the possibility that your business or brand might suit the guerrilla marketing strategies.
It can be for that particular time or limited to only adaptive aspects of it rather going full-on guerrilla.
More than that, you need to listen to your target customers. They are always right.
If your target audience perceive guerrilla marketing tactics to be as unprofessional or annoying, then you surely consider it.
It can irritate your audience and create a bad impression about your brand.
Maybe only a portion or very few of your consumers really like it and you are amplifying the approval from your end considering everyone onboard.
Having said that, there is always a spectrum where you can utilize guerrilla marketing strategy or numerous subset versions of it at some level to your mainstream marketing.
Also you may have to change just the type of guerrilla marketing, not entirely. So make sure you go through all the aspects and then decide to initiate.
Subsets of Guerilla Marketing Strategies
Stealth Marketing
Stealth marketing is a set of various advertising acts and tactics where something is advertised to a population without them being aware about it.
One of the most prominent examples for stealth marketing will be the product placements in movies and television shows.
Image Source: mycustomer
You see products are placed across the screen over time without actually giving it a focus. Any visible brand on screen can be part of stealth marketing which you usually never suspect to be.
It is subtly used in the narrative without giving an effort to highlight but it surely increases brand awareness subconsciously to the viewers.
Guerrilla Advertising
Guerrilla Advertising is more like another name dedicated to Guerilla Marketing. Maybe focussed more on the advertising act under guerrilla tactics, but moreover the moreover the same.
It is a strategy to surprise people publicly with a unique experience that generates attention or conversation around eventually promoting the brand or product.
Grassroot Marketing
Grassroot marketing is a type of Guerrilla marketing strategy that is extended further to a community. It is something utilized as both a marketing tactic as well as community service.
Some examples of these marketing strategies are like attending to local fairs, events or giveaways or partnering up with a local organization.
Grassroot marketing is quite like Guerilla marketing in a way as it also raises brand awareness but through a community.
It is a mutually-benefited marketing strategy for a specific community and the brand as well.
Ambush Marketing
Ambush Marketing is a subset of Guerilla Marketing, more like a technique where big events or campaigns are leveraged to market a product, service or brand without actually paying or participating in it.
Image Source: Pinterest
So It is more like “ambush” or “hijacking” a major event to spread the word without being part of the event or sponsorship.
Ambush marketing can be unlawful sometimes but there are indeed some tricks to get away with it.
Ambush marketers are not usually the official sponsors of the events but actually the rivals.
They mislead the public by unauthorized use of an event, logo, banner or design to spread their word.
Buzz Marketing
As the name very well indicates, Buzz marketing is a marketing strategy where a certain brand or product is advertised in a way that creates conversation or buzz around it.
So it’s not just the advertisement that promotes the product or the brand but also the kind of conversation or buzz it ignites around it.
Super bowl commercials are great examples that are advertised every year where the best ones are actually the most bizarre ones.
They are most talked about ads irrespective of any relevance whether even their actual product is advertised or not.
Experiential Marketing
Experiential Marketing is often called Engagement marketing, event marketing or live marketing as well.
This kind of marketing engages the targeted people face-to-face experiences or branded events.
You often find in Malls offering customers various quick services like fixing makeup, quick massage or doing hairstyle for free.
It also quite resonates with sample marketing when you see this in terms of products.
Brands allow customers to experience their services or glimpse of services for free to create an interest within them.
Such marketing is highly utilized when a brand new store opens or a company launches a new product or service to offer.
Attack Marketing
It doesn’t mean as it sounds, not exactly! Attack marketing is basically another popular term for Guerilla marketing.
This gives it more metaphorical meaning as the strategies used under this umbrella category is to draw people’s attention suddenly.
The aim with Guerilla marketing or Attack marketing is to surprise people publicly so they give you the attention.
In other words, People are giving you attention in exchange for the experience you give them by surprising them.
These attentions are mostly in a way to generate conversation around so it just not stops there but spreads more through other forms of marketing such as word-of-mouth and social media.
Ambient Marketing
Ambient Marketing is all about placement of advertisements in some unexpected place to surprise the audience.
Such kind of advertisements make people stop and wonder about it. It can be witty, provocative or thought-provoking as well.
The purpose is to draw attention through placing something at such where cannot expect at all.
‘Ambient’ here refers to how these kinds of ideas utilize or leverage their surroundings.
Guerilla Marketing Strategies To Apply On Your Business
Here are some guerilla marketing strategies that you can adapt according to your small business and apply practically :
Open a Pop up Shops
There are high chances you have experienced pop up shops as a customer or prospects.
You must have seen these temporary shops or stores that are placed on the go. These stores are actually easy and quick to set up and so to take down.
What you are doing is bringing the point of sale to the customers rather than them finding you.
Image Source: The Wall Street journal
It is actually one of the most popular and commonly seen guerilla marketing tactics even proudly used by big brands.
You set up a temporary physical store at a certain location probably with a higher number of target audience or prospects.
Just like many other guerilla marketing strategies, here also, the location is the key.
You can also try to open a pop up shop inside another store or any office. Street corners, mall fronts and other popular public places are great spots.
Pop up shops are also very commonly seen inside the malls, big shopping marts or larger showrooms.
Attention-grabbing Outdoor Installation
Utilizing out-of-the-box installations in the outdoors to promote the product are often seen on streets.
This is actually a popular form of guerrilla marketing that you notice more often.
One of the best examples to demonstrate this marketing tactic is promotion of 2017-released Hollywood horror movie “It”.
They tied red-colored balloons to drain gates all around Sydney in Australia. They also added a note saying “ It is closer than you think”.
It was very obvious that these iconic red-colored balloons are associated with the famous Stephen King character Pennywise.
So it was to draw attention and obviously give hints about the anticipation of the upcoming movie “It” based on Stephen King’s best selling novel with the same title.
Now, these marketing tactics were successful to bring huge social media traffic when the trailer of the movie was released, eventually, the movie was a huge hit.
These practises in one way or another are commonly used by brands to create a buzz or anticipation.
Go For Sticker Marketing
This must be one of the cheapest ways to market your brand out there. Basically, you will use just custom stickers to promote your business.
Stickers are widely used by people on their laptops, gaming consoles and other lots of possessions to brag about the brands they love.
If you giveaway stickers to people at various events and they use it around, it will increase your band visibility.
Sometimes it really becomes so cool when you see your circulated stickers end up in random places such as a bus roof or coffee cafe tables.
You can also place your stickers at the strategic places which must be more exposed to your target audience.
But you need to be very careful about not annoying people which might damage your brand as well.
The Marketing With “Free” word and giveaways
Sample marketing and giveaways are sure shot ways to market your products or create brand awareness.
“Free” is the favourite word of everyone. It is the word that people just cannot ignore.
So giving away your products as a sample is certainly the most effective way to increase your product visibility.
It also becomes easier to sell the product when people actually tried it once. Using one product, you can create many samples.
And those products used as samples can be considered as your marketing cost, which is insignificant as compared to what you sell.
Sample marketing even helps to sell the entire stock of the product.
Also, samples are great, if you are introducing a new product.
People often get reluctant to try a new product even from known brands replacing or co-existing with their current product.
So trying out right there before buying develops trust and confidence in the product.
Branding Through Reverse Graffiti
Reverse Graffiti is actually the exact opposite of what Graffiti really is.
Image Source: WordPress Website Design Company
Here adding some art or graphic to a surface, marketers pull away grime or dirt on the wall or to any backdrop to create a unique message that matches the background seamlessly.
Just a stencil is used to create the logo of your company on the sidewalk with this method. Then, you will simply just douse that area with water.
It will wash away certain parts revealing your message to the people.
Go For The Classic Flash Mob
One of the iconic Guerrilla marketing ways to promote your brand is to organize a flash mob program.
Flash mob includes a group of people performing specific actions at a particular time and place.
The idea of flash mob is to suddenly start performing out of the crowd to grab attention of the people.
Image Source: Event Manager Blog
Through their performance, they deliver a particular promotion of the brand as well.
Flash mob is a really attractive concept, even after it you can take pictures and videos of it and use it further on social media to stir up the interests.
Guerilla Marketing Examples To Learn The Best Strategies
If you are starting with Guerrilla Marketing, the best you can do to really grasp the concepts, is to look at the successful case studies.
You can learn from these successful Guerilla marketing examples executed by top-notch brands around the world.
Snapchat Taking Over The Spotlight
If you are a small business, how you are planning to break through the clutter of an over saturated market led by numerous marketing giants.
Well, that’s something to learn from Snapchat here.
Snapchat adapted guerilla marketing tactic to make some noise by doing something so less that it draws attention.
Image Source: Moosend
Their marketing team generated buzz using their giant billboards featuring just their logo at the centre and nothing else.
Playing simple and yet out of the box becomes so indifferent that it stands out amongst other marketing impressions.
And remember, no-one at that time knew about what this ghost logo means, so out of curiosity, it created the hype.
People just went on Google searching about it. So much so that the keyword “white ghost yellow background” became top search terms and ended up giving info about Snapchat.
This kind of guerilla marketing helps get through even to a dominant business industry.
So if you are too trying to do something new, you need to do something that stands out just like this, for your small business.
Pro Tip : Just go for something unexpected from the marketing books.
“IT” Movie Creating Buzz With Blending Street Art & Movie Scene
Not just one of the best but amongst most craziest examples of guerilla marketing sure to be the IT movie.
Everyone is quite familiar with the sewer-residing deranged clown from the Stephen King’s novel ‘IT’, named Pennywise.
But more than clown, the signifying element of the movie was the red balloon that represented the film in its marketing.
So utilizing the guerilla marketing, they did something totally out of the box.
They tied up red balloons to the drain gates on the street along with a note that says “ It is closer than you think. #ITMOVIE in Cinemas September 7”.
Image Source: LADibble
So What do you think how much this campaign cost?
Well, You can buy 120 balloons for $9 on Amazon along with white spray paint for about $6 and another $5 for letter stencils.
So this street marketing campaign will cost $20 which can be replicated again and again. It is nothing compared to huge advertisement budgets.
Even social media advertisements cost more than that.
And by the way, this marketing tactic worked wonders and the movie was blockbuster.
So what you take away from this :
First of all, guerilla marketing tactics or ideas aren’t required to be expensive, it just needs to be out of the box.
Sarova Hotels Spreading Awareness With Something That Goes Unnoticeable
Imagine you are driving down the highway and you saw a giant cat or leopard resting on the top of the road lights.
Image Source: Adeevee
What would be your first reaction?
Well, first it might shock you and compel you to call Wildlife services once you come to relax.
But you might just realize that this is just a marketing tactic to promote a cause like “save trees” and all.
However, in this case, surprisingly it is pulled off by a local hotel business rather than a NGO.
Sarova Hotels integrated environmental concerns to their business ideology and operations.
So that’s why you see the lamp post campaign from Sarova Hotels.
But here you must give credit to this smart and out-of-the-box guerilla marketing tactic to promote brand awareness and identity.
You just cannot miss this. What better can draw your attention? And also stating the intentions of a brand in this case.
Raising The Roof Engages People To Introspect As A Community
People tend to see what pleases them while walking down the streets.
And that’s mostly how marketing tries to get your attention.
So, people made up their mind about what they want to ignore on the streets. And sometimes, it is essential to recognize what’s important.
Raising the Roof did something like that to draw attention to a mostly avoided sight found to be homeless people.
People get attracted to beautiful shops but avoid corners of the walls because the place is associated with homeless guys.
So, they did this :
Image Source: Moosend
So this poster “forces” people to recreate an image of a homeless person often found sitting at such corners of the street.
This poster says “ If this poster were a homeless youth, most people wouldn’t even bother to look down”.
You must understand this works because of a certain location the marketers chose.
It increases the impact of the message along with what image it produces in mind of people.
This is definitely one of the most unique and thought-provoking guerrilla marketing strategies ever.
Most interesting part of this as a marketing strategy is how it costs almost nothing as compared to any remote advertising budget.
It not just delivers the message intended to tell but also promotes the brand awareness and intentions of the company.
Pro Tip: Don’t hesitate to use social causes blend with your out-of-the-box unique guerrilla marketing idea. Just make sure to promote the cause that you truly stand for and intend to bring some kind of awareness and change.
GoldToe Dresses The WallStreet Bull In Underwear
GoldToe did something so witty that you cannot take your eyes off. Once you see it, you have to know what’s it all about, and hence you will know about the brand as well.
So to celebrate their newly launched products shirt and underwear, they put underwears and undershirts to various famous New York Statues.
It was an event that took place during the New York Fashion Week but surely wasn’t restricted to that only.
Rather they went all crazy ( in a good way) to put underwears on popular statues like Wall Street’s Bull Statue.
It became talk of the town very quickly. People started clicking photos and posting on social media platforms.
Can you imagine all the free promotion they were getting on social media without spending a dime?
It was trending topics of 2010 for a while creating so much buzz for the brand that it doubled their brand visibility by the end of it, not just their products.
Pro Tip: Don’t hesitate to be witty and funny in a more playful manner. Do something that takes people’s attention by storm because it made them laugh and wonder.
Jeep Goes Out of the Way To Demonstrate Their Product Feature
Another great guerilla marketing example to learn from by Jeep.
First you look at these images, how Jeep created supposed “Parking spots” in places one cannot expect to.
Image Source: Blackbird e-Solution LLC
Basically, this advertisement is to prove how Jeep vehicles are extraordinarily great for outdoors and powerful in driving and parking apparently.
However, one might argue this to be a bit of a risk or misleading angle. People might raise their objections regarding misleading the parking guidelines and others.
So to say the best, this is a perfect blend of creating a provocative and witty and utilizing the guerilla marketing strategy, street marketing to be particular.
This ad expresses the position of the brand, it’s nature and the relationship with the world as well.
But this doesn’t stop here. Best part is these kinds of ads are often found to be trending hashtags once it is circulated on the web.
People find it bizarre and exciting at the same time, so they share it like anything further creating more brand awareness and conversations.
Pro Tip: You can always create Ads that push the boundaries and conform enough to be little provocative but yet witty and shareable.
Marvel Studios’ Unique Approach To Social Media Marketing
Marvel presented one of the most unique and unthinkable guerilla marketing strategies on social media.
Interestingly, what makes it special is the idea and not the cost. And that’s what identifies with guerilla marketing.
You must have seen Marvel or other studios promoting superhero movies on social media. So that’s common!
But here with Marvel, creativity plays an integral role in their advertising strategy.
Especially when Marvel sets out to promote its most unconventional superhero ever, that is Deadpool, they did something totally different.
Image Source: Imgur
Yes, Tinder!
You might wonder why they would go for Tinder.
Well, to start with, Deadpool isn’t really for kids. It definitely targeted an adult audience.
So why not go for Tinder when you are targeted at an older audience as compared to kids to whom most of the superhero movies target.
Not just that, Deadpool is an unconventional, funny and unique superhero as compared to others so far. So it has this rebellious attitude towards following the rules.
So what best could be than Guerilla marketing to attract an audience.
Finding Deadpool on Tinder as a verified profile while you swiping your option will be really amusing.
It totally created buzz about the movie on social media. People started posting the screenshots on Twitter promoting even further.
Dollar Shave Club’s Viral Video
Dollar Shave Club created a video that cost them less than $5,000 and that received more than 25 Million views on Youtube.
So how did that happen?
Well, with guerrilla marketing, one can state that one of the best ideas to succeed in it is to not take oneself too seriously.
Image Source: LVRG
People like to get entertained, even more than informed.
Look at the trending videos on the internet. All cute cats, funny videos and memes are the ones that break the internet.
So why should brands not leverage it to reach out more people? Especially if your brand identity relates to it more or could relate.
Dollar Shave Club created a funny video which was meant to launch their services. This not-at-all-known brand got exposed to millions of people when their video blew up the internet.
It was entertaining as anything you watch for entertainment sake. And this is what a YouTube commenter said that reflects the audience’s positive response.
Image Source: ReferralCandy Blog.
Lifelock Challenges “ I Dare You To Steam My Stuff”
How far can you go to prove the worth of your product?
Well, that’s the case with Lifelock as they go beyond brand promising and setting expectations for customers.
One you can remind of the past was when Facebook offered bounty to hackers who can bring bugs to their attention.
Image Source: ReferralCandy Blog
But Lifelock goes beyond that, and takes this to the extreme. Todd David, the CEO of LifeLock revealed their real social security number in their TV commercial daring identity thieves to try stealing.
This really worked for them because their execution was really entertaining.
They turned this boring activity like Identity theft prevention into a dare that has drawn everyone attention by storm.
So it was really a tactic pulled from the guerrilla marketing where they went rogue with the conventional strategies to do something outrageous.
Grasshopper Sent Chocolate Grasshoppers To Influencers
Grasshopper is a brand that offers virtual phone services or solutions for those entrepreneurs who know that they require their business owners on board to use their services.
Image Source: McLellan Marketing Group
They listed down 5000 most influential business leaders, bloggers, journalists in the United States. And they sent 5 chocolate covered grasshoppers to all of them.
These chocolate grasshoppers were packaged in a branded, white glossy bag along with hang tags suggesting the influencers to visit their landing page.
That landing page consists of an inspirational video to encourage influencers to go for unconventional, take risks and think out-of-the-box.
Image Source: Ponoko
But more importantly the video said to try those chocolate-covered grasshoppers !
Well this might sound really weird but it was a huge success.
That Grasshopper video received 8,000 video views per day and growing. Influencers were so impressed that they tweeted about it and shared on other social media platforms as well.
Uber Kittens
How do you make your marketing strategy so adorable?
Well you can learn it from Uber, for sure.
Image Source: LAist
Uber partnered up with Cheezburger and ASPCA to start a marketing campaign called ‘Uber Kittens”.
Their drivers were supposed to deliver it to the users who can devote 15 minutes of the play time with these kittens.
Best part is, they were all up for adoption. So customers can also adopt these kittens if they want. Uber helped around 30 kittens to get adopted.
Also a big lesson to learn is you don’t need money every time to do these marketing stunts
Science World Raises Brand Awareness With Environmental Concern
You must have seen environmentalists and volunteers raising issues about some park being replaced by a building or any cement installation.
They often catch you up outside metro stations and supermarkets asking you for your time.
But you need to do more than that to really start a conversation.
Image Source: Daily Hive
Science World did something great with their guerilla marketing strategy to promote an environmental cause but also their brand awareness.
They came up with this original concept where they made these trees look like “about to cut off”.
It suggested to all those people passing it that they can take actions to stop this from happening.
It is surely thought-provoking and impressive to draw attention. Also, people will realize seeing it that they weren’t asked about their opinion on this.
Image Source: Moosend
And then, they did again with another showing that plants grow fast under the glass placing it at the bus stands.
And then, they did again with another showing that plants grow fast under the glass placing it at the bus stands.
Nike Standing Tall With Their Brand Values
One of the remarkable ways to do a successful guerrilla marketing campaign is to incorporate your brand values in your marketing ideas as well.
Communicate to your target audience about what you stand for. How can people identify your brand to a certain value system or ideology?
Well, by making it part of your voice out there.
NIKE is nailing this whether you check out their social media, TV commercials and especially their guerrilla marketing ideas.
Their “Just Do It” ideology is to push yourself to be better and have a sportsman attitude towards life as well.
Image Source: My Modern Met
See this image above where they just have removed the seating part of the bench and added their logo to communicate their message.
Nike’s idea of pushing one’s limits clearly depicted through their guerilla marketing ideas.
Image Source: GMB
Nike doesn’t shy away to demonstrate their beliefs through their unique sense of marketing. And that is something they have been doing since the beginning.
They are a perfect example of creating a brand voice that is consistent through various platforms.
Another very smart guerrilla marketing tactic they did is closing the elevator with their yellow logo-printed band.
The idea here is to highlight the benefit of workout routine.
People who will use the escalator will be reminded of the brand which forces people to take the stairs thus focussing on their workout.
It encourages people to push their limits and do more, even a little bit daily.
There is a great lesson to be learnt here for small business owners about how to instill your brand values to your target audience.
Best Guerrilla Marketing Ideas To Implement Today
You have seen the actual guerrilla marketing strategies that you can adapt into your small business.
Then, you get some really game-changer case studies or examples of guerilla marketing led by top-notch brands around the world.
With all this information, now you can prepare your own Guerilla marketing strategy.
To kickstart your initiative here are some best guerilla marketing ideas that you can implement today.
Creating Chalk Art On Streets & Sidewalks
One of the most basic forms of guerilla marketing is street marketing. And creating chalk art is a really known marketing tactic to spread brand awareness.
There is always a unique touch or out-of-the-box idea you can bring to the chalk art. Possibilities are endless!
Image Source : Grassroot Adv.
People are attracted towards physical art around the street. They stay, click pictures or at least gaze for a while.
You can draw big, bold and beautiful graphics or art piece on the sidewalks or front of your store with a strong message.
People like to be part of something bigger than them, something positive. They will be interested to know who is behind the art.
If your messaging is right, that can stir some conversation around, bring like-minded people and artists around as well.
There is just so much can be done, experimented or achieved through chalk art on streets and sidewalks. You do you!
Utilize Reddit
Reddit marketing is a gem in the league of most unorthodox marketing strategies or techniques.
But the scope of marketing with Reddit is way more one can think of.
There are niche communities on reddit divided into various subreddits, threads and conversations.
Marketers get such an engaging audience with opinions, something you cannot promise entirely on other social media.
There is no topic in the world which is not discussed on Reddit.
Now since it is unconventional and never can be direct, It gives you space to be creatively genius to market your brand or products on Reddit.
Image Source: Soar.sh
You definitely have to be content giver in this case to make any point to start a conversation.
It also helps in getting constructive criticism and actual opinion of people without any noise or pretense.
What you cannot do is just posting flashy advertising brand posts. So you have to be subtle and very intuitive to get your voice across.
LiveStream Events On Your Facebook
According to Tabitha Jean Naylor, owner of TabithaNaylor.com, Facebook Live is amongst the best guerilla marketing practises today.
Especially to livestream events on Facebook makes it marketing most affordable, effective and easy to do.
It totally revolutionized the idea of events because now events can be cool, something out-of-the-box and more expressive rather than just about commerce.
Image Source: Agorapulse
So it made people more interested in brands. Also because they offer great content for their target audience.
Business owners can bring different ideas through their LIVE events and market themselves.
So this is definitely something you can adapt to and must have seen a lot of brands doing great events.
You can do Q & A sessions where your customers can find more about your brands, employees, story and culture.
Lot of businesses also do “Meet the Team’ where they introduce their core team in get together or bit relaxed environment to talk about how things happen in the company.
Ask Your Customers To Leave Reviews
You don’t have to wait for your customers to respond for the reviews if or whether they are satisfied from your services or product.
One of the best guerilla marketing strategies online is to ask your customers to leave reviews outright.
Image Source: Podium
You can have review management software like Podium where it allows you to send automated review invitations to your customers.
It further helps you respond and manage reviews, web chats, messages from more than 20 review websites all at your dashboard.
So it makes your review marketing more efficient and creates a reputation of your brand in the market.
Photo-Sharing Apps and Giveaways
Brands interacting more with customers led great success in their sales conversions.
But now, you have to do even more than that. Targeting the largest number of your niche audience seen to be done great with photo-sharing apps like instagram.
Image Source: Social Media Examiner
Especially when you add guerrilla marketing tactics like running an interactive contest or announcing a giveaway, your brand awareness scales up.
Not just new people discover your brand when their existing follower tags them but also they invest time and efforts in your contest or giveaways.
Image Source: Neil Patel
But you have to make sure that you are offering more than that in totality. Your content on Instagram or other photo-sharing apps must be intuitive and valuable.
Offering free gifts, product giveaways, running contests, asking for suggestions and much more are great marketing tactics to increase engagement hundred folds.
Looking For Customers Sharing Similar Content
Pat Ahem, the Director of Traffic Generations talks about his favourite technique regarding the online guerilla marketing strategies.
It is about how you can identify the content that is currently viral or trending and ranking on Google’s first page.
You can also identify the people who are most engaged with those kinds of content. Then you can directly share your articles or content to them only.
Image Source: Junto Digital
This Pat refers to as “Twitter Leapfrog Method” where it brings out great results for internal blogging and client blogging as well.
Here’s what you need to do :
- What you need to do is identify the highest performing blogs and content on the web that are related to your video, articles or content.
- Now, find those twitter accounts who shared those articles.
- Send messages to all about checking out your article as well.
This method really boosts the social media shares and engagement rates on your content on consistent level.
Also, it helps in getting more backlinks since people are sharing your content more, and may be even on other platforms as well.
Leverage User-generated Content To Promote Your Brand
Since there are so many avenues to create content, you cannot limit yourself to just one. One of the most popular amongst it, is user-generated content.
Image Source: Follows.com
User-generated content is not just a great online guerilla marketing tactic but also efficient for offline one as well.
You can directly engage with people who are using your product and then leverage them to do your promotions through user-generated content.
It can start with a contest where you can ask people to share images using your product. You can feature these images every week on your Instagram.
This is one example of user-generated content where users are creating content for you, and also participate in promoting it as well.
These posts engage more people than any other. Also they get shared and tagged as well because people like to share about the fact that a brand featured them.
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“Business, marketing, and Branding – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of Burban Branding and Media, and a self-taught marketer with 10 years of experience. My passion lies in helping startups enhance their business through marketing, Branding, leadership, and finance. I am on a mission to assist businesses in achieving their goals.”