Marketing & Sales Strategies

How guerrilla-marketing tactics will help grow your business

For as long as marketing and advertising has been the driving force behind big business, smaller companies have tried copying their marketing strategies with results that are less than desirable. This results in the general opinion among small business owners that marketing is expensive and does little to generate business.

These general options are true. So true in fact that the majority of small business owners have become so jaded by their own marketing activities that they have chosen not to market their business. Other business owners have heard stories of failed marketing attempts and they too shy away from actively growing their business.

Why?

Everything you know about marketing is wrong! That’s why!

How can I say that everything you know about marketing is wrong? Look around, look at the marketing you see every day. We are bombarded by TV commercials, radio adverts, billboards and print advertising and as a result this is how we have now learnt to market our businesses. This could not be further from the truth as to how we should be marketing our business.

The type of marketing we have become accustomed to has its origins in the 1950’s. This was before TV had been launched in South Africa and the two largest advertising mediums were radio and print, although nowhere near as competitive or costly as it is today. The 1950’s is known as the era of the brand builders. Brand building worked off a simple formula adopted by advertising agencies, used even in today’s era of marketing and advertising. This formula is so simple and yet out of reach to smaller businesses as the cost escalates in to the millions. The brand building formula, ‘C&R’ is how they base all their advertising and marketing expertise. C&R translated into laymen’s terms is Creativity and Repetition Advertising. Simply put, develop a creative catchy advert and repeat it so many times that it sticks. Almost like throwing mud onto a wall. If it is dirty enough some will remain behind and leave a lasting impression.

It is frightening how many millions this type of advertising can amount to, keep in mind that advertising is only one element of the vast array of guerrilla marketing tactics at our disposable. Here is a brief example. A number of years ago I was involved with a large corporate advert in the motor security environment. They commissioned a budget of R3 500 000 for the production of their advert. The ad was cute and portrayed the essence of the company and the service provided to the public. Excluded in that hefty production bill was airtime fee across the variety of TV channels in SA. This amounted to a whopping R4 000 000, which delivered three months of airtime. The company then ran short of budget for the second half of the year and decided to rebroadcast the same advert for another R4 000 000, with far less effect. In total R 11 500 000 was spent on the ad campaign and not one sale could be tracked from the ad campaign.

Can you see how you have been trained to believe that TV, Radio and Print adverts are the way to market your business? As a small business you can market yourself for far less and generate generous results.

Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term Guerrilla Marketing in 1984. He is known as the father of Guerrilla Marketing and is considered a pioneer with his take-no-prisoners approach to marketing for the small and medium-size business owner. Jay has authored and co-authored over 35 books, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. His skills and marketing tactic have become part of the curriculum in many universities worldwide as they recognise that the standards of marketing have changed.

Adopting Guerrilla Marketing Tactics into your business is key to growing your business at an affordable marketing budget. There are over 100 marketing weapons, according to Jay, that should be considered when planning a marketing activity in your business. One of which is database marketing, using technology as a delivery vehicle.

Before any marketing takes place you need to establish the type of business you are in. You may be a service provider, you may sell products, you may be in manufacturing, hairdressing, plumbing or retail. Which ever it may be, know that your primary business is marketing: marketing your products and services. Marketing is one of the only two activities that drives revenue, the other being sales.

The aim of Guerrilla Marketing is primarily to explore the untapped assets within your business. Those assets are your marketable entities that can and should be used to expose the benefits of doing business with you.

Of the 100 Guerrilla Marketing tactics, around 60 will cost nothing to implement into your daily marketing activities. These can be used in their simplest form, and stem from what is known as the ‘inner reality’ of the business.

The ‘inner reality’ of your business is everything you and your business stand for. This could be the based on service excellence, owner and staff expertise, your guarantee (also known as risk reversal), time in business and other elements that make you stand out from the crowed of competitors.

Taking what we now know from your ‘inner reality’ and matching it to the ‘outer perception’, the experiences and opinions your clients have of your business, is the basis for the development of your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Your USP becomes your superior promise to your clients and prospects of that which they will experience with your business based on other clients’ experiences as well as the ethos of your company.

Once your USP has been well constructed and implemented throughout all communication channels, the competition your audience faces is narrowed as they realise that you must be the obvious choice to do business with based on the superior promise you offer. You must be able to back up your USP with testimonials and references that have been blown away by your offer and service. There you have a number of Guerrilla Marketing tactics in place: testimonials, references and a compelling USP.

One of the most obvious Guerrilla Marketing tactic is known as phone demeanour. This baffles most business owners yet is so simple to implement and get right. Your telephone is the first port of call to your business and so often the people operating the switchboard perform so poorly that every caller must wonder why they have called in the first place. Make sure that every telephonic communication presents the best possible experience for the client. This goes for your voice mail as well as leaving messages on other peoples’ answering machines.

One of the most obvious Guerrilla Marketing tactics, which is usually underutilised, is your business card. Many business cards deliver the least amount of detail, which should be considered a waste of paper and print. Your card should inspire and motivate the prospect to take some kind of action. Next time you are at a networking event presenting your business take a good look at the variety of business cards you receive and separate cards those that move you from those that are not grabbing your interest. Then decide what needs to change on your card. Picture your card as a mini portable billboard that advertises your company.

Spot the other guerrilla activity? That’s right, networking. There are obviously the good and the not so good networking events. Choose those that relate closest to your industry and learn the dynamics of effective networking. This will help to grow your list of potential buyers and even suppliers. Keep in mind that there are always sellers at networking events and very few buyers. This is however, a very good way to initiate relationships for future marketing.

That brings us to another guerrilla marketing activity, relationship marketing. People like to buy from people they like and trust. The fact that they entrust their hard-earned cash into your offer means that some kind of working relationship needs to be established to ease the risk of the business transaction. There are many relationship tools available to small business owners that ‘automate’ the relationship process. These tie into other tactics such as email and digital marketing.

Guerrilla Marketing is everything you do, from the way you answer your phone to your dress code and appearance. It is any contact you have, or anyone representing you, with anybody or company.

Your marketing should start and have no end; it needs to been seen as a circle of events that continue year in and year out. These events should be structured on your Guerrilla Marketing calendar for easy reference and measurement. Every marketing campaign should be structured around your marketing plan. Jay developed the seven sentence-marketing plan which delivers direction and accountability to your marketing efforts. This plan outlines the promotion, benefits, audience and budget of every campaign. Following these basic fundamentals of small business marketing will help your company generate sales and profits without spending unnecessary money on advertising.

If you want to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing call Darryl Now for a free, no-obligation exploratory session!
This session will help you put the right message in the right sequence to increase the responsiveness to your marketing efforts.

Darryl Comley-White

For the past 8 years Darryl and his team at Market Magnet Consulting has helped hundreds of businesses and individuals grow their bottom line profits without spending unnecessary money on advertising. www.marketmagnet.co.za

There is so much hype in marketing circles around terms like brand exposure, brand identity, brand awareness, brand expansion and so on, but how does this relate to you, a business owner?

Is there really any value in developing a brand and keeping the identity of the brand continuous? Truthfully, well yes and no…

At a marketing seminar I was hosting a couple of months back a couple of question kept presenting themselves from the audience: What about branding?  How do I expose my brand? Although the answers to these questions may be obvious to some, rocket science to others – vitally important nonetheless, I opted for the safe answer and returned the question: how important is your brand to you?

The majority of the audience nodded and muttered in agreement that it is very important. As true as this is, many business owners miss the point of branding and so I proceeded with a story.

I was previously involved in the music industry where all the artists have is a name and talent to keep them in the lime light.  On more than one occasion I recall sitting with artists in the recording studio as they tried to find a name that was cool, hip and happening. You can imagine the obscurities that came out of those late night sessions, far too many creative minds in a small recording studio and so many crazy ideas. As I was on my way home for the night I profoundly said, “a name means nothing until its famous..” and then left the band in a stunned silence.

Since then every consultation I have with clients wanting to rebrand their company I reiterate those same ‘wise’ words.

A name means nothing until its famous.

This becomes clear when you understand the three elements of brand architecture: monolithic, where the company name is used on all products and services; endorsed, where all sub-brands are linked to the corporate brand by either verbal or written endorsement; and free standing, where the corporate brand operates as a holding company and each product or service is branded to the specific target market.

Relating your business to the brand architecture of which most small business will be classified monolithic, due to the structure and nature of the business, it becomes clear to whom your name (brand) should be famous.

You only need to be famous to those who need your products and services – In other words, your target market as well as your clients and prospects. Exposing your brand any further to a mass market is largely untargeted and usually very costly.

To make a small business brand powerful there are a number of big business brand rules you need to follow.

Firstly your company’s name. What’s in a name?
So many business owners name their business after something that is meaningful to them and miss the opportunity to concisely describe their offer in their name, their corporate identifier. Those most guilty are professional services like attorneys and accountants. With very little creative input they call themselves names like: Johnston and Associates, for all we know they could be a group of plumbers or brick layers.

Consider the name of your business. Is it fully descriptive of your core activity? If it is not you need to consider adopting a brand identity statement. The brand identity statement (BIS) is a short phrase that explicitly describes your offer. Some may confuse a BIS with a slogan. A slogan is usually creative and catchy whereas a BIS is to the point like Marketing Consultant, Web strategist, Pool services etc…

Brand continuity is the next important element. Coming up an attractive name, designing a creative logo and brand identity statement becomes very powerful to those that think you are famous. Your clients are your fans. Your deliverables build brand credibility and trust. You know the saying ‘ people like to do business with people they like’, once a client or prospect recognises your brand as being trustworthy and credible, engaging in a business relationship is far easier. To keep your brand continuous make sure that all marketing collateral and stationery present your brand clearly.

Many large businesses have under their employ a brand custodian that is tasked with the protection of the brand across most mediums from print to television and radio. The boundaries and limitations are often so strict that the logo and any other identifying content require certain perimeter spacing that must remain neutral. This is to protect the integrity of the brand.

Keeping in mind that most large corporations pay millions of Rands in research to develop their brands they need to ensure its integrity. Small businesses can learn from our bigger counterparts. Protect your brand as you are famous to those who know you and you will become a brand to those that will come to know you.

Darryl Comley-White

For the past 8 years the team at Market Magnet Consulting has helped hundreds of businesses and individuals grow their bottom line profits without spending unnecessary money on advertising.

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Offline Tools- Online Tools- Obvious Expert ‚ Public Relations

There are a wealth of marketing tools available to every business. Many are costly whilst there are many that cost next to nothing.

Numerous SME type businesses make use of the free marketing tools that are well within their reach.There are over 100 marketing tools that you can implement into your strategic marketing campaigns. Including these into your marketing will dramatically reduce the cost of your marketing and at the same time increasing the Return On Investment.

Many of these marketing tools apply to both Online and Offline marketing efforts.

Although tactics are uniquely used in either Online campaigns or Offline campaigns, if they do not dovetail and have a common resultant goal your campaign will not be as successful or effective as it should be. Always remember that a good combination of Offline and Online marketing will leverage your marketing and apply a constant momentum to your marketing success.

Establishing yourself as the obvious expert in your industry will go a long way in building your brand and setting you apart from your competition. There are a number of steps involved and although an on-going and lengthy process, Obvious Expert establishment places you in a league separate to any competition.

Strategic positioning of yourself and your company as the obvious expert ties in well with PR style marketing. If you are an expert and various industry-specific publications are aware of this then you are able to leverage your expertise and supply a constant flow of information through these outlets, be it online or offline.

Market Magnet Consulting implements the 8 pillars of marketing that will help your business build the marketing momentum you need to succeed.

Space is limited in order to give your business the focus needed to grow strategically.

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