Guerrilla marketing is a low-budget, attention-grabbing promotional tactic that often involves unconventional methods such as publicity stunts, shocking displays, and costumed performers. It appeals to startups lacking advertising budgets and relies on in-depth analysis of target consumer demographics. The goal is to create buzz and word-of-mouth marketing. The concept was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in the 1970s, and it is not meant to be spam or illegal invasion.
Guerrilla marketing tactics are concrete, usually low-budget promotions and concepts designed to draw attention to a product or company. Seldom using the more expensive conduits of television and radio, many guerrilla marketing campaigns are communicated to their target audience at street level. Guerrilla marketing tactics are often shocking, funny and controversial at the same time, as in the hypothetical example of a new beer company called Bottoms Up Brewers advertising its name, graphics and logo on the back of bikinis worn by a group of attractive women.
Appealing to the desires and emotions of the target audience is a key concept of this type of marketing. It is through in-depth analysis of the target consumer demographic that guerrilla marketing strategies tend to be created. Since guerrilla marketing tactics often need to have little or no budget, providing consumers with targeted information that addresses their needs as traditional advertising tends to do is not the goal. Planning and executing an imaginative and memorable publicity stunt to start building brand recognition and getting people talking is the main goal of most guerrilla campaigns. Word of mouth and buzz marketing are other names often given to these types of campaign implementations.
Like guerrilla warfare where offbeat tactics are used to surprise opponents, the form of marketing that goes by the same name strives to surprise in the way it aggressively engages with its target consumers. Guerrilla marketing tactics often involve dramatic publicity stunts, shocking window displays, or costumed buskers. The cost is minimal because students can be paid minimally to participate or the owners of a guerrilla agency can do the stunts themselves.
Such guerrilla marketing tactics were first noticed in the 1970s. The term Guerrilla Marketing was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book of the same name. The book outlines several techniques for generating free publicity and sales. The types of shocking public displays and attention-grabbing tactics in the book appeal to many startups that often lack an advertising budget. While this form of promotional strategy relies on unconventional methods of gaining attention that are often controversial, its original concept is not one of spamming or otherwise illegally invading.
An example of one of many possible Internet guerrilla marketing tactics is to have brightly colored business cards or flyers delivered inexpensively by students to homes in many different cities, then checking by phone to make sure deliveries are likely have been carried out. Follow-up calls can also further engage the target consumer by awarding this small number of people a free T-shirt or other inexpensive promotional prize when they access the promoted website. The target audience of a guerrilla marketing tactic should always feel “in” about the promotion, rather than like something is being pushed on them.
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