Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

Saturday - December 30, 2017

Highlights:

“When I write the word marketing, I’m thinking of your prospects and your current customers. Nothing personal, but when you read the word marketing, you’re probably thinking of prospects only. Don’t make that mistake.”

“Marketing is not about you. It’s about them.”

Notes

The most important thing about marketing is your commitment to a single, sensable marketing plan. While you shouldn’t settle for mediocrity, it is worth knowing that staying committed to a mediocre marketing plan is better than not being committed and following an excellent marketing plan. #

It takes a buyer many times of exposure to your brand before they are ready to buy.

Marketing is a conservative investment.

Marketing is not an overnight double-your-sales kind of investment. Could it happen? Yes? Is it normal? No.

Keep your marketing consistent. Don’t change media. Don’t change messages. Don’t vary your graphic format. Change your offers and headlines and even your prices, if you wish, but do not change your identity.

DON’T drop out of the public eye for long periods. Be prepared to put out the word consistently - regularly.

Instead of running a large newspaper ad once and a while, run many small ones frequently.

Subsequent

“It’s the marketing done subsequent to the sale that leads to the juicy profits It costs six times more to sell a product or a service to a new customer than it does to an existing customer”

Amazement

Your marketing must provide a level of amazement. This means going the extra mile and providing things your competitors don’t.

Measurement

Always measure your marketing efforts

The best marketing simply attempts to gain your consent to hear from you rather than making a sale.

16 Secrets/Steps

Bonus: The seventeenth secret: IMPLEMENT THESE SECRETS!

“Small businesses have an advantage over large businesses in that they can occupy smaller niches and prosper by dominating them.”

“You must identify all of your target markets. Then take careful aim at each”

Once you clearly focused on your market (or markets) you can clarify on your market position:

  1. Does it offer a benefit that my target audience really wants
  2. Is it an honest-to-goodness benefit?
  3. Does it truly separate me from my competition?
  4. Is it unique and/or difficult to copy?

Writing a marketing plan

“No guerrilla would think of doing a speck of marketing without a proper marketing plan that includes a positioning statement.”

“The plan starts with the purpose of marketing–that is, it starts with the bottom line. Then it connects with the benefits that will beautify that bottom line and with those who will contribute to that line–the target audience. The marketing tools are then listed. Next comes the positioning statement, which explains what the product and company stand for–why the offering has value and why it should be purchased. The identity (Not the image, which is phony compared with the honesty of an identity) comes next. The cost of the marketing wraps it up”

Seven-Sentence Guerrilla Marketing Strategy

The sentences:

  1. The purpose of the marketing - What you want your prospect to actual do (ex. Calling your phone number, signing up to your email list)
  2. How you’ll achieve this purpose (Include your competitive advantage and benefits)
  3. Your Target market
  4. The marketing weapons you’ll use
  5. Your niche and your position and what you stand for
  6. The identity of your business
  7. Your Budget (Should be expressed as a percentage of your projected gross revenues. In 2006, the average U.S. business invested 4 percent of gross revenues in marketing)

Example: An imaginary company called “Freedom Press” that sells freelancing books

“The purpose of Freedom Press marketing is to motivate people to order the book online or by mail so as to sell the maximum number of books at the lowest possible selling cost per book. This will be accomplished by positioning the books as being so valuable to freelancers that they are guaranteed to be worth more to the reader than their selling price. The target market will be people who are or plan to be engaged in freelance earning activities.”

The next paragraph could go into the specifics of how to accomplish the above.

“People forget quickly. Each and every day Americans are bombarded with approximately 4,700 advertisements and marketing messages.”

In a study a commercial was shown once a week for 13 weeks. After 13 weeks 63% of people remembered it. A month later 32 percent remembered it. Two weeks after that, 21 percent remembered it. This means 79% of people forgot about it.

“If you don’t make people aware that you are selling something, they’ll spend their money elsewhere.”

“If you halt your marketing program, you shortchange your reputation”

Marketing weapons

There are many different marketing mediums you have access to - free and paid. You must do many, carefully keeping track of each to find the failing ways and successful ways.

Use a marketing calendar to keep track.

Saving Money

Hire a high-cost designer for your initial ad to create a visual format for you to follow.

Then hire cheap designers for all of your follow-up materials and have them copy the formatting of the original ad.

Can get cheap advertising by purchasing discounted unfilled ad space in magazines/newspapers.

Establishing yourself as an ad agency can save you 15% off of most advertising.

Market to primarily customers, not prospects. It costs one-sixth as much to sell something to a customer than to a prospect.

Research

too much entrepreneurial ego or downright stubbornness gets in the way of listening to the consumer.

Ignorance is more expensive than paid research.

  1. What should you market—your goods, your services, or both?
  2. Should your marketing feature some sort of price advantage?
    1. Should you emphasize yourself, your quality offerings, your selection, your convenience, your service, or only the existence of your business? 4. Should you take on your competition or ignore all competitors? 5. Exactly who are your competitors? 6. Who are your best prospects? 7. What income groups do they represent? 8. What motivates them to buy? 9. Where do they live? 10. What media do they read, watch, and listen to? 11. Do they have fax machines? 12. Are they online? 13. Do you have their e-mail addresses? The more answers you get, the more money you make. 14. Do they have children? If so, what are their ages? 15. What are their favorite sports teams? 16. What are their hobbies? 17. What do their spouses do for a living? 18. What activities most interest their kids at school? 19. Where did they attend high school and college? 20. What are their purchase plans for the coming year? 21. What do they most like about your company? 22. To make your company perfect, what do they suggest that you do? 23. Would they want a free subscription to your online newsletter?

I suggest that, whether you are male or female, you wear a dark business suit. The dark colors—navy blue, black, deep gray, or charcoal—lend authority to what you say. T

Hardly anyone buys features, but most of us buy benefits to ourselves

Guerrilla Company Attributes

Company Name

Your company name should stand out from the crowd. If it doesn’t, it is forgettable.

Great names are like tiny poems; each letter, word unit, and sound should work with the others to deliver strategic messages.

The name could describe or suggest a feature/benefit.

Bad names are hard to pronounce, difficult to spell, and aren’t memorable.

A “Meme”

Not an internet meme. The term meme was coined in 1976 and essentially means a simple image that expresses an idea universally.

An example of a meme in use is a cave drawing of a man spearing a fish. There is a caveman that spends all day trying to fish with his hands with zero luck. Then he spots the cave drawing and is able to feed himself.

Examples of memes in the modern world include the eagle in America which stands for freedom, flashing headlights sign telling you to slow down, those turtle street signs which tell people to slow down.

In business,, memes can be the Pillsbury doughboy, the energizer bunny, or Aunt Jemima.

To create a meme, visualize your main benefit and distill it, compress it, and simplify it.

Theme Line

Doesn’t cost you a penny to create a winning, lasting, and memorable theme line.

“You’re in good hands with Allstate”

Your theme line should be created to last a century or more.

Use your theme line EVERYWHERE. Email signature, website, business cards, etc

Rhymes help memorability

Ideally theme lines should only be a few words. The best theme lines say something good but don’t use superlatives.

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