Guerrilla marketing

Our daily lives are filled with all kinds of advertisements, driven by the desire to highlight a product or brand. Creativity and originality sometimes have no limits, leading to surprising advertising campaigns. The evolving needs of consumers greatly contribute to the emergence of new marketing strategies, such as guerrilla marketing.

What is guerrilla marketing? It is a marketing technique that uses unconventional approaches employed by companies eager to create buzz and gain visibility. It is an attempt to innovate to stand out from the competition.

Guerrilla definition

The term “guerrilla marketing” comes from the Spanish language and refers to a hidden war aimed at defeating adversaries with surprising methods. In the marketing world, this term was introduced in 1984 by Jay Conrad Levinson. He wrote his best-seller named after the concept, where he outlined marketing strategies to capture attention using simple yet effective means. Levinson explains how to conduct a low-cost advertising campaign with maximum impact.

Since then, guerrilla marketing has proven to be an effective advertising method to market products, services, or promote brands on a large scale. The mission is simple: create an original advertisement and create buzz across all possible communication channels.

How does guerrilla marketing work? All the details below.

What are the goals of guerrilla marketing?

All consumers face a lot of advertisements every day. In the metro, on the streets, on TV, on the Internet… everywhere! Everyone undergoes the intrusiveness of all the ads and, at times, finds them quite annoying. Consumers increasingly develop “banner blindness,” meaning they no longer notice ads and are not swayed by them. Therefore, the more surprising an ad is, the more it will capture consumer attention.

On the Internet, guerrilla advertising often unfolds on social networks. Actions launched to promote products are often unprecedented and have fairly clear objectives:

• stand out and use all creative means to promote a brand/product in a non-conventional way;
• surprise consumers with unusual presentations;
• leave a lasting impression through exceptional character;
• enhance brand awareness by creating a multiplying effect on the Internet;
• have a viral effect, generate discussions on social networks;
• build a brand image and promote its core values;
• increase sales through the immediate effect of the advertising campaign;
• launch other promotional actions following the major buzz.

Marketing technique

Guerrilla technique is hit or miss. Guerrilla advertising allows not only to interest the target audience but also to evoke emotions towards the brand. For example, by creating videos, events, or viral posts on social media, guerrilla technique reaches a vast number of consumers and garners millions of views in a very short time.

This method is very effective for companies that want to improve their brand awareness, launch new products, or restore reputation after media scandals, for instance. The return on investment (ROI) could be huge, while traditional advertising campaigns (TV, outdoor billboards) may only bring these results after several months.

Sometimes, guerrilla campaigns may also have adverse effects as the most original ideas can take unexpected turns. This happens because a viral effect is uncontrollable and evolves based on how people react. If the advertisement goes in an undesired direction, it could have disastrous consequences on the brand’s image. However, even with the risk of things going wrong, it’s worth it both in cost and in the long term.

Remember, even if a guerrilla advertising campaign implies extravagance, the primary objective is to reveal a brand’s values and present its actions. Engaging in guerrilla marketing is a chance to make the brand unforgettable and quickly achieve good positioning.

How to do guerrilla marketing

Many entrepreneurs ask the same question: how to apply guerrilla marketing in practical life? Here are the 5 fundamental steps of guerrilla marketing:

• Develop the guerrilla marketing plan;
• Choose your “weapons” before designing your advertising campaigns;
• Think of a guerrilla approach by combining your goals, marketing plan, and available “weapons” to implement everything;
• Do not hesitate to try the craziest ideas;
• Measure results to act accordingly if your campaign takes an unplanned turn.

Step 1: Think about the marketing plan

Of course, before any action, it is necessary to have an action plan with a direct and practical approach. Your plan’s structure should include answers to the 7 questions:

• What is your main goal? What objectives do you want to achieve?
• Who is your target audience?
• Do you have a particular niche in the market you work with?
• What are your main advantages compared to competitors?
• Describe your identity, your brand’s identity.
• What means will you use to achieve your goals? (called weapons in guerrilla marketing)
• What is your budget for all actions?

Step 2: Choose your “Weapons”

Depending on the messages you want to convey, your “weapons” may range from a radio ad to viral videos on social networks. Here is a list of means that can be considered for a guerrilla campaign:

• Human-scale street events (flash mobs);
• Viral videos;
• Websites, interactive infographics that offer an immersive experience;
• A barter action to swap objects and present a brand and its products;
• Create a community and launch actions within that community;
• Conduct free actions: free consultations, technical supports, free services, distribute free items;
• Organize “useful” events which would be free, like seminars or master classes;
• Start a collaboration with associated entities or partner brands.

Of course, these are just examples, many traditional advertising tools. However, once chosen, these “weapons” should be well applied to the actions you plan.

Step 3: Use the chosen “Weapons”

This is not about inventing new methods for implementing a marketing campaign but using existing weapons in an unusual manner. Think ahead about the possibilities of each weapon you choose.

Here are the two main questions you need to ask yourself:

• What is possible to do with the chosen tools?
• What are the ordinary and extraordinary possibilities of each tool?

To answer these questions, thoroughly study your target clients, who will be the basis of guerrilla marketing campaigns.

Consumers always expect all ads to be surprising. Thus, what could be done to surprise your clients and truly stand out with the tools you’ve chosen?

By sparking curiosity, you can harness all the energy needed to reach the set objectives.

Step 4: Experiment and launch

Guerrilla marketing = a bold action. You must be audacious and ready to dive into whatever you’re setting up. Sometimes, the craziest ideas can bring about brilliant results!

Step 5: And finally, measure the results!

Strictly speaking, this is not a step in a guerrilla marketing strategy, but statistics are necessary to know how to direct your actions. Remember: marketing that is not sufficiently measured is not marketing at all.

Mix guerrilla marketing with content marketing

Guerrilla marketing is an original approach to reaching your targets outside of your regular advertising campaigns. This type of strategy is offered by several communication agencies to create an unprecedented strategy and communicate off-media.

The advantages of such campaigns are obvious: a good buzz can be 100 times more effective than hundreds of Google Ads campaigns. Plus, there is a great opportunity to meet your target audience and use arguments to make them adhere to a brand’s cause.

At the same time, guerrilla marketing can also be very effective if combined with traditional actions via traditionally used media.

The classics remain: content still dominates the marketing world because it remains an effective means of arousing consumer interest. However, it is not enough to have quality content on its own. It is mandatory to relay your messages to allow a larger number of users to discover this content.

Guerrilla marketing can work in tandem with an outreach marketing or content marketing campaign by promoting your content online. Combining the two practices, we manage to improve a brand’s online awareness, have more websites that will cite your articles, increase traffic to your website, and forge a reputation as an expert among your target readers.

Outreach marketing — is the creation of quality content aimed at promoting your brand or products on thematic websites, while guerrilla marketing aims to be extensive and creative to surprise the audience. Thus, if both approaches are connected, the result can be interesting not only to make the brand known but also to forge its good reputation among a very large number of people. It’s by combining creativity and technical tools that you can give consumers an idea of who you are and what you can do for them.

Guerrilla marketing cost

Depending on your objectives, the cost of a marketing campaign combined or not with other techniques can vary. Of course, everything depends on your initial budget even if there are fixed prices for such and such marketing action.

At PrFlare, brand reputation service, you can order several services to promote your brand by publishing content on various websites.

PrFlare has created a database of websites where you can choose a theme that suits you and in which you want to position yourself. The main goal of the agency is to help brands gain recognition with influencer marketing. Aside from promoting your website, the techniques used by PrFlare will help you get more traffic to your website and reach a target audience on diverse platforms. Feel free to discover all the services offered on the agency’s website.

To conclude

Even if you don’t have a project to promote using guerrilla marketing, try thinking like a “guerrilla,” it could help take your creativity to a new level and develop new ideas for content strategies.

Simply because every audience (no matter the topic) wants to be surprised, want to see advertising messages at the right moment, spark their curiosity, and simply enjoy the information they receive.