Guerrilla Marketing is an unconventional way of performing promotional activities on a very low budget. It focuses on achieving conventional marketing goals, with unconventional methods, for example investing energy rather than money.

Guerrilla marketing was initially aimed at small and medium size businesses which don’t have big marketing budgets, but it is now increasingly adopted by large businesses looking to achieve more with their budget. The name draws parallels to guerrilla fighters – members of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force using sabotage and harassment tactics not used by conventional forces.

The following are examples of guerrilla marketing, many from big businesses:

This was advertising the 3M security glass.

Virgin Atlantic

The field marketing done for myprivatedance.com.

Disappointingly the best examples seem to come from big businesses, so here’s some cheap guerrilla marketing ideas that SME’s can use.

• Instead of putting one stamp on your direct mail put as many as you can – i.e. put 22 one penny stamps on rather than a 22 pence stamp.
• Arrange for someone to picket or protest your business – for example read these posts.
• Tell customers NOT to buy from you. People often to the opposite of what they are told.
• Include a gift with your invoice – few people ever market or even show their appreciation to the accounts department.

Guerrilla marketing was described by Jay Conrad Levinson in his popular 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing. You can find out more by reading his Guerrilla Marketing website.

Have you got any good examples or ideas for guerrilla marketing?

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