Guerrilla Marketing, Part 2: How to Succeed on a Next-to-Zero Advertising Budget
By Marv Lincoln Imagine: An ongoing advertising, marketing and publicity campaign for your small business that succeeds beyond your wildest expectations. The cost: Pocket change. Fantasy? Hardly. Such a scenario is not only possible, but is happening all across America today. The technique is called Guerrilla Marketing, and it is being utilized more and more as advertising costs soar and media options expand in a marketplace that is volatile, unpredictable and fraught with risk. Consider this: The average advertising-marketing expenditure for large corporations and big businesses in America today is a little under ten percent of annual gross income. For small businesses, the average ranges from 10 to 25 percent. That’s a lot of money for any size business. And much of the advertising-marketing budget is wasted on the scattershot approach, which means untargeted ads in newspapers (a crap shoot at best) or direct mail (in which a 1-2 percent return is considered successful). Fuggedaboutit! Guerrilla Marketing means never having to say you’re sorry about having a next-to-zero ad budget. It means using unconventional ways of promoting your business. It means using your energy, creativity and ingenuity to bring about the desired results without gambling next month’s mortgage payment. In this ongoing series, I will present several examples of successful Guerrilla marketing campaigns as well as time-tested ideas for promoting your small business for next to nothing. Example one: Entertain the public. Everyone likes entertainment. Especially when it’s free. For a client in Sedona, my firm ran a series of small, visually entertaining ads in the local media featuring an attractive young woman who is a model as well as an aspiring singer-songwriter. We’ll call her Susan. The client sells carpets and other home furnishings. It’s a tough market with a lot of competition. The ads didn’t cost much for the quarter, probably under $1,000. Our model was always depicted with the product, saying lines that were takeoffs on familiar ad campaigns or cultural icons: “I’ll Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse!” or “It’s All About Youand Your Home!” For a Labor Day promotion, we had Susan come to the shop in Uptown Sedona to perform on keyboard and vocals, meet the public and sign autographs. Although most people outside Sedona haven’t heard of Susan — yet — the people were lined 20 and 30 deep to meet her and get her autograph. Sales for the Labor Day weekend were up more than 300 percent over the previous year as a result of this promotion. Susan was paid a token sum, about $100, for her personal appearance, but she sold dozens of copies of her first CD, got lots of local radio airplay in connection with her appearance, and is now in Los Angeles making the necessary connections to become a Country & Western star. That’s Guerrilla Marketing: Minimum investment, local talent, free entertainment, major action at the cash register, and everyone benefits. More to come in our Guerrilla Marketing 101 series. Stay tuned! Look for a company that can create ideas and provide the tools for your Guerrilla Marketing campaign: Call on Thunder Mountain Productions for all of your copywriting and marketing needs. Creative Director Marv Lincoln has years of experience as a writer, reporter, advertising and PR executive, book editor, and published book author. He has been published in many national periodicals. Visit http://www.sedonapr.com/ for more information. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marv_Lincoln http://EzineArticles.com/?Guerrilla-Marketing,-Part-2:–How-to-Succeed-on-a-Next-to-Zero-Advertising-Budget&id=400598 approved electronic cash fast business organization no credit check cell phones credit-loan-fast-easy unsecured loans poor credit
