Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing. Jay Levinson Conrad

admittedly, it did take a bit more time, a smidgeon more energy, a teeny tiny tad more information, and a whale of a better imagination. That’s how guerrillas apply their imaginations.

       THE PIZZA RESTAURANT

      A pizza restaurant in Indiana used imagination to perk up its marketing strategy. Realizing the intense interest in football it printed up a two-sided circular. One side read, “half price off of any large-sized pizza at Marios” and their address. The second side said in bold print “Go Hoosiers.”

      It handed out the circulars at the entrance to the football stadium, and as you might imagine, after every hometown touchdown hundreds of people held up “Go Hoosiers” and thousands of people read the coupon for Marios Pizza.

      Some, if doing a mailing about a product from England, send their mailings to England so they can be mailing to their prospects with an English stamp. Once again, imagination wins the day for them. With hardly any of your competitors exercising such lively imaginations, it’s no surprise that guerrillas win the day through direct mail. And that’s why one of their key personality characteristics is their imagination.

      They may not know how to draw their way out of a paper bag or write even two words that rhyme, but when it comes to the imagination to stand apart from reality, guerrilla marketers are second to none.

Trait 3: Sensitivity

      A guerrilla marketer cannot plod through life thinking only of himself or herself. One of the key traits for a truly successful guerrilla is sensitivity. The guerrilla must be sensitive to

      • the marketplace.

      • the rural or urban environment in which the marketing is taking place.

      • the economy.

      • the history with his products or services, to his customers.

      • his prospects.

      • their families.

      • the time of year.

      • the competition.

      • what’s on his prospect’s mind at the moment he is marketing.

      • the time in history.

      A lack of this sensitivity was demonstrated in early 2007 during the “Boston Bomb Scare,” when a cartoon network owned by Turner Broadcasting promoted—or rather mis-promoted—a new TV show by placing decals in all the wrong places: near subways, bus stops, and other locales where large groups of people congregated. The decals, which had wires and duct tape attached to them, frightened many Bostonians who thought they might be bomb-related. Because two of the jet planes involved in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in September 2001 took off from Logan Airport in Boston, it’s not hard to blame those citizens of Boston for being terrified, causing traffic and public transportation throughout the city to come to a halt for hours and hours.

      Had the promoters been sensitive to the mindset in Boston since 9/11, they could have chosen a different kind of promotion. Today, there is a pre-9/11 mindset and a post-9/11 mindset, calling for enhanced sensitivity, something the cartoon network promotion totally lacked. That’s probably the main reason why the Turner Broadcasting Company was fined $2 million for its insensitivity.

      You may not make such a horrific blunder or be fined such a substantial amount, but you could lose a lot of potential profits if you are insensitive. Guerrillas are always sensitive to the code of ethics where they operate, and to the sensibilities of the populace, being ultra-careful never to offend people or communities, never to terrify them, never to deface property, and never to be intrusive beyond the bounds of good taste.

      Guerrilla marketers are sensitive to what their prospects are thinking right at the moment, to what they want, what they lack, and what they read about in the newspapers or hear on the radio. They are sensitive to the dreams of their market, striving to make these dreams come true.

      As part of mass communication, marketing is part of evolution and has an obligation to be sensitive to everyone, good or bad. Without it, non-guerrillas are fighting an uphill battle.

Trait 4: Ego Strength

      By ego strength, we don’t mean having the ego to stand up to those who don’t love you. It’s just the opposite, it means having the ego to stand up to those who love you the most—but give you the worst marketing advice.

      Ego strength means having the ego to stand up to those who love you the most—but give you the worst marketing advice.

      You craft a powerful marketing strategy, embark upon a boundfor-glory campaign, and see that all your plans are falling right into place, just as you wanted them to, and who are the first people to tire of your marketing and counsel you to change it? Usually, first it’s your co-workers and then your employees, followed closely by your family, and then your best friends. “Hey, you’ve been doing that marketing for a long time now. I, personally, am getting pretty bored with it. Don’t you think it’s time to change it?” Your job: Summon up the ego to give these people a nice, warm hug, then send them on their way, knowing they know beans about your marketing.

      Those people who have had their minds penetrated by your marketing three times, they’re not getting bored with it. They’re just learning of your existence. Those folks who have had their minds penetrated five times, the marketing momentum is just beginning with them. They last thing they want is for you to fade from view. Your current customers, they feel wonderful whenever they’re exposed to your marketing because it proves that they’ve hitched their wagons to a winner—the kind of company that has the confidence to continue to market.

      But your co-workers, family, and friends, having concentrated on your marketing from the onset, are tired of it, know it backwards and forwards, and wonder when you’re going to change it. Again, they not-so-gently hint to you that perhaps you ought to drop it and move on to something else, which is another way of suggesting that you move away from your investment, move away from profitability, and move away from the momentum you’ve established. It takes a strong ego to look these people in the eye, give their arms a comforting squeeze, then stay with what you started. A lesser person than you, with a weaker ego, might cave in to their pressure, take their wellintended put poorly reasoned advice, and throw a marketing investment to the winds where, alas, many marketing investments end up.

      If you ever thought that guerrilla marketing, especially at the beginning, is a cup of tea, this is the point where you learn that it’s not for amateurs, not for insecure babies, and more like a cup of nitroglycerine that can blow up in your face if you make a crucial mistake. Lacking the ego to stand up to misinformed well-wishers is that mistake. If you’re a guerrilla, you won’t make it. For if you do, you’re destined to repeat it each time you’re at the helm of a failing business.

Trait 5: Aggressiveness

      When you hear that there are 200 guerrilla marketing weapons and that more than half of them are free, if you’re a guerrilla, a smile crosses your face. Somehow, your bank account lights up, and you hear the musical sounds of money jingling. Ka-ching! That’s the sound of this fifth personality characteristic.

      This is not to say that guerrillas are money-minded, for they’re not. But it is to say that they know what it takes to obtain money. Not luck. Not a lottery. Not an inheritance, though we badmouth none of those. But aggressiveness. That’s the trait we laud to the skies.

      With every business utilizing just a handful of marketing weapons—three, five, ten, or even 15—the opportunity to choose from among 200 is a heady feeling. It takes an aggressive attitude to wrap your ambitions around such a lofty amount. But it’s that aggressiveness that’s going to separate you from the wannabe and wimpy guerrillas, if indeed, there is such a thing as a wimpy guerrilla.

      We’re