The Best of Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing Remix

Jay Levinson, Jeannie Levinson

• Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781599184227
• eBook ISBN: 9781613081655
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Cash in with Guerrilla Marketing’s Greatest HitsUpdated, adapted, remastered…The Father of Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson, and co-author Jeannie Levinson, present you with the only book to deliver The Best of Guerrilla Marketing—a combination of the latest secrets, strategies, tactics, and tools from more than 35 top selling Guerrilla Marketing books.When they write the history of marketing thought, Jay doesn't get a page... he gets his own chapter.
Seth Godin, author of Poke the BoxThis book is the culmination of Guerrilla Marketing’s huge footprint on the marketing landscape. Keep it on top of your desk-it will become your marketing bible.
—Jill Lublin, international speaker and author, Jilllublin.comFor business survival in the 21st century, Guerrilla Marketing ranks right up there
with food, water, shelter — and, of course, Internet access.
David Garfinkel, author of Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich21 million entrepreneurs around the world, including me and most of my clients & friends, owe a debt of gratitude to Jay Conrad Levinson for his inspiring Guerrilla Marketing advice and mentoring.
Roger C. Parker, www.PublishedandProfitable.com

part 1

INSIGHT INTO GUERRILLA MARKETING

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chapter 1

What Marketing Really Is

IT’S THE PRECIOUS CONNECTION between you and whoever buys what you sell.

The connection is made online, in person, by phone, by mail, at a show, on a sign, by hearing, by reading or by seeing. It lasts from the moment the customer learns about you until he or she gets enticed away from you by a cagier guerrilla. But if you’re a guerrilla, that probably won’t happen to you.

You know what guerrillas know—that you knock yourself silly winning a customer, and you don’t lose that customer no matter what. That means you realize that the precious connection comprises what marketing really is—an entire experience.

Your job as a guerrilla: Make every single moment of the experience satisfying, simple, and worthwhile for the customer. When you do that, you’re truly a practitioner of guerrilla marketing.

Marketing is—the precious connection between you and whoever buys what you sell.

It isn’t easy to be that good. To give you a powerful competitive advantage, we’re giving you the pure gold we’ve mined from the treasury of guerrilla marketing. In our opinion, it’s all gold, but in these pages appear the nuggets that are purest and newest, the most leading edge and timeless of all.

Marketing really is—an entire experience.

Marketing begins the second that you know you’ve got a product or service to sell to a person. In that second, crucial questions pop up: What is the name of what you’ll be selling? Where can people buy it? How much will it cost? How will people pay? How much will it cost you to produce it? What color will be on the website and the shelf?

The answers to these questions change like the wind because marketing changes the same way. That ability to change is part of the DNA of guerrilla marketing.

There are two other parts to that DNA: The first is the ability to operate according to a very simple plan. Everybody can do that.

The second part is committing to that plan. Not everybody can do that. Most people expect quick answers, which don’t happen; instant results, which don’t happen; and high profits at the outset, which don’t happen. So they abandon their plan, making certain that it won’t happen. And then they complain that marketing doesn’t work for them.

But marketing works for everyone—if they do it right. This Guerrilla Marketing Remix exists to help you do it right.

Guerrilla marketing has made the transition from a maverick kind of marketing to mainstream marketing. It has taken its message from a single place in California to the majority of the world. It has been embraced by both small and large businesses on our planet for two straightforward reasons:

Marketing without a plan is like going into battle under a commander who says: “Ready . . . fire! . . . aim.”

1. It simplifies a seemingly complex topic.

2. It works every time if you do it right.

Guerrilla marketers have mastered the craft of doing it right. The purpose of this remix is to transform you into a guerrilla marketer. After the transformation, you’ll understand that marketing is all contact anyone representing your company has with anyone who does not represent your company. Marketing is not just the blaring trumpets. It’s also the easily overlooked details. But guerrillas don’t overlook them.

Marketing is—the truth made fascinating.

Guerrillas understand that today, marketing is the truth—always the truth—made fascinating—always fascinating. In the past, much of marketing was not the truth. And certainly, most of it was not fascinating.

What a lot of people fail to understand about marketing is that it is a process. It is not an event. Guerrilla marketing has a beginning and a middle but rarely an end—unless you sell your business. Even then, it should not have an end, unless you sold your business to a half-wit.

Marketing is also a business more than an art. Sure, It embraces all art forms—music, writing, acting, dancing, video, painting, illustrating, photography, singing—but don’t delude yourself thinking that you’re an artist. You’re a guerrilla, and your focus is on the profits of your business. If there’s any emotional gratification involved, it’s because of the steady and robust rise of those profits, not because of any awards or compliments you receive along the way.

Marketing is—a process, not an event.

A great artistic performance is often followed by applause and cheering. A great marketing performance is often followed by apathy and inaction. Why is that? That’s because it is marketing and not an artistic performance. Yet, many non-guerrillas, failing to hear the applause, figure that their marketing isn’t working. Marketing hardly ever works instantly. If you need instant results, go into farming. Often, that works faster than marketing. But even the best farmers can’t rush the process of planting, fertilizing, and harvesting.

Marketing is—an opportunity to educate prospects and customers on how to succeed at achieving their goals.

Guerrilla marketing works consistently and eventually. It hardly ever works immediately. We’re glad we’re clearing that part up right at the outset. We don’t want to see any long faces on business owners who have everything it takes to succeed except for patience.

Here’s what else marketing is: It’s a big chance for you. It’s your sparkling opportunity to educate your prospects and customers on how to succeed at achieving their goals. Whether those goals are to earn more money, grow a business, shrink a waistline, play better golf, attract a mate, or lose weight, marketing is your chance to show people how to make their dreams a reality. We’re living smack-dab in the middle of the Information Age, so you can give away free information to help your target market hit their own bull’s-eyes.

Perhaps you can do it with information. Or marketing success might lie in the products you offer or the services you render. Whatever it takes, your product can probably solve the problems of your audience. So consider yourself a problem solver. When you do, you’re well on your way to being a guerrilla marketer.

Of course, in addition to being a craft for a problem solver, we must admit marketing also involves an element of art. Truth be told, marketing is the art of getting people to change their minds; it’s a way to persuade them to see it your way, to stop doing things the way they’ve been doing them and begin doing them your way because doing them your way will make their lives easier, will help them achieve their goals, will help them be happier—whatever that takes. So one of your jobs as a guerrilla is to see what it really does take.

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GOLD RUSH

In 1853 a man went to the California gold rush hoping to make his fortune by selling tents to the miners. However, the weather was fine, and the miners slept out in the open, so the man could sell no tents. But he was creative; he made his fortune anyway, and his name is famous to this day.

How did he become rich? . . . And who is he?

He used the tough tent cloth to make trousers for the miners. His name was Levi Strauss.

Let’s stop here for a moment just so you can be clear on one thing. Are we telling you that guerrilla marketing is easy? We are not. Because it is not easy. There are many good things about it, including effectiveness, certainty, efficiency, freedom from stress, and the pure joy of doing things right. But it is not about ease. One would think that to be a guerrilla marketer, you’ve have to work your tail off. And you do have to work hard.

But we’ve created this Remix so that you don’t have to work your tail off. Jay has worked a three-day week from our home since l971, so we don’t want to lead you down a garden path toward overwork. No guerrilla is a workaholic.

Marketing is—the art of getting people to change their minds.

Excellence in hiring, training, and delegating protects guerrillas from that malady. What do hiring, training, and delegating have to do with marketing? They have everything to do with it because they are integral parts of the experience your customers will have with you.

Guerrilla marketing is a realization that a galaxy of details affect the power of your brand, the experience your customers have with you, and the size of the smile on your face when you review your profits.

’Nuff said. Let’s just do it.

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HUMAN RESOURCES HELPFUL HINTS

Take the prospective employees you are trying to place and put them in a room with only a table and two chairs. Leave them alone for two hours, without any instruction. At the end of that time, go back and see what they are doing.

• If they have taken the table apart, put them in Engineering.

• If they are counting the butts in the ashtray, assign them to Finance.

• If they are waving their arms and talking out loud, send them to Consulting.

• If they are talking to the chairs, Personnel is a good spot for them.

• If they are wearing green sunglasses and need a haircut, Computer Information Systems is their niche.

• If the room has a sweaty odor, perhaps they’re destined for the Help Desk.

• If they mention what a good price we got for the table and chairs, put them into Purchasing.

• If they mention that hardwood furniture DOES NOT come from rainforests, Public Relations would suit them well.

• If they are sleeping, they are management material.

• If they are writing up the experience, send them to the Technical Documents team.

• If they don’t even look up when you enter the room, assign them to Security.

• If they try to tell you it’s not as bad as it looks, send them to Marketing.

WALT DISNEY AND RAY KROC

Both Walt Disney and Ray Kroc were said to have been neat freaks, to the point of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). The story is told that one day both were attending the same event and found each other in the restroom at the same time. Neither one of them wanted to touch the restroom door handles, so they struck up a conversation that lasted for more than 20 minutes, as they patiently waited for someone else to enter the restroom, which allowed them to both scurry quickly out the door before it closed.

NEATNESS

Neatness is not something that occurs on a Monday morning. Neatness is something that should go on every second that you’re open. If people see that your premises are sloppy, they’re going to assume that’s the way you run your busi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• part 1 - INSIGHT INTO GUERRILLA MARKETING
• part 2 - GUERRILLA WISDOM FROM GUERRILLA CO-AUTHORS
• About the Authors and Co-Authors
• Index
• Get Entrepreneur Magazine to help grow your business
• More from Entrepreneur
• Subscribe to Entrepreneur Magazine
• Copyright Page