Guerilla marketing techniques are used by companies to advertise on a low budget and they often use unconventional tactics to get their message across to potential customers. Guerilla marketing tends to involve highly imaginative advertising in public places and engaging people with unusual approaches.
Guerilla Marketing Techniques – Original Term
The original term was made by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’ . The term originally comes from Guerilla warfare - a term used for tactics employed by small groups of armed civilians who can take on larger enemies by using ambushes, raids and surprise tactics.
Although large corporations use guerilla marketing tactics to advertise with huge budgets, the idea can be used by smaller companies to get their message into the minds of people in their target audience. See why is target market important.
Guerilla Marketing Techniques
You will often see larger companies using guerilla marketing techniques to engage their audience in an unusual way. This can have the effect of the product sticking in the persons mind. Think of the following advert slogans which have placed the product/s in the mind of the customer long after they have seen the advert:
- Bean means _______
- Because you’re worth it.
- Just Do It
- Don’t leave home without it
- Think different
- The Worlds Favourite Airline
- Vorsprung Durch Technik
- It’s good to talk.
Guerilla advertising can work in a similar way to television advertising. If someone is entertained or made to think about the advertising, they are much more likely to remember the product or service.
Guerilla marketing techniques effectively place the product or service in the mind of those who have seen them by engaging them in an unusual way or making them think. The more clever, funny or unusual the campaign is, the more likely it is to stick in people’s minds.
Online Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing techniques can be used online too. More companies now have an online presence than ever before and advertising online can be expensive. To get around paying for costly advertising online there are various tactics which online marketers employ to reach a greater target audience at low cost. Here are a few examples of what online marketers can do to find potential customers without having to spend on advertising:
- Blogging – blogging is a low cost method of reaching potential customers online and promoting your company or service. Bloggers inform people about a service or product and connect the customer with the product through their content.
- Free forms of advertising – This could be by using sites like ebay, gumtree, craigslist and freeads websites. These sites allow you to advertise for free and are a great resource for online businesses or physical businesses with little or no budget.
- YouTube videos – Guerilla marketing techniques can be used to great effect with YouTube. By creating unusual videos and connecting people to products online you can sell affiliate products and services or your own business through your videos.
- Keyword Analysis – This comes under the heading of blogging but can also be used for creating and listing videos on YouTube. This plays a huge part in guerilla marketing for online businesses. By targeting specific keyword combinations which are searched for but which also offer the least competition, smaller companies can find hidden openings in their market. See finding long tail keywords and how to use keyword research.
Online Guerilla Marketing – Free advertising
Whether you have your own physical business, online business or are an affiliate for another online product or service, you can advertise your affiliate link, website link or online business for free. See this article: where can I advertise my affiliate link for free. If you don’t have a product to sell take a look at this turnkey internet business or choose a niche to develop into an online business; see profitable niche website ideas.
Niche Websites are a good free form of advertising if you can get your website to rank on the first page of Google. This is often how smaller companies earn a living on the internet. By researching your topic, keywords and competition, and then developing an informative website around your niche, you can build traffic and promote affiliate products and services around your specific niche topic. See most successful affiliate websites.
Online Guerilla Marketing – Finding Untapped Keywords
Finding keywords which not only are targeted towards the right audience, but also offer the potential to rank on Google for free, is a key Guerilla tactic used by many online marketers. This can be done by using keyword research to find the ‘low hanging fruit’ on Google.
By ‘low hanging fruit’ I mean the untapped long tail keywords which offer you a chance of ranking on Google for them. By writing specifically for the terms which match your products, and which also match these untapped terms, you can rank on Google for free. You 
must have a ‘buyer keyword’ and a nice low number of competing pages for your specific keyword.
Watch the video for more on this and look out for my upcoming e-book which discusses this in more detail. If you add yourself to my email list you can get a free copy of the book when it is finished. Sign up on the right of the page.