Guerrilla Marketing: An Unexpected & Unconventional Marketing Strategy

Do you know “Shiva Ji Maharaj” and “Tantya Tope”? These are the names of the legends borne in the soil of India and are known for mastering Guerrilla Warfare Tactics. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj founded the Maratha Empire in the 17th century. He is called the father of Guerrilla Warfare in India. He named Guerrilla tactics “Shiv Sutra or Ganimi Kava.” With the help of these tactics, he succeeded in defeating many times larger and more powerful Mughal Armies. Many of these tactics include ambushes, sabotage, raids and elements of surprise.

Guerrilla warfare tactics are used in the marketing field as Guerrilla Marketing (GM) to promote products and services. Likewise, guerrilla warfare tactics and guerrilla marketing make good use of an element of surprise. GM is a unique marketing strategy that uses unexpected and unconventional methods at unexpected places and creates thought-provoking concepts to generate publicity, increase brand awareness and boost sales. This strategy always aims in doing something different to grab people’s attention.

Let’s explore more about what guerrilla marketing is all about!

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla Warfare tactics are for combat, so people might consider guerrilla marketing as some sort of rebellion, conflict, and combative form of communication. It’s not a rebellion, conflict and combative form of communication, On the contrary, it contains elements of surprise, and unexpected and unconventional tactics to delight and attract consumers.

These unconventional methods are designed in a way that they successfully evoke surprise, wonder and shock. The things that happen with human beings with the aforementioned emotions are unforgettable, so it makes guerrilla marketing effective.  Guerrilla marketing can easily gain publicity by creating a buzz and building brand awareness with unconventional methods.

At first, when the term guerrilla marketing was coined, it became a major reason for the shift to electronic media from traditional marketing methods such as print, radio and television. When the traditional methods started losing their effectiveness, Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term “Guerrilla Marketing” in his book “Guerrilla Marketing” in 1984.

Guerrilla marketing is completely focused on creating a buzz with unique, engaging and thought-provoking concepts to generate publicity, spread brand awareness and boost sales of products or services.

It can be very cost-effective for all types of businesses whether small or big because of executing non-traditional campaigns on a low budget to create a buzz in public spaces for yielding maximum results.

As everything has its own pros and cons, the same is with GM. Guerrilla marketing can be so much advantageous on one hand but there are possibilities that you might end up with some losses because of the drawbacks of GM.

Let’s discuss the benefits and losses of Guerrilla Marketing Tactics!

Pros and Cons of Guerrilla Marketing

Nothing can be 100% perfect but if we know where we can lose in some marketing tactics, we can avoid those things. We’re describing here the pros and cons of GM so that you can get benefitted from the pros and avoid losses from the cons.

Pros of Guerrilla Marketing

• Budget-Friendly
• Interactive and Engaging
• Build Awareness
• Increase User Engagement
• Boost Sales
• Fun elements
• Memorable
• Better Consumer Insights regarding their emotions and mindset
• The ability to make a campaign viral
• helps in building brand partners

Cos of Guerrilla Marketing

• Risk of failure
• Can be embarrassing or scary
• Controversial
• Lack of approval

We’ve discussed the pros and cons of Guerrilla Marketing, now let’s see the different types of tactics you can make use of in GM to promote your products and services.

Types of Guerrilla Marketing

As guerrilla marketing is inspired by the tactics of guerrilla warfare. There are many tactics that are used in guerrilla warfare, same as with GM, it also contains different approaches to increase personal interactions, awareness and sales. Some of the major types of Guerrilla Marketing (GM) tactics are;

Indoor GM

In indoor GM, enclosed public spaces are used to generate hype. The enclosed public spaces can be any university campus, shops, train stations, museums etc.

Outdoor GM

In outdoor GM, something unusual is placed in an outdoor open environment such as temporary artwork on sidewalks and streets. Outdoor marketing is good for urban places where a good amount of foot traffic is available.

Event Ambush GM

In event ambush, GM, brands leverage the audiences of ongoing events such as concerts, seminars, festivals, sporting events, and local events to promote their products and services. All of this usually happens without the permission of the event sponsors.

Experiential GM

In experiential GM, all the strategies of indoor, outdoor and even ambush GM are included. It is completely focused on creating an unforgettable experience for users. Consumers’ interactions are increased and enhanced in experiential marketing.

Read More: “Experiential Marketing”

Some other tactics that are considered in guerrilla marketing are;

• Ambient
• Ambush
• Astroturfing
• Grassroots
• Pop-up retail
• Projection advertising
• Stealth
• Street
• Viral or buzz marketing
• Wild posting

Every marketing strategy can leave long-lasting impressions in users’ minds if executed well. But poor execution of any marketing strategy can ruin a brand’s reputation.

Below are some tips that you can use while executing your own guerrilla marketing campaigns.

Tips to build a safe and killer guerrilla marketing campaign

Some of the easy-to-remember and implement guerrilla marketing tips for the successful execution of the campaigns are;

1. Avoid getting into controversies.
2. Check out if your idea is aligned with your brand positioning.
3. Check out if your idea is leveraging local, public spaces and cultural spaces in a respectful way.
4. Check out the ways you can measure the success and results of your guerrilla marketing campaigns.
5. Don’t go ahead without researching if GM is the right fit for your brand or not!
6. Don’t make it embarrassing and scary for the consumers.
7. Find out if the campaign has the power to go viral through word-of-mouth marketing.
8. Leave your digital footprints with different typical freebies pens, t-shirts, hats, bags, magnets, stickers, office supplies, post-it notes, calendars, mousepads, notebooks, USB Drives and Bookmarks.
9. Make your GM campaign creative and delightful for the passers-by.
10. Proactively promote yourself via frequent online exposure on different marketing platforms.
11. Offer special bargains to your clients who promote your business and products to their known, relatives and friends. You can provide them with a decent amount or discount of money on every successful referral.
12. Leverage Social Media Networks to promote guerrilla marketing campaigns and give a boost to viral and word-of-mouth marketing. You can even organise contests to make your guerrilla marketing campaign viral. Reply to the comments of your audiences, it’ll reflect that you really care about them.
13. Host surprise parties to target local clients. This is fun along with an opportunity of meeting new people and gain new potential clients.
14. Build partnerships with other businesses that are related to your niches such as an SEO agency that can partner with a web design and development agency.
15. Fulfil your corporate social responsibility by hosting a charity event for supporting a special cause. You can also leverage Cause Related Marketing Campaigns to showcase to people that you really care about others.
16. Make use of streets and sidewalks to showcase your ability by connecting it to your brand, and leaving mentions of your brand in the sketch.
17. You can even hire some sales representatives to expand your business and give them some rewards for the clients they bring to your business.

So, remembering these tips will help you in executing your successful guerrilla marketing campaigns. I’m sure you’ve gone through every tip attentively. Now, let’s conclude the blog here!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Guerrilla marketing strategy uses unexpected and unconventional methods containing surprise, shock, and wonder to gain brand awareness and yield maximum results on a low budget.

If you’ve gone through the blog you know that there’re four types of guerrilla marketing strategies such Indoor GM, Outdoor GM, Event Ambush, and Experiential. You can make use of these strategies for making your guerrilla marketing campaign a success.

Above mentioned tips will help you in always be aligned with your marketing strategy and the pros and cons will help in understanding the ups and downs of this marketing strategy.

I am sure you’ll conquer the marketing of your brand and boost brand awareness and sales with this Guerrilla Marketing Strategy likewise “Shivaji Maharaj” and “Tantya Tope” won several battles following the rules of Guerrilla Warfare.

If questions are still arising in your mind related to GM, then leave a comment below, we’d be more than happy to help you. Digiavtar is always here for you in every step of your success. For more marketing updates, you can visit our blog!