Some of the most crucial marketing you do will require no media whatsoever. Yet each of the upcoming nonmedia methods is capable of making significant contributions to your profits.
Don't underestimate the potency of these weapons simply because they don't require a financial investment on your part. They do require the guerrilla investments of time, energy, imagination, and information. But you can leave your wallet at home.
Treat these nonmedia with the same care and respect you'd lavish on any maxi- or minimedia. There is no question that these are media, too—only not the kind of media that nonguerrillas focus on, often to the exclusion of these highly effective nonmedia. Chances are, your company will be known for some of these nonmedia tactics far more than for your forays into the paid media. My advice: Focus on these guerrilla media, and don't be misled by their lack of cost. Concern yourself instead with the lack of profits you'd suffer if you overlooked these puppies.
Whatever you think or thought service was, let me give you a new definition—a definition for guerrillas, a definition for a time when small businesses need all the help they can get and every possible competitive advantage. Service is anything the customer wants it to be. Service is not what it says in your service manual, not what you've rendered in the past, and not what customers dread it will be. Instead, it's what they pray it will be. If you can live up to this definition of service, you'll be practicing one of the most powerful marketing tactics in history—and also one of the very newest.
At first, businesses strived to deliver customer satisfaction. Then they realized that they should provide customer delight. Guerrillas have long known that it is customer bliss for which they should aim. The only way to achieve that blessed state is by doing anything that the customer wants you to do. Rest assured, hardly any request will be unreasonable and insane. The vast majority of customers will be sensible, intelligent, and willing to refer your business to the skies. The best referrals always come from the most satisfied customers.
The fact that there are a lot of new books about customer service attests to the reality that customer service is a crucial part of marketing and of business. Whatever business you think you're in, you're also in the marketing business, because what you offer must be marketed, and in the service business, because what you sell must be serviced. So you're in the service business no matter what it says on your business card.
One of the keys to rendering superlative service is to be able to listen to what your customers say. Listen to their words and listen to what's between the lines, those unsaid things they want but don't dare say. By responding to their dreams and desires without making a big deal of it, you'll earn their gratitude as well as their loyalty. This means that you might have to provide services you've never provided before. So what? If it earns the gratitude of customers who will laud your business to the skies, it's worth the effort.
Of the five most important reasons that people patronize businesses, service ranks third, just behind confidence and quality, just ahead of selection and price. There may be fifty reasons why people patronize a business, so you can't afford to overlook the third most important. Okay, time for a test: Q: What's the definition of service? A: Whatever the customer wants it to be.
Public relations means exactly what it says. It's also accurate to say that it means publicity—free stories and news about you and/or your company in newspapers, magazines, newsletters, on radio and TV, and in any other type of media. It means any relationships you have with anybody. In fact, the purest form of public relations is human relations.
Here's what is good about publicity: It is free. It is very believable. It gives you and your company a lot of credibility and stature. It helps establish the identity of your business. It gives you authority. It is read by a large number of people. It is remembered.
Many entrepreneurs feel that there is no such thing as bad publicity; that as long as you get your name out there before the public, that's a fine thing. But most guerrillas know that bad publicity leads to negative word-of-mouth marketing, known to spread faster than wildfire. Bad publicity is bad. Good publicity is great.
Some bad things about publicity: You have no control over it. You have no say-so as to when it runs. You have no control over how it is presented. It is rarely repeated. You cannot buy it. On balance, however, publicity is an excellent weapon in any well-stocked marketing arsenal. And any marketing plan that fails to include some effort at public relations is a marketing plan that isn't going all out.
Public relations offers, as an unstated but ultravaluable benefit, decades of staying power. Reprints of positive publicity can be framed, made parts of brochures, included in ads, put onto flipcharts, and leaned on for precious credibility. The day the story appears is a heartwarming one, but the years afterward are when the marketing power abounds. The single most important factor in obtaining free publicity is to provide news worth publicizing. The news media need news, and if you have the news, you are exactly what the media are looking for. My book Guerrilla Publicity, coauthored with Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin, can fill you in on a lot of important details about PR. In it, you'll learn that you've got to knock yourself out to get the "free" publicity that helps so many companies. Instead of paying for the publicity with money, you pay with work: phone calls, writing, time, determination, and endless follow-up. But that effort will be worth your time. People who expend it say that PR really stands for profit. When the circus comes to town and you put up a sign, that's advertising. If you put that sign on the back of the elephant and march the elephant through town, that's sales promotion. If the elephant, with the sign still on its back, tramples through the mayor's flower garden and the paper reports it, that's publicity. If you can get the mayor to laugh about it and forgive the elephant and then ride in the circus with no hard feelings, you've become a master of guerrilla PR. Without publicity, a terrible thing happens: nothing.
But nothing is rarely what happens if you enlist the aid of a PR pro. It's one thing to send a press kit, complete with black-and-white glossy photo, press release, and fact sheet, to the media. It's something totally different if you call your friend, Diane, at the local newspaper. You say, "Diane, I have something that I know will interest your readers. I'd like to take you to lunch and tell you about it." Diane, being a human being who likes free things, goes to lunch with you, hears your news, and then accepts your press kit. Two days later, your story appears in her newspaper.
That's why PR pros charge so much for their services. They have a Rolodex that's bulging with the names of publicity contacts. One of your tasks as a guerrilla is to get the same kind of Rolodex. The more publicity contacts you have, the more free publicity you'll generate. It's that simple. I can't overstate the importance of your cultivating media relationships—the real secret of successful publicity campaigns.
Media relationships should be mutually beneficial. You want the media to publicize your product and service, and the media want you to provide publishable stories. Always keep in mind these four rules.
1. You are a resource for the media.
2. It's never personal.
3. The media can change the rules, but you can't.
4. All that a trout thinks about is food, and all that the media think about is what you can do for them and their audience.
Attend networking functions at which you can meet members of the media. Join the local press club. Hang out at the bars, coffeeshops, and restaurants where they hang out. Become a media resource to them. Ask what they're working on. Get their contact info so it's easy to get in touch with them.
Once you've established a media contact, stay in touch with that person. E-mail seems to be the preferred method of contact these days. Play by the media rules. They have the upper hand. They have the power. It's very important that you stay on their radar screen.
Being on a first-name basis with members of the media ranks in importance with having significant news for them to publish. Nearly 80 percent of press kits are tossed away before being read. But knowing the person to whom you send the kit will keep yours away from the dreaded wastebasket.
A final word before we leave PR behind: buzz. Marketing communications—in particular, advertising—is both expensive and exposed to a marketplace that is increasingly weighted down with clutter. Too many messages are being broadcast too often, with diminishing impact on the consumer. This situation grows even more acute in the case of the Gen X and Y segments. These groups are still highly susceptible to brand influence but show signs of being more cynical in their response to the marketing message and are eager to acquire brand news and information from less traditional sources.
That's why buzz marketing is one of the industry's newest buzzwords and buzzphrases. It's a combination of a number of influences, including good old word of mouth, viral marketing, and the current fixation on early trend setting and spotting. Buzz marketing works because it is both interruptive and yet subversive. It's marketing's Trojan horse, and its growing acceptance is evidenced by the fact that some of the world's most authoritative marketers have now entered the field. As online marketing newsletter ICONOCAST notes, "To get clients to spend on fringe ideas, agencies are creating buzz marketing units. An example is MindShare's WOW Factory, which is characterized as a group of people dedicated to surprise."
Buzz marketing and its earlier incarnation, word of mouth, have been around for some time. Record companies and fashion-related brands are notorious for some of their stunts. In the case of the liquor industry, it was not uncommon to have paid agents provocateur visit trendy bars, order the brand of choice, and strike up conversations with both barkeeps and customers in order to establish cool buzz for the brand. And in many cases, it worked. Formerly unknown brands acquired hip acceptance and generated volume growth without an outrageously expensive advertising or marketing budget.
The process continues even today. Abercrombie & Fitch, the national chain that retails primarily to the college crowd, creates and lives by what Potentials magazine terms fake controversies "in which the company creates a storm of controversy around the brand name, apologizes (or not) for any offense then sits back and watches as curious shoppers react."
In its introductory campaign for a T68i cellphone, Sony Ericcson hired 120 actors and actresses to play tourists at popular attractions around the country, such as New York's Empire State Building. These paid performers asked passersby to take their picture with the company's T68i cellphone, which offers an add-on digital camera. And what the unknowing consumer gets is a marketing message not from a corporate pitchman but from a much more powerful endorser: a cool, attractive, enthusiastic stranger. And so the viral marketing process begins. When it touches a topic or product of compelling interest, buzz can be an extremely effective way to spread the news without incurring much expense.
How did Hotmail gain more than 12 million subscribers in eighteen months? How did the very low budget movie The Blair Witch Project become such an incredibly successful phenomenon? The answer lies in the power of buzz. Buzz, or word-of-mouth, marketing influences more people to buy, or not to buy products and services, than most other forms of marketing. We tend to listen to buzz more readily than to most mass-media messages.
• Brainstorm all possible groups of people who might be interested in your products/services. Consider including the media, opinion leaders, influencers, lead users, politicians, and analysts. Don't forget chat rooms and newsgroups, although buzz still spreads primarily by personal interaction.
• Research how information spreads among your customers. Ask them how they usually learn about new products/services. Who are their major information sources? Whose information do they value? You're looking primarily for groups of people rather than individuals. However, don't discount individuals, as they may well be powerful opinion leaders.
• Develop a clear and concise message highlighting the product/service benefits you want to filter through these different groups. Zero in on your product's uniqueness and what it can do, for example, to help save time and money—two basic elements most people seek.
• Think about ways to tap into these groups to spread the word about your products or services.
• Offer prospects easy ways to try your product/service. For example, the makers of Pictionary gave demos in parks, shopping centers, and other gathering places.
• Come up with other creative ideas to enhance trade show demonstrations. What can you give people to take away to remind them of your company, products, and positive show experience? Think about something that will help create the buzz. It'll have to be more creative than a keychain or stress ball. The more product related, the better. You want people to remember and talk about you—positively!
• Try to identify special groups you might offer a product discount, a loaner, or even a freebie. You're looking for groups and individuals whose direct product experience will help spread the word. For example, when FedEx started out, it offered free shipping to show people how its program worked. America Online continuously finds ways to offer hundreds of free hours of trial usage to entice new users.
• Use press conferences for major announcements and new-product introductions, but do so only if they are truly new or improved or general industry trends—what's hot and what's not.
• Use sneak previews at trade shows to build anticipation and help create a buzz on the show floor. Give people a fun experience and a behind-the-scenes view of what's coming. TV and the movies have got this down to a fine art with their coming attractions.
The power of buzz far exceeds many conventional marketing vehicles. It is probably the oldest, most well-used, and valuable one out there. See how you might make it an integral part of your existing marketing plan.
Some wildly successful entrepreneurs use one major method of marketing: They display and sell their wares at trade shows, exhibits, and fairs. These people realize that many serious prospects will attend these gatherings and therefore put all their efforts into exhibiting and selling their merchandise (they usually sell products rather than services). This is not to say that their show booths are their only marketing vehicles. But they are their primary ones. And in a few instances, this is the only way a person needs to market. I don't like telling this to you for fear it might encourage a lax attitude, but it is the truth.
The marketing plan of many a guerrilla consists of appearances at four major shows or fairs, plus circulars or brochures to be distributed at the shows. Nothing else. Nothing else is needed.
I once attended a large national furniture show with a client who owned a chain of furniture stores. He very much wanted to be one of the first people through the doors at the three-day event. When I asked him why, he told me that he would first breeze through the show, making notes and looking at all the exhibits. Then he would quickly return to the displays that had caught his attention and order a full year's worth of items, making certain to get agreements that he would be the exclusive outlet for each item.
Sure enough, it took him, with me hot on his heels, a mere thirty minutes to walk the miles of aisles. Then he spent the next two hours dickering with the manufacturers or distributors that tickled his fancy. At the end of two and a half hours, he was delighted, having signed up for a year's worth of purchases, all with exclusive arrangements. And just as happy—maybe even happier—were the entrepreneurs who had attracted his attention with their merchandise, displays, salesmanship, and readiness to grant concessions. I well recall the look on one man's face when he realized that in only ten minutes, he had sold half a million dollars' worth of goods. Fifty thou per minute is a luscious sales rate.
I suggest that you browse through a copy of Tradeshow and Convention Guide at your library, or order a copy from Budd Publications, P.O. Box 7, New York, NY 10004, to learn of a multitude of shows at which you can display your offerings. The shows are worth your time. If you opt for this method of marketing, I not only suggest but urge you to read Guerrilla Trade Show Selling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Meet More People, Get More Leads, and Close More Sales, by yours truly, Mark'S. A. Smith, and Orvel Ray Wilson.
There are a couple of ways to display what you sell at trade shows. One way, the standard way, is to rent a booth for several hundred or several thousand dollars, set up a display, and give it your best. Another way, the guerrilla way—and a fine method of testing the efficacy of trade shows as a nonmedia marketing medium for you—is to visit a show, find a display booth that offers merchandise compatible with yours, and strike up a deal with the exhibitor whereby you share a portion of the next booth the exhibitor rents. That means you pay part of the rental fee, assume part of the sales responsibility, and allow your items to be displayed and sold along with those of your new compatriot.
When you visit one or two shows, you will learn of products that compete with or complement yours. You'll also discover products that knock your socks off—products with which you would love to become associated and possibly could, as a fusion-marketing partner. You'll learn the right way to display goods and the wrong way. You'll pick up some dandy ideas for brochures, signs, and demonstrations. You'll learn a heck of a lot from the mistakes of others—people who have great merchandise but don't know how to market it. And you'll meet people who may be able to help you distribute what you sell.
Let's look at a case in point. A man-and-wife team who marketed greeting cards all by themselves by calling on stationery stores were soon alerted to the existence of stationery shows at which greeting cards are displayed. There, they were told, they could display their own cards and make sales, team up with other card manufacturers, and better yet, meet distributors who could distribute their cards throughout the country. The two budding entrepreneurs went to the show, looked at others' cards and displays, and met several representatives who offered to distribute their cards. Because they were greenhorns at the business, they were delighted and signed on with several of the reps.
Their business grew in the next year. But in talking with a few fellow card sellers, they learned that there are basically two kinds of reps one meets at shows: ordinary reps and Rolls-Royce reps. Ordinary reps conduct an ordinary amount of sales activity and achieve ordinary distribution in ordinary stores. These, alas, were the kinds of reps the man and wife had signed up. Rolls-Royce reps, however, can move prodigious numbers of greeting cards by distributing only in high-volume stores and expending a great deal of selling energy.
The following year, the man and wife went to the stationery shows and signed up with only Rolls-Royce reps. By doing so, the couple increased their sales fivefold over the year before, propelling themselves into a deliriously wonderful tax bracket. If you are looking for national distribution of your goods, do look for Rolls-Royce reps at major trade shows.
While displaying your products in your own booth—something you'll most likely want to do when you begin to take large orders—you can engage in four other types of marketing at the same time.
1. Hand out circulars. I suggest that you hire someone, preferably a gorgeous woman (or a gorgeous man, if women are your prime prospects), to distribute your circulars while walking through the show. The cost to hire the person will be about $75, and for that, she or he will pass out as many as 5,000 circulars—all inviting people to visit your booth. If you do that, you will instantly rise above most of the other exhibitors, since they will not be practicing such a guerrilla-like tactic. You'll also attract more prospects.
2. Give away brochures. Because brochures are more costly than circulars, you won't want to give as many away. But by disseminating them only at your booth, you'll be able to narrow the distribution down to serious prospects only. And your brochures will do heavy-duty work for you. Many people attend shows and exhibits merely to collect brochures. Then they study the brochures and place their orders on the basis of the information.
3. Demonstrate your goods to real prospects who are in a buying mood. You can demonstrate your offerings to large groups of people. And since your competitors too will probably be at the show, you'll have a good opportunity to prove the advantages of your product.
4. Offer free samples. Rarely will you be afforded the chance to give samples to so many potential customers. If it's possible to let people sample your merchandise, a show or an exhibit is the place to do it.
Entrepreneurs avail themselves of the opportunities at shows with 100 percent effort—they concentrate their marketing energies and dollars on shows. Of all sources of purchasing information that businesspeople rate "extremely useful," trade shows are at the top of the list, mentioned by 91 percent of respondents. Also, trade shows aid and abet your other marketing efforts. A typical direct-mail campaign nets about 13 percent readership and a 2 percent response rate, which is considered good by nonguerillas. That same direct-mail campaign, if based on contacts made at a trade show, generates 45 percent readership and a 20 percent response rate, which is considered quite acceptable by guerrillas.
Why do guerrillas exhibit at trade shows? Our Guerrilla Trade Show Selling book lists fifteen reasons:
1. To sell what you offer to visitors
2. To sell what you offer to other exhibitors
3. To get leads for your sales force to follow up
4. To network and troubleshoot with other professionals
5. To establish your industry positioning
6. To meet with existing customers
7. To visit with people whom you otherwise wouldn't see
8. To introduce new products to the market
9. To do market research
10. To find new dealers, representatives, and distributors
11. To find new employees
12. To conduct business meetings
13. To scope out the competition
14. To get smart
15. To gain media exposure
Here are ten more reasons:
16. To generate thousands of qualified leads
17. To build rapport with customers and prospects
18. To increase your name awareness
19. To penetrate new markets in a brief time
20. To present your business in a new perspective
21. To increase contact with your suppliers
22. To find names for your mailing list
23. To make friends
24. To immerse yourself in your own industry
25. To separate yourself from the competition
Guerrillas are well aware that a trade show begins long before the doors open. Guerrillas begin trade show promotion by identifying and contacting their key prospects and then inviting them, along with good customers, to their show booth. Guerrillas send both the invitations supplied by the show organizers and personalized invitations. Guerrillas are acutely aware of the power of personalization.
They promote their attendance at trade shows with ads in trade magazines, faxes, e-mail, personal letters, and telephone calls. Because they're guerrillas, they learn of the hotels at which attendees are staying and then place fliers and invitations under the hotel room doors.
A major guerrilla secret to successful trade shows is follow-up. As interactive as trade shows are, the most crucial interactivity often takes place after the show—follow-up leads to success.
Today, 75 percent of the people who attend trade shows know exactly what they want to see, whom they want to see, and how much time they'll spend at the exhibit. I hate to tell you this, but 90 percent of the literature they collect at the shows gets tossed before the attendee goes home. And more gets tossed at home. That's why many guerrillas send their literature after the show.
Pay close attention to this next guerrilla secret. It frequently means the difference between astonishing success and depressing failure. Let me make it obvious right here and now: Your main purpose in having a booth at a trade show, fair, or exhibit is to sell your product.
Yes, it is important to display, to demonstrate, to educate, to get names for your mailing list. But you really want to sell. You need to take orders right there at your booth. You must have a person there who is dedicated to selling. You should aim for a large volume of sales at the show itself, in spite of the brochures you will distribute. Don't forget the furniture store entrepreneur I wrote about earlier: He visited the shows to look and then to buy. He didn't care about brochures. He wanted to place his orders at the show.
If you don't sell a lot of what you want to sell at a show, you may have failed in this marketing effort. If you have not sold a large volume, you have not taken advantage of the glorious opportunity afforded you by such shows. I recall two competitors at a national show. Both had attractive displays, both gave imaginative demonstrations, and both handed out compelling brochures. But the first company assumed that the show was a place to display—and it made no sales. The second company, a small, young partnership, figured that the show was a place to sell—so it made $4.5 million in sales in a three-day period. I've made my point.
Back in prehistoric times, one caveman probably grunted to another, "Hey, Uru, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." Since that time, fusion arrangements have grown and grown until they now have several phrases to describe them: tie-ins, collaborative marketing, comarketing, partnering, and a lot more.
You see a TV spot for what you think is Coke. Later, you think it's for McDonald's. And at the end, you realize that all along it was for the latest Disney movie. The point is that there's a lot of fusion marketing going on, and most of it is among small businesses. Fusion marketing allows you to spread your marketing word while sharing the costs.
"Hey, I'll put up a sign for you in my place if you put up a sign for me." "I'll add a link to your Web site if you add a link to mine." "I'll enclose your circular in my next mailing if you enclose my circular in yours." "I'll refer my customers to you if you refer your customers to me."
This time-honored way of doing commerce without spending money is common, very effective, and extremely simple to set up. All you've got to do is ask. Most business owners will go along with the idea because it makes so much sense.
Understand that you're not going into a real legal partnership with someone, so don't think marriage. Instead, think fling. If it's fun, you'll do it again. If not, well, nobody was hurt. Many astute small-business owners have twenty or more fusion-marketing partners. Japan seems to lead the world in this regard, with huge corporations fusing with tiny one-person businesses—and everybody gains.
In many communities, lawyers, insurance agents, and CPAs have formed "leads clubs." At the end of each month, they simply trade leads, since they each have the same kinds of prospects. When you're setting up a fusion-marketing arrangement, look for businesses that have the same prospects as you and the same standards as you. Many businesses can fulfill those requirements. Your job as a guerrilla is to locate them and then suggest the tie-in. This is one of the most profitable of all tactics to help you market aggressively. Do it!
As all guerrillas and even nonguerrillas know, people would much rather do business with friends than with strangers. When you become involved with the community, you separate yourself from the ranks of strangers. But becoming involved in the community isn't simply signing up to serve on a committee and then staying an arm's length from that committee.
Becoming involved means working your tail off for your community, proving with deeds what you could never prove with mere words. When people in your community see how hard you work and how conscientious you are, they'll know that you're doing it on an unpaid basis, and they'll assume that you work even harder on a paid basis, so they'll be attracted to your business.
When you serve your community, you're doing noble and necessary work along with incidentally marketing your business. Of course, you should not really act as though you're marketing. That part will take care of itself simply because of your good works.
Being involved with your community puts you into a splendid position to network. It helps you tune in to the community's problems, some of which you may be able to solve. It does take your time, even your energy, but it costs nary a cent. For some people, it's all the marketing they need.
Community involvement takes many forms. Perhaps you can develop a promotion involving a local school. You might establish tie-ins with local stores. You can offer your product or service to a local charity as part of its fund-raising effort. You might donate your offering to a local park or public place. Perhaps you can support the local media. A client of mine made lots of new contacts by sponsoring a 10K race. Others have had essay contests or painting competitions. There are abundant opportunities to get your name known while performing a good deed.
There is no question that your community needs you. It needs your hard work and your time. It needs your participation. Many people work for their community strictly for altruistic reasons. I hope your reasons are altruistic, but it's also cool if they're capitalistic. Become involved with your community, and it will become involved with you.
You join clubs and associations for similar reasons that you become involved with the community. It helps you prove your dedication to quality and service through your actions rather than your words. It puts you on a first-name basis with important movers and shakers. It gives you access to inside industry information.
Again, you might want to join these clubs even if they don't help you add muscle to your marketing. But the truth is that they do. They help to make you a known quantity rather than another face in the crowd. They might not be able to drum up many new customers, but those that they do attract might be very important customers. And they are the basis for a lot of referral business.
Many guerrillas secure all the business they need simply by joining social clubs, country clubs, civic clubs, service clubs, professional clubs, health clubs, trade associations, and the many other organizations that exist to serve our herd instinct. But if you join a club strictly to get business, that's a crass thing to do, and club members will be quick to sense the shallowness of your motives.
As you can turn people on by your joining, you can also turn them off. The intelligence level of people must never be underestimated. In the past, that level was thought to be on par with that of a twelve-year-old. Today, it's widely believed that it's on par with the intelligence level of your mother. And you know she's no dummy. She knows the phony from the real.
Joining a club allows you to meet a lot of prospects, referrers, suppliers, and fellow guerrillas, not to mention members of the local media. You can learn which customers are unhappy, get a line on your reputation, learn of industry advancements, and gain access to the grapevines of others. You can become close friends with some of the members. The old adage reminds us that there are three things that money can't buy: love, friends, and homegrown tomatoes.
Above all, you can make a contribution to your industry. That's a lot of good things that you can accomplish by becoming a joiner. And all along, you get to keep your wallet in your pocket or purse. More deals are closed on golf courses, card rooms, and club rooms than you might imagine. Maybe that's sad, but it's undeniably true.
Why do most businesses lose customers? Poor service? Nope. Poor quality? Nope. Well, then, why? Apathy after the sale. Most businesses lose customers by ignoring them to death. Apathy after the sale causes a numbing 68 percent of all business lost in America.
Misguided business owners think that marketing is over once they've made the sale. Wrong. Marketing begins once you've made the sale. It's of momentous importance to you and your company that you understand this.
First of all, understand how guerrillas view follow-up. They make it part of their DNA because they know that it now costs six times more to sell something to a new customer than to an existing customer. When a guerrilla makes a sale, the customer receives a follow-up thank-you note within forty-eight hours. The guerrilla sends another note or perhaps makes a phone call thirty days after the sale. This contact is to see whether everything is going all right with the purchase and whether the customer has any questions. It is also to help solidify the relationship. Guerrillas know that the way to develop relationships is through assiduous customer follow-up and prospect follow-up. Guerrillas send their customers another note within ninety days, this time informing them of a new and related product or service. Possibly it's a new offering that the guerrilla business now provides. And maybe it's a product or service offered by one of the guerrilla's fusion-marketing partners.
Guerrillas are very big on forging marketing alliances. These tie-ins enable them to increase their marketing exposure while reducing their marketing costs, a noble goal. After six months, the customer hears from the guerrilla again, this time with the preview announcement of an upcoming sale. Nine months after the sale, the guerrilla sends a note asking the customer for the names of three people who might benefit from being included on the guerrilla's mailing list. Because the guerrilla has been keeping in touch with the customer—and because only three names are requested—the customer often supplies the names. After one year, the customer receives an anniversary card celebrating the one-year anniversary of the first sale.
Perhaps a coupon for a discount is in the envelope. The customer becomes a repeat buyer and refers others to the guerrilla's business. A bond is formed. The bond intensifies with time and follow-up. This same follow-up should be used with prospects. Follow-up will transform them into customers.
Follow up or fail. It's your choice.
Very frequently, you'll send five e-mails, post five signs, have a killer Web site, run a quarter-page magazine ad in a local magazine, then have a PR story placed in a local paper. People will see this marketing, then decide to patronize your business. You'll ask them, "Where did you first hear of us?" The answer you'll often get: "A friend recommended you."
One real truth is that people dislike admitting that they're affected by marketing, so they'll usually give the credit to a friend. Another real truth is that people do check with friends before patronizing a business, so it's in your best interest to work like crazy developing word-of-mouth referrals.
If you do everything right 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, you'll get a lot of powerful word-of-mouth marketing. But guerrillas know a few ways to speed up that process.
The first way is to prepare a simple document that you give only to first-time buyers. When a person buys anything from you, there's a phenomenon known as the "moment of maximum satisfaction"—the MMS. It lasts from the moment of the sale to thirty days after that. During that time, people are most likely to talk about your company, partly, because of their enthusiasm. Partly, it helps to justify their purchase in their minds. So if you hand them a brief document summarizing the best benefits you offer, you'll be putting the right words in the right mouths at the right time. No wonder you'll get a large number of word-of-mouth customers.
Another tactic is to ask yourself, "Who else do my prospects patronize?" A local restaurant asked that and came up with the answer: beauty salons. So the restaurant offered two free dinners to all the salon owners within a two-mile radius. This was not one of those "Buy one; get one free" deals or "You must dine between 5:15 and 5:35 on a Wednesday evening." This was two free meals, everything included. The salon owners sampled the fare at the restaurant, loved it, and talked it up in their salons—properly identified as the nerve center of the community.
It didn't take long for the reservations book to be bursting at the binding and for long lines to appear at the restaurant. The cost for this breakthrough marketing: two free meals. Hardly a major cost. But the results were so gratifying that I hope you'll ask the same question, do a favor for the people your prospects patronize, then sit back and marvel at the cost-effectiveness of this brilliant but little-known tactic.
Another new restaurant found a unique and imaginative way to generate quick word of mouth. The proprietor invited a dozen close friends to have dinner at the restaurant at no cost. All he asked the diners to do was to line up outside the door of the restaurant the next evening. Of course, they complied, and of course, motorists driving by the restaurant, seeing the crowd and the commotion, felt that they might be missing out on a good thing. Before too long, the restaurant was crowded and has stayed crowded because of the unspoken word of mouth communicated by all those people outside the door.
The main reason to have contests and sweepstakes is to get names for your mailing list. Now that you're clear on that, also keep in mind that a Web site is one of the best places ever to announce your contests. Just tell visitors that to enter, all they've got to do is provide their e-mail address.
If you have a retail establishment, put the entry box for your contest in the rear of your store. That way, entrants can see what else you offer, read your signs, and become more familiar with you and your employees. Familiarity leads to profitability, so you must do all you can to make people familiar with your business.
Should you award a prize to the winner of your contest or sweepstakes? The answer is a resounding no. Instead, award ten prizes to ten winners. You'll discover that many businesses will be delighted to furnish free prizes to you in exchange for your mentioning their name in your store, on your site, or in your other marketing.
When you see a local business offer a free trip to Las Vegas as a prize, you can bet—no pun intended—that a local travel agency provided it in return for the visibility someone provided to the agency. Sounds fair to me.
In addition to attracting names for your mailing list, contests and sweepstakes also attract media attention. That's one more reason that they're gaining popularity so rapidly. Once you've awarded your prizes, let the media know who won. After all, the media are interested in news, and your contest and its winners are news—especially locally.
Now that we both know how seriously you are taking the marketing process, we both know that you should contact all entrants to your contest within thirty days, while your name is fresh in their minds and their names are fresh on your mailing list.
Be certain to comply with local and national regulations on contests. You don't want to be the jail prisoner with the longest mailing list. As you already know, people would much rather make purchases from friends than from strangers. Once they enter your contest, winner or not, you'll no longer be a stranger to them.
Many other businesses like yours offer a whale of a lot of benefits. Prospects will study them as they study your business to determine how these benefits can have a positive impact on their lives. But they'll probably end up buying from the business that offers what you don't have. Meaning: You've got to offer what they don't. You've got to not only offer but also feature benefits not available from your competition.
There were loads of delis where we lived. They all supplied about the same quality and selection, and they charged about the same prices. But we patronized only one of those delis. We did it because they delivered within an hour of our placing the order. That's a tough promise to live up to, but because they did it, we gave them all our Sunday deli business. That competitive advantage was enough for us. Some of the delis have learned that now they must also deliver within an hour of the placement of the order. But it's too late. Our business and our loyalty remained with the first that offered this benefit, though that business and loyalty are moot points now that we're in an RV a zillion miles from the deli.
There were tons of hairdressers around as well. But my wife patronized the one who came to our home to do her hair. That's a powerful competitive advantage—so powerful that even though her prices were a mite higher than those of her competitors, my wife was willing to pay more for the convenience she offered.
You should center your marketing on your competitive advantage. If you don't have one, you should create one. Invent it, then live up to it. All other things being equal, the business with the most competitive advantages will win out every time. It does not cost a lot to offer such an advantage. Time, energy, imagination, and knowledge will be your primary investments.
The richer your imagination, the easier it will be to come up with competitive advantages. Exercising your imagination in this way will be one of the most cost-effective uses of that imagination. Just take a few moments to examine your business through the eyes of your customers, and you'll soon see benefits that you can offer, benefits not offered by those who compete with you. I hope you have a long list of them, but the truth is that you don't need many. You need only one good one.
An elevator speech is created by a guerrilla just in case he or she happens to get in an elevator with his or her most promising prospect and have only that limited time to make the pitch. Today, with time and attention so difficult to come by, it's very important for you to create an elevator speech for yourself. After creating it, memorize and rehearse it to the point that it is coming direct from your heart.
The elements of a good elevator pitch are straightforward. It describes how you offer value, benefit, and quality. An elevator pitch takes no longer than ten seconds; it comes out so naturally that you can say it in your sleep. The real truth is that you are your elevator speech.
While you're delivering your brilliantly conceived pitch, here's what the person listening to you is most likely thinking: So what? Guerrillas don't let that happen to them. Talk about yourself and you'll bore the listener. Encourage the listener to speak, and you're a brilliant conversationalist.
If you think that your elevator speech will be given only in elevators, you're only partly right—because that's the time span and setting for many an elevator pitch. You'll also use it while introducing yourself to people, on the phone, leaving a voicemail message, on your outgoing voicemail message, on your business card, on your Web site, on your resume, on your bio, in your e-mail signature, in your marketing materials. It will become one of your hallmarks at networking functions.
You may be doing the most exciting work on Earth, making breakthroughs that will be featured on the cover of Time magazine. Still, people don't care. They care about themselves. So relate most of what you say directly to them, to their lives, to their business, to their family—to anything concerning them. It's their favorite topic.
Developing and polishing your elevator speech may be one of the most important tactics you use. It may end up being the key to your fame and fortune. But still, people aren't eager to hear it. It's not something they look forward to when they awaken in the morning. Still, you've got to have one, and the better it's honed, the more you'll appreciate the time and effort you put into creating it.
The opposite of having a well-tuned elevator pitch is not having one at all. Nonetheless, most small-business owners don't have one, haven't given it a thought, and blow many opportunities when an elevator pitch may have saved the day. Don't get me started on the foolishness of their oversight.
A guarantee is your way of removing any feeling of risk on the part of your prospect. How big, specific, and outrageous a guarantee can you think of? What would set your industry on its ear? What would keep your competitors up all night worrying about you? That's the kind of guarantee you want to create.
Kevin Michael Donlin, author of Guaranteed Sales Résumés, provides us with example guarantees to help get your creative juices flowing. See if you can find one that applies to you and your business.
Industry | Guarantee |
Real estate | I'll sell your home. Or give you $1,000 cash. |
Restaurant | You'll love our food. Or the next meal is free. |
Sports therapist | We'll stop your pain. Or we'll visit your home and |
provide a free follow-up session. | |
Dog-walking service | We'll be there on time, every time. Or you get a $50 bag |
of dog food free. | |
Florist | Free box of chocolates if our flowers ever disappoint you. |
Computer repair | We'll fix it right. Or repair it free and give you $100 cash. |
Retail store | Double your money back if you find it cheaper |
elsewhere. |
A bakery can offer money back—and a dozen cupcakes. A computer repair shop can offer money back and provide a free shareware program. A book publisher can offer money back and let readers keep a special gift just for their trouble. A courier service can refund the purchase price if it fails to deliver on time, as FedEx does. Or you can offer customers their money back—plus $5, $10, or $50 for their trouble.
A company that works fast can guarantee delivery times—by 10:00 A.M., within twenty-four hours, whatever. Do you have the widest selection in town? Guarantee it by daring customers and competitors to find more products somewhere else. Just be sure that you can back this up. Do not simply guarantee "satisfaction." That's lazy. Instead, guarantee in detail what that satisfaction will look like to your customer.
And remember: The longer the guarantee, the better. If it's a lifetime guarantee, people figure that there's no rush, but it will attract a lot of business. And hardly anyone will ever take you up on it. Just ask L. L. Bean, the legendary clothing company with the lifetime guarantees.
This is one of the marketing vehicles that wasn't happening—except in soap operas—when I wrote the first and even the second and third editions of Guerrilla Marketing. But it's something we're seeing more and more as we watch the tube.
Branded entertainment is the combination of an audiovisual program (TV, radio, podcast, videocast) and a brand. It can be initiated by either the brand or the broadcaster. The purpose of a branded entertainment program is first to entertain. The other purpose is to give the opportunity for brands to echo their commercial benefits.
Branded entertainment started some fifty years ago under the name of soap operas. Now it's become a way for advertisers to let their messages come across in a "not so commercial" way. This development is one of the consequences of the fragmentation of media and the fact that the good-old thirty-second TV spot has become less and less effective to reach consumers fragmented over hundreds of channels and the Internet.
This much-publicized union of Hollywood glamour and deep-pocketed consumer brands is the talk of the town. But as high-profile brands line up to invest an estimated $2 billion in film and TV cross-promotions this year, one question remains for both sides: What is branded entertainment worth? More specifically, how do advertisers—who routinely risk tens of millions of dollars on a single promotion—measure their return on investment? And how do studios value placement in a film or TV show?
"I think it's one of the key questions," says former Walt Disney Co. TV executive Rich Frank, cofounder and managing partner of Integrated Entertainment Partners, a high-profile newcomer that independently matches consumer brands and entertainment properties. "It's a question that will evolve over the next few years because there is no right or wrong answer to it."
The advertising industry has long settled on CPM (cost per thousand) as the unit for valuing media buys—be they magazine ads, TV commercials, or banner ads. But branded entertainment has no such standard—yet. Amid rising costs of TV advertising and a steady erosion of its impact and value, advertisers are seeking alternatives that are accountable to real-dollar metrics. "Today, brands need to know exactly what they're getting in return for their spending, especially when the economy is not strong and budgets are tight."
Jeep and Toyota paid more than $10 million each to cast the Rubicon and the Tundra as "hero cars" in, respectively, Paramount's Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Warner Bros. Pictures' Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Mitsubishi spent $25 million to showcase its cars in Universal's 2 Fast 2 Furious. All three films were major summer releases. Were those good deals for both sides?
Awareness is key in valuing branded entertainment. Even if a studio sees a film as a box office dud, an integrated sponsor might think otherwise if it is receiving the level of exposure on which it was counting. Attention is the most sought-after commodity today. You're marketing these products and services with one goal in mind: You want to hear "cha-ching" at the end of the line. So any time you can get attention, it's very valuable.
Some promotions are easier than others to evaluate. The second season of Fox's American Idol, for example, boasted three major sponsors: Ford, Coca-Cola, and AT&T Wireless. Coke sponsored a branded Red Room and had the show's judges sipping from Coca-Cola glasses; Ford sponsored "entertainment" segments, during which the show's finalists drove a Focus. Both companies enjoyed fantastic brand exposure at a low CPM because Idol's ratings were double what Fox originally expected.
But AT&T Wireless enjoyed those perks as well as numbers that made a lot of sense: The Idol finale was the biggest text-messaging event to date—rounding out a season during which 7.5 million were sent—and each message registered a quantifiable "cha-ching" in the company's coffers.
Hundreds of thousands of AT&T subscribers used text-messaging for the first time during the show—and they're continuing to text-message, which is creating a long-term revenue stream that will more than pay for the sponsorship dollars put against the program. The company's brand exposure alone would have made the sponsorship worthwhile. There is little doubt that the partnerships forged between studios and brands are an important part of breaking through modern-day clutter.
Apple Computer frequently places its products in films and on television, where they therefore seem much more common than in most real-world offices and homes. In a twist on traditional product placement, Hewlett-Packard computers now appear exclusively as part of photo layouts in the IKEA catalog, and plastic models of its computers are put in IKEA stores—having taken over Apple's similar position in the Swedish furniture retailer's promotional materials several years ago. Some people believe that product placement is out of control and has become too pervasive in today's society.
As you can easily see, new options are available to the guerrilla marketer, as new ones still will always be developed. The wise guerrilla is aware of all these options and experiments with many of them. "In the fool's mind, there are many choices; in the wise man's mind, there are few."