Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for the New Millennium

20 January 2010

There are many marketing tactics out there in Web Land that people use in order to become more successful with their businesses. Guerrilla marketing is one of the most popular right now. Basically, guerrilla marketing is a very unconventional system of promotions that rely on certain factors like energy, time and your imagination.

It’s the poor man’s answer to big-budget marketing, so to speak. Guerrilla marketing involves a strong will and a vivid imagination. The idea is to engage your market and become interactive by creating buzz - going “viral.” The tactic has evolved in recent years, and the new millennium’s guerrilla marketing is just as popular as ever.

There’s actually a book out now called “Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for the New Millennium,” written by the creator of this tactic, Jay Conrad Levinson. The basic idea behind Jay’s brilliance is something that was once thought to be common sense, and that is to show initiative.

Somewhere along the way, people devolved from free-thinkers into robots who used strategies, word-for-word, to lay out their businesses. Everyone marketed the same. Everyone advertised the same. So when simple advertising and setting up a business became a pricy venture, it alienated a lot of people. Guerrilla marketing stirred up the creative juices in many people.

Jay suggests things that, in the business world, seemed off-the-wall at this point. For example, tucking business cards into marketing books to get name recognition is a tactic Jay suggested. Many people followed his advice and started using their heads to market instead of their money.

Basically, anyone can employ some guerrilla marketing tactics. You see it everywhere. People are using their initiative to advertise themselves. They’re basically drawing attention to their businesses without spending money to do it. And since the tactics are so creative and so engaging, they draw people right in.

Have you ever seen one of those one-million-plus-hits videos on YouTube? These popular videos will have ads inside of them, or a link on the person’s profile. They’re offering something entertaining and something non-intrusive to an audience, and subliminally getting traffic to their sites. Sure, it isn’t really a niche market, per se, but it’s still traffic; it’s still free advertising.

Anyone is capable of thinking outside of the box, and it certainly doesn’t have to be done on the computer. Guerrilla marketing stresses the importance of using unusual approaches in public places.

For example, PR stunts that gets someone’s attention. Could you imagine driving down a busy city street, seeing a homeless man, dirty with tattered clothing, holding up a cardboard sign with a website address? That’s guerrilla marketing at its finest. People are enthralled and engaged by this sort of advertising.

New-age guerrilla marketing can involve the many technologies we have in the world today. Almost everyone has a fancy cell phone with text messaging. By thinking outside of the box, you can start a grassroots campaign to draw attention to your business.

The sky is literally the limit here. Be creative, be resourceful, but above all, be unique and daring in your approach. It’s your business and it needs to be marketed.