You may have heard the phrase ‘guerrilla marketing’ in recent times, but what does it mean? And what are some of the best strategies?
To answer the first question, guerrilla marketing is the idea of using unconventional strategies to pique the interest of consumers. As well as being disruptive, experts often describe guerrilla marking as memorable, provocative, and noteworthy. Named after guerrilla warfare, using unconventional fighting tactics, it takes people by surprise and often leads to generous rewards…when done correctly.
Here are five potential strategies to try this year!
Pop-Up Shop
If people aren’t coming to your business, why not take your business to them instead? With a pop-up shop, you can get people excited about your brand for a day and encourage them to visit your physical store in the future. Rather than handing out leaflets in popular spots, launch a pop-up shop for the day and let people try your products.
For example, let’s say that you run a burger restaurant. You can sell burgers to people in a popular part of town for the day and allow people to taste your delicious food. Suddenly, they fall in love with the brand and are now more inclined to visit your restaurant in the future. Without the pop-up shop, your restaurant would have continued to go under the radar.
Social Media Engagement
You might think that it’s impossible to stand out on social media, but this isn’t true. All you need to do is show a little character. Respond to questions and comments with sarcasm, humor, and character. As long as you aren’t offending others, people love to see brands funnily engaging with customers.
Stickers
According to reports, the founders of Reddit have only ever spent $500 on advertising. What’s more, most of this went towards making stickers of the famous Reddit alien logo. Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the now popular platform, said that he would travel around the country and take the stickers wherever he went. As well as giving them to people at meetings and events, he would hand them to strangers on the street.
Over time, the founders started to see people posting about the stickers online. Reddit stickers became a marketing campaign, and this indirectly led to more people using the platform. Whether you choose stickers or another strategy, there’s more to getting your name into the heads of the public than shouting about your brand repeatedly.
Outdoor Installations
While the town is asleep, can you transform the local neighborhood in some way? When IT was first released in the cinemas, several balloons were tied to drain covers across Sydney with a chalk message encouraging people to visit the cinema. Once again, you can choose balloons or go off on a slightly different tangent. Either way, outdoor installations get people talking on social media groups and with colleagues, and your idea could just go viral.
Collaborate with Another Brand
Finally, another tactic is to collaborate with a brand…and especially one that your audience wouldn’t expect. For example, Starbucks recently teamed up with Spotify so that customers who liked a song in one of its coffee shops could quickly identify and play it. Get creative and work with other companies to generate excitement in the local area.
With these five guerrilla marketing strategies, you have a better idea of how the technique works. King Kong often has winning ideas as an advertising agency, and you can check them out here!