Moving Forward

Tough times like these call for Guerilla Marketing—unconventional and highly targeted promotions that rely on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget.

Guerrilla marketing targets consumers or B2B clients in unexpected places, with memorable messages, generates “buzz,” and even spreads virally. It’s perfect for entrepreneurs and smaller businesses that are closer to their customers and more agile than corporate giants.

Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term in his 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing. Ultimately, Levinson notes, “to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. “It must build trust and support,…understand the customer's needs, and…provide a product that delivers the promised benefits."

Hundreds of "guerrilla marketing weapons" are available in your arsenal. Smith Bates is here to help you devise inexpensive, unconventional and creative methods of marketing and promotion.  For example, have you considered….

•    “Warm calls” to warm up your existing customers, beef up your customer service and
create an opportunity to cross-sell other products and services or identify new needs you can fulfill.
•    Clever leave-behinds to extend the call, either a small printed piece or a useful specialty item that will remind a customer of your business, such as a note pad cube with surprise messages.
•    e-Newsletters that customers can bookmark to reference or easily forward to business associates, expanding your network of referrals.
•    Cooperative marketing to share costs with other businesses, such as a co-op newsletter, newspaper advertising flyer or reciprocal statement stuffers.
•    Fully utilizing manufacturers’ co-op advertising programs that can often be used for signage, brochures and specialty items, in addition to advertising space or time.

Levinson’s founding principles of Guerrilla Marketing:

•    Use profits, not sales, to measure your business.
•    Concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
•    Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of offering too many diverse products and services.
•    Instead of concentrating just on new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
•    Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
•    Use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign; don’t rely on one.
•    Use current technology as a tool to empower your business.

Before you strap on your camo and grab a bazooka, call Smith Bates at 541.884.3714 or toll free at 800.303.3714. Visit our website for examples of our customers’ marketing solutions.