"There are three phases to the Guerrilla Marketing Attack. To win consistently healthy profits, you must succeed at all three. Two out of three isn't enough.
1. The first phrase is the Planning
2. The second phase is the Launching.
3. The third phase is the Maintaining."
"Although your competitors will probably react to you, rather than the other way around, you've got to be ready to react to new trends in marketing, in your industry, in business. That means you've got to keep up with marketing, your industry, and life in general. Keep up or you'll lose out." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Consistent contact with the customer subsequent to the sale is what will create the most profits for your company. Maintenance of that contact will earn a fortune for you. Failure to maintain contact will lose a fortune. Based on your own industry and customers, select the most appropriate methods of maintaining customer contact, maximizing repeat business, and gaining the most referral business." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Where did each of your customers learn about you? Where did your prospects who are not yet customers learn about you? Unless you conscientiously track the sources of all new people who contact your business, you won't know the answer to these very important questions." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Guerrillas carve out a position where they can differentiate themselves and it is apparent in every marketing weapon they use. Niches can be defined in many ways: through a specific target market or a distinct means of service." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"A word to strike from your marketing vocabulary is image. An image is a façade, something phony. A far better I word is identity. Your identity is automatically honest. If you communicate a real identity, people sense feelings of comfort and relaxation when they contact you. What they see in your marketing is ultimately what they get from your goods and services and that builds trust and rapport." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"The Guerrilla knows that the most important place to spend money is on your business presentation. This means the quality of your stationery, business cards, brochures, flyers and logos. The public will get their first sense of your professionalism through your written materials. Make a strong impression. This may cost you some money, but look at it as an investment in your future." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Guerrilla marketing is not about theory but about practice. It's soul and spirit lie in taking action. All you're really got to do is put your plan into writing, then take the right actions to breathe life into your plan. Those actions must a be never-ending process. Though it will take you only a few minutes to draft your plan, you'll be engaged in the actions necessary to make it soar for as long as your business lasts." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"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. A numbering 68 percent of all business lost in America is due to apathy after the sale." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"If someone you know or respect recommends a product, that testimonial carries more weight than a recommendation from you or a salesperson. One of the biggest business oversights is failure to get a testimonial, even though all it takes is a simple request." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"An overwhelming majority of successful business owners will tell you that obtaining referrals is the most powerful tactic for attracting new customers. They'll add that your best source of new customers...are old customers." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Attend networking functions where you can meet members of the media. Join the local press club. Hang out at bars, coffee shops, and restaurants where they hand 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 directly. Once you're established a media contact, stay in touch with that person. It's very important that you stay on their radar screen." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"The best testimonials state the problem, use real words by real people, and state real numbers, along with real solutions to a problem." -Jay Conrad Levinson
One of the best Guerrilla Marketing Weapons is giving Free Public Talks. A lot of organizations (Chamber of Commerce/Civic-Community Groups/Etc) are looking for solid content to offer to their members. The key is to remember that this is not a sales talk. The benefits that you are looking for are: to become known as an expert on your topic, putting a face/personality with your other marketing, and to have attendees come up and ask for your business card at the end of the presentation. Better yet, provide them with some added value information related to the topic of your presentation (with your information discreetly on the handout), or drive them to your website to access the information.
What is the question that most business owners and salespeople fear? It’s any question about their price. They know that they will have to compete with their competitor on price. A Guerrilla isn’t afraid to compete on price because they know that they have added value to their product/service. They have added so much value that it becomes an “Irresistible Offer”. There are many strategies that Guerrilla Marketing teaches us to add value to our offer.
"Your prospects, being humans, are eclectic people. They pay attention to a lot of media so you can’t depend on a mere one medium to motivate a purchase. You’re got to introduce a notion, remind people of it, say it again, then repeat it in different words somewhere else." -Jay Conrad Levinson
Your toughest competitor is not the company down the street.Your #1 competitor is:"Complacency". You might have a much better product/service than your competitor is offering. Your prospects may not even like the product or service that that they are getting from your competition, but they have the mindset of "at least I know what we have now, but we don't know what we will get if we switch". We call this complacency their "Comfort Zone". Our job is to get our prospects out of their comfort zones.
"Few devices can match a good old direct mail postcard for announcing a new online business activity. Postcards are cheap to produce and mail; they ensure that your message is seen by the person you're trying to reach; and they should arouse enough curiosity to generate an online visit." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Do you really listen in the sales interview or are you just waiting for the prospect to stop talking so you can begin to talk? Active listening requires concentration! Don't expect to be able to respond to a prospect's needs unless you're listening at a higher, more sensitive level." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"A Guerrilla's follow up is meticulous, bordering on fanatical. They take personal responsibility for making sure everything sold is delivered exactly as specified. They take full responsibility for any and all slip-ups regardless of who may be at fault back at the office or warehouse. They get right on top of remedying the situation." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Guerrillas have the discipline to keep going, systematically planning presentations and working their territory, consistently following up on past customers, consistently. Ask "If you were me, who'd would you call on next?" -Jay Conrad Levinson
Plan a series of press releases that will generate interest in your business over the first six months or year of business. Make your company newsworthy and tell the media about it. You'll gain free public exposure and the kind of credibility that money can't buy. -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Marketing is successful if it moves the products or service at a profit. Memorability has nothing to do with it. Whether people like or dislike it has nothing to do with it. All that matters is whether or not people are motivated by your marketing to purchase your offering." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Show business should entertain and amuse. Marketing should sell your offering. It seems to me that this particular myth is one of the most widespread in marketing. The advertising community perpetuates the cult of clever marketing messages by means of award for glitz, glitter, humor, and special effects in marketing. Marketing awards should be given for increased profits-nothing else." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Great price-off sales work instantly. Great limited time offers work instantly. But great marketing is not made up of price-off sales and repeated limited-time offers alone. Great marketing is made up of creating a desire for your offering in the minds of qualified prospects." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Sell the solution and not the sizzle. The easiest way to sell a product is to offer it as the solution to a problem. If you tend to look for the sizzle rather than the problem, you are looking in the wrong direction." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"This is one of the most dangerous, costly and silly myths in marketing. People will read long books, long articles, long letters. They'll read whatever interests them, and the more it interest them, the more of it they want. When presented with a marketing offer, they want enough information to make an informed decision to buy - or not to buy." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Your customers and prospects are not interested in white space. They are interested in information, in what your product or service can do for them. When you use white space where you could be putting information in the form of features, benefits, or specific ideas of interest to your prospects, you are wasting money." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"As the customer is the most important person in a guerrilla marketing attack, customer service and customer follow-up is the primary product. Customers don't buy products and services. They buy expectation." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"How does a business become customer oriented? It begins with a desire to be that way and the energy to assure that the desire spreads throughout your organization and remains there permanently. Then it requires that everyone who deals with your customers remember the Golden Rule for Guerrillas: Always Try To Think Like Your Customers." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Does your company have a customer recourse policy-a method of dealing with dissatisfied customers? If not, here's a good policy to use as a start: The Customer Is Always Dead Right Even When The Customer Is Dead Wrong. Don't stray too far from this policy, and you'll be able to convert disgruntled customers into repeat customers who gladly tell others of the superlative service they received from you." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Eighty percent of lost business is the fault not of poor quality but of failure to continue in the effort to maintain and build on customer satisfaction." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"As more and more businesses learn that customer satisfaction is absolutely essential to long-term success in the marketplace, more and more people are learning to expect and demand first-rate service." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"If you don't understand that the most important person in the guerrilla marketing attack is unquestionably your customer, I urge you to put someone else in charge of your marketing." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"It's a hard step for a prospect to decide to buy from you. Guerrillas make that hard step a whole lot easier by offering prospects several soft steps. Just imagine how difficult it is for a prospect to make the decision to buy what you are selling. That prospect has never purchased from you before, doesn't know all that much about you, and has been stung in the past by making purchasing errors from others.
Guerrilla Marketing makes that hard step a lot less hard by creating a series of soft steps for prospects to take first. One such soft step is the offer of a free consultation. It's easy to say yes to such an offer because it carries with it no pressure. And after it's over, it makes the hard step of buying a whole lot easier. The guerrilla's arsenal abounds with such soft steps, all designed to make purchasing from you more risk-free, less of a momentous decision, and simpler because you've removed most barriers with information. -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Don't feel that you must continually change your marketing campaigns. Changing campaigns requires you to spend more production money and dilutes the overall effect of your marketing. Stick with one campaign until it loses its pulling power. This is difficult to do. In the beginning most people will like your ad or website. Then you'll become bored with it. Next, your friends and family will get tired of it. Soon, your fellow workers and associates will be bored, and you'll want to change the ad. Don't do it! Let your accountant tell you when to change ads. That's right, your accountant - the person who takes long looks at your profit picture." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Magazines are a medium with which readers become involved; this medium bestows on you the greatest credibility. Whether they buy individual newsstand copies or subscribe, readers take a good, long time to read them. In your magazine ad, you can attempt to capture the editorial "mood" of the magazine. You can put forth more information because readers will be willing to take more time reading a magazine ad than a newspaper ad. The credibility of the magazine becomes partly linked to you." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"The newspaper is a prime medium for disseminating the news. And that strength can become your strength. Advertising in the newspapers, other than in the classified section, should be newsy, interruptive, and to the point." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"If you think that there's a simple formula for establishing such a strategy, you're absolutely right. Here, in the simplest terms possible, is a typical three-sentence Guerrilla Creative Strategy: the purpose of the creative message, the benefits to be stressed to accomplish the purpose, and the personality of the brand." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Guerrillas have only one definition of creativity in marketing: something that generates profits for their business. Big Profits-Very Creative. No Profits-Not creative. Creativity in marketing has everything to do with profitability and nothing to do with awards and compliments." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Your Guerrilla Marketing program gives you an advantage over competitors who have ceased to market. A troubled economy can offer a superb advantage to a marketing-minded entrepreneur. If your competitors stop marketing, you can pull ahead of them and attract some of their customers. In ugly economic situations, there are always winners and losers." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"People forget quickly. Each and every day, Americans are bombarded with approximately 4,700 advertisements and marketing messages, though I read one study that put the number closer to 30,000. In one study, a specific commercial was shown on TV once a week for thirteen weeks. After the thirteen weeks, 63 percent of the people surveyed remembered the spot. One month later, 32 percent recalled it. Two weeks after that, 21 percent remembered it. This means that 79 percent forgot the commercial after six weeks." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"New families, new products and new lifestyles change the marketplace. One in five Americans move each year. One-third of all Americans in their twenties move each year. The average American moves eleven times in a lifetime. Nearly 6 million Americans get married each year. If you stop marketing, you miss evolving opportunities, and you are no longer part of the process - you aren't even in the game." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Take a moment to understand clearly the crucial difference between an Image and an Identity. Image implies something artificial, something that is not genuine. Identity defines what your business is really about, your personality. You have one, you know. Let's just hope it's what you want it to be. If you put it in writing, it's more likely to be what you want it to be." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"The plan starts with the purpose of the marketing-that is, it starts with the bottom line. Then it connects with the benefits that will beautify that bottom line and with those who will contribute to that line-the target audience. The marketing tools are then listed. Next comes the positioning statement, which explains what the product and company stand for - why the offering has value and why it should be purchased. The identity (not the image, which is phony compared with the honesty of an identity) comes next. The cost of the marketing wraps it up." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Don't leave home without this. Leave home? Don't even go into business without this. Go into battle with neither offensive weapons nor armor, but don't go into business without a simple marketing plan. Guerrillas create strategies with seven simple sentences:
The Purpose of the Marketing. The physical action you want your prospect to take...
How You'll Achieve this Purpose. Your competitive advantage and benefits.
Your Target Market or Markets.
The Marketing Weapons You will Use.
Your Niche and your Position and What You Stand For.
The Identity of Your Business.
Your Budget. Which should be expressed as a percentage of your projected gross revenues."
"The Guerrilla Marketing Plan or strategy should serve as the springboard for marketing that sells. When doing your own market planning, review your offering with regard to your objectives, the strengths and weaknesses of your offering, your perceived competition, your target market, the needs of that market, and the trends apparent in the economy. This should be instrumental in your establishing a proper position. Ask yourself these basic questions: What business am I in? What is my goal? What benefits do I offer? What are my competitive advantages? What do I fear? -Jay Conrad Levinson
"A word that you should now start to use and understand is Positioning: determining the specific niche that your offering is intended to fill. What will you stand for in the minds of your prospects and customers?" -Jay Conrad Levinson
"You know the secrets. Does that mean you're ready to launch a full-scale marketing attack? Not even close. Before you launch, you need a Core Story: A real-life story about a problem involving the people to whom you're telling the story and how your solution to that problem can make life better for them."
-Jay Conrad Levinson
"Right here and now, let me tell you the two most important things you should know if you're to succeed with Guerrilla Marketing:
1: Start with a Plan
2: Commit to that Plan.
If you do those two things, you're off to the right start, and you're primed for success." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Guerrilla Marketing requires you to comprehend every facet of marketing, experiment with many of them, winnow out the losers, double up on the winners, and then use the marketing tactics that prove themselves to you in the battleground of real life." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Once you've launched your Guerrilla Marketing Plan, keep track of which weapons are hitting your target and which are missing. Merely knowing can double the effectiveness of your marketing budget." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"The more aware of marketing you are, the more attention you will pay to it. And the increased attention will result in better marketing of your offerings. I'd venture a bold guess that fewer than 10 percent of the new and small business owners in America have explored as many as a dozen of the marketing tools available to them. Among these methods are a Website, canvassing, personal letters, telephone marketing, circulars and brochures, signs of bulletin boards, classified ads, outdoor signs, direct mail, samples, seminars, demonstrations, sponsoring of events, exhibitions at trade shows, T-shirt ads, public relations, using searchlights, such advertising specialties as imprinted ballpoint pens, and advertising in the yellow pages, newspapers, and magazines and on radio, televisions, and billboards. Guerrilla Marketing demands that you scrutinize each of these marketing methods, and a lot more, and then use the combination that is best suited to your business." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"If you're among the millions of small business holdouts who think that they can get by without hopping aboard the technology bandwagon, I'm afraid you're going to continue to lose ground every day and, like the dinosaurs, face extinction. So please pay attention to the following four very important facts:
Your competitors are smarter, more sophisticated, and even more aggressive than ever before. Therefore, you must use every potent tool at your disposal and know Guerrilla Marketing like the back of your hand.
The internet is here is stay and will continue to play an ever-increasing role in your lives and business. If you're not already techno-cozy, it's time to become so.
You're not a Guerrilla Marketer unless you use the internet and have a website.
Anyone with an interest can learn to be a Guerrilla Marketer and learn to use the Internet Guerrilla style. It involves understanding some very basic concepts, which are based on common sense rather than complicated secret solutions. They are not magic - but you'll feel like they are!"
"There are thousands of small businesses in the U.S. Many of them offer superb products and highly desirable services. But fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of those businesses will make it to the point of phenomenal financial success. The elusive variable that makes the difference between merely being listed in the yellow pages and being listed on the New York Stock Exchange is the marketing of the product or service." -Jay Conrad Levinson
Dale Richardson Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach
"Marketing is the painfully slow process by which you move people from their place in the sun to their place on your customer list, gently taking a grasp of the inside of their minds and never letting go. Each component that helps you sell your product or service is part of the marketing process. No detail is too insignificant. In fact, the smaller the detail, the more important it is to a customer. The more you realize that, the better your marketing will be. And the better your marketing is, the more money you will make. I'm taking not about sales; I'm talking about profits: the bottom line." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Your greatest source of new customers are old customers and all you've got to do is ask. All of your customers have friends. They could recommend your business to friends. They have relatives. They may attend a school. They may be connected with a business. They may be a member of a club. That means there are many people to whom they can recommend your business and if you have a referral program, it means you are contacting these people once or twice a year asking them for the names of people who might benefit from getting on your mailing list. And because you take such good care of your customers, they're going to be very happy to give you the names of people who might benefit from getting on your mailing list.
Guerrillas know to ask for three names, maybe five names, never more than that. It's hard to come up with a lot of names. It's easy to come up with three names or five names." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Superior marketing doesn't happen by mistake. It occurs when it is deliberately planned and executed. Because Guerrillas are well trained in all aspect of the marketing process, they know "First-things-first" considerations such as the way they greet their customers, their employees' attire and demeanor, how easy their website is to navigate, and their business and domain names, are extremely critical components for success." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Superior marketing provides all companies with their greatest leverage, or control, and should be viewed as an investment. Unlike traditional marketers, Guerrillas invest more time, energy, imagination, and knowledge (or information) than money. This is probably the single most important Guerrilla Marketing principle of them all, even though it may be counterintuitive and the opposite of what you're heard." -Jay Conrad Levinson
"Your customers and prospects are not interested in white space in you ad. They are interested in information, in what your product or service can do for them." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Make your marketing consistent. Don't change media. Don't change messages. Don't vary your graphic format. Change your offers and headlines and even your prices, if you wish, but do not change your identity. When you are ready to market your product or service, be prepared to put the word out consistently. Consistently means regularly-and for a good period of time. Consistency breeds familiarity, familiarity breeds confidence, and confidence breeds sales." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"I hate admitting this, but mediocre marketing with commitment works better than brilliant marketing without commitment. What makes marketing work? If you were looking for a one-word answer to that question, the word is commitment. Create a sensible plan, and then stick with it until it proves itself to you. How long might that take? Three months, if you're lucky. Probably six months. Possibly as long as a year." --Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"A business card can be more than a mere listing of one's name, address and phone number: it can be a Guerrilla Marketing Weapon. A business card can double as a brochure, a circular, a wallet-size advertisement, and a listing of your services or products. It can open up to become a mini-brochure." --Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Stop for a moment and ask yourself whether you're marketing properly right now. You can be pretty certain that the answer is a resounding 'NO' if any of these seven danger signals are present:
My sales are driven mostly by price.
Customers cannot distinguish my products or services from those of my competition.
I use disconnected sales gimmicks.
I do not have a unified plan for imparting my message to my customers and to the trade.
Most sales leads come from my sales staff.
Longtime customers say, I didn't know you offered that.
"Guerrilla Marketing involves recognizing the myriad opportunities out there and exploiting every one of them. In the marketing of any product, problems are certain to arise. Solve these problems and continue to look for new problems to solve-problems of prospects and customers. Businesses that solve problems have a greater chance of success than those that don't." --Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Guerrilla Marketing demands that you scrutinize each of the Guerrilla Marketing methods, and a lot more, and then use the combination that is best suited to your business. Once you've launched your Guerrilla Marketing Plan, keep track of which weapons are hitting your target and which are missing. Merely knowing can double the effectiveness of your marketing budget." --Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“If you’re an entrepreneur, you need Guerrilla Marketing more than ever because the competition is smarter, more sophisticated and even more aggressive than it was in the past. Your marketing agenda as an entrepreneur is vastly different from that of an esteemed member of the Fortune 500. Some of the principles may be the same, but the details are different. If you’re a small company, a new venture, or a single individual, you can use the tactics of Guerrilla Marketing to their fullest. You have the ability to be fast on your feet, to use a vast array of marketing tools, and to gain access to the biggest marketing brains and get them at bargain-basement prices.” --Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"The heart of Guerrilla Marketing is the proper utilization of the Guerrilla Marketing Weapons you choose to use. A basic precept of Guerrilla Marketing calls for you to be aware of all 100 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons, to utilize and test many of them, and then to eliminate those that fail to hit it out of the park for you. The idea is for you to end up with an arsenal of lethal and proven weapons." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing uses one or two marketing tactics: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail or the Internet. Guerrilla Marketing identifies "100 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons" and over half of them are free." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing is a monologue. One person does all the talking or writing. Everyone else listens or reads. Hardly the basis of a relationship. Guerrilla Marketing is a dialogue. One person talks or writes. Someone else responds. Interactivity begins. The customer is involved with the marketing." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing believes that you can make the sale with marketing. That may have been so a long, long time ago, but that doesn't often happen anymore. That's why Guerrilla Marketing alerts you to the reality that marketing today can hope only to gain people's consent to receive more marketing materials from you." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing is, for the most part, unintentional. It tends to ignore the little details, such as how your phone is answered, the decor of your office, the attire worn by your employees. Guerrilla Marketing is always intentional. It pays close attention to all the details of contact with the outside world, ignoring nothing and realizing the stunning importance of those tiny but supercharged details." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing has always aimed its message at groups: the larger the group, the better. Guerrilla Marketing aims its message at individuals, or if it must be a group, the smaller the group, the better." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing has always thought about what it could take from a customer. Guerrillas have a full understanding of the lifetime value of a customer, but they also concern themselves with what they can give a customer. They’re always thinking of things they might give away for free, and now that we’re smack dab in the middle of the information age, they try to give away free and valuable information – such as booklets, informative websites, brochures, TV infomercials – wherever they can. Don’t forget what I said about marketing as your opportunity to help your prospects and customers succeed at attaining their goals. It’s also your golden chance to help them solve their problems. Can you do it for free? If you can, you’re a Guerrilla.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketers, at the end of the month, count money. Guerrillas count new relationships. Knowing that people actually do want relationships, Guerrillas do everything they can to establish and nurture a bond between themselves and each individual customer. They certainly do not disdain money, as indicated by their penchant for profits, but they know deep down that long-term relationships are the keys to the vault.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Traditional marketing would have you believe that advertising works, that having a website works, that direct mail and e-mail work. To those antiquated notions, Guerrilla Marketing says nonsense, nonsense and nonsense. Advertising doesn’t work. Websites? Get serious. People learn daily that they are paths to financial oblivion and shattered dreams. Direct mail and e-mail used to work. But not anymore. So what does work? Guerrillas know that marketing combinations work. If you run a series of ads, have a website, and then do direct marketing, or and e-mailing, they’ll all work, and they’ll each help the others work. The days of single-weapon marketing has been relegated to the past. We’re living in an era when marketing combinations open the doors to marketing success.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing has always thought about what it could take from a customer. Guerrillas have a full understanding of the lifetime value of a customer, but they also concern themselves with what they can give a customer. They’re always thinking of things they might give away for free, and now that we’re smack dab in the middle of the information age, they try to give away free and valuable information – such as booklets, informative websites, brochures, TV infomercials – wherever they can. Don’t forget what I said about marketing as your opportunity to help your prospects and customers succeed at attaining their goals. It’s also your golden chance to help them solve their problems. Can you do it for free? If you can, you’re a Guerrilla.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing has always been ‘me’ marketing. Visit almost any website and you’ll see ‘About our company’, ‘About our history’, ‘About our product’, ‘About our management’. But people don’t care about you. Me marketing makes them sleepy. That’s why Guerrillas always practice ‘you’ marketing, in which every word and every idea is about the customer, or the visitor to a website. Don’t take this personally, but people simply do not care about your company. What they care about is themselves. And if you can talk to them about themselves, you’ll have their full attention.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing advises you to scan the horizon to determine which competitors you ought to obliterate. Guerrilla Marketing advises you to scan the same horizon to determine which businesses have the same kind of prospects and standards as you do – so that you can cooperate with them in joint marketing efforts. By doing so, you’re expanding your marketing reach, but you’re reducing the cost of your marketing because you’re sharing it with others. The term that Guerrillas use for this outlook is Fusion Marketing.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing puts all its effort on making the sale, under the false notion that marketing ends once the sale is made. Guerrilla Marketing reminds you that 68 percent of all business lost is lost to apathy after the sale – ignoring customers after they’ve made the purchase. For this reason, Guerrilla Marketing preaches fervent follow-up – continually staying in touch with customers – and listening to them. Guerrillas never lose customers because of inattention to them.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing says that you should grow your business linearly by adding new customers one at a time. But that’s a slow and expensive way to grow. So Guerrilla Marketing says that the way to grow a business is geometrically – by enlarging the size of each transaction, engaging in more transactions per sales cycle with each customer, tapping the enormous referral power of each customer, and growing the old-fashioned way at the same time. If you’re growing your business in four directions at once, it’s tough not to show a tidy profit.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing suggest that you grow your business and then diversify. That kind of thinking gets many companies into hot water because it leads them away from their core competency. Guerrilla Marketing suggest that you grow your business, if growth is what you want, but be sure to maintain your focus – for it’s that focus that got you to where you are in the first place.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing is based on experience and judgment, which is a fancy way of saying ‘guesswork’. But Guerrilla Marketers cannot afford wrong guesses, so it is based as much as possible on psychology – laws of human behavior. For example, 90 percent of all purchases decisions are made in the unconscious mind, that inner deeper part of your brain. We know a slam-dunk manner of accessing that unconscious mind: repetition. Think it over a moment, and you’ll begin to have an inkling of how the process of Guerrilla Marketing works. Repetition is paramount.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing measures its performance by sales or responses to an offer, hits on a website, or store traffic. Those are the wrong numbers to focus on. Guerrilla Marketing reminds you that the main number that merits your attention is the size of your profits. I’ve seen many companies break their sales records while losing money in the process. Profits are the only numbers that tell you the truth you should be seeking and striving for. If it doesn’t earn a profit for you, it’s probably not Guerrilla Marketing.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing is geared towards big business. Before I wrote the original Guerrilla Marketing in 1984, I couldn’t find any books on marketing for companies that invested less than $300,000 monthly. Although it is now true that many Fortune 500 companies buy Guerrilla Marketing by the caseload to distribute to their sales and marketing people, the essence of Guerrilla Marketing –the soul and sprit of Guerrilla Marketing – is small businesses: companies with big dreams but tiny budgets." -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing is so enshrouded by mystique that it intimidates many business owners, who aren’t sure whether marketing includes sales or a website or PR. Because they are so intimidated and worried about making mistakes, they simply don’t do it. Guerrilla Marketing completely removes the mystique and exposes marketing for exactly what it really is – a process that you control – rather than the other way around.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“Traditional marketing has always maintained that to market properly you must invest money. Guerrilla Marketing maintains that if you want to invest money, you can – but you don’t have to if you are willing to invest time, energy, imagination, and information.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
"Marketing, if you go about things in the right way, is also a circle. The circle begins with your idea for brining revenue into your life. Marketing becomes a circle when you have the blessed patronage of repeat and referral customers. The better able you are to view marketing as a circle, the more you’ll concentrate on those repeat and referral people. A pleasant side effect of that perspective is that you’ll invest less money in marketing, but your profits will consistently climb.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“When you view marketing from the vantage point of the Guerrilla, you realize that it’s your opportunity to help your prospects and customers succeed. They want to succeed at earning more money, building their company, losing weight, attracting a mate, becoming more fit, or quitting smoking. You can help them. You can show them how to achieve their goal. Marketing is not about you. It’s about them. I hope you never forget that.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing
“When I write the world marketing, I’m thinking of your prospects and your current customers. Nothing personal, but when you read the word marketing, you’re probably thinking of prospects only. Don’t make that mistake. More than half of your marketing time should be devoted to your existing customers. A cornerstone of Guerrilla Marketing is customer follow-up. Without it, all that you’ve invested into getting those customers is dust in the wind.”
Your customers do not buy because they’re being marketing to or sold to. Instead, they buy because you help them realize the merits of owning what you offer.
They buy promises you make. So make them with care.
They buy your credibility or don’t buy if you lack it.
They buy solutions to their problems.
They buy wealth, safety, success, security, love and acceptance.
They buy the consistency they’ve seen you exhibit.
They buy value, which is not the same as price.
They buy certainty. They buy your identity as conveyed by your marketing.
They buy good taste and know it from bad taste.
They buy the confidence you display in your own business.
“Good guerrillas know that there are two schools of marketing – Freudian, based on changing the prospect’s attitude, and Skinnerian, based on modifying the prospect’s behavior. Which is better? Both schools are better. Guerrillas begin to change prospect’s attitudes with Freudian marketing, and then go in for the kill with Skinnerian marketing. The combination of the two is incredibly potent. You’d do well to know both, practice both, and profit with both.” -Jay Conrad Levinson, “Guerrilla Marketing Attack”
What activities have the most potential to identify prospects for your business? This is where most business people get it wrong. I work with people who after six months of working on a goal say, "I'm working hard but nothing happening." Most of the time it's because they're not doing the right activities.
For example, if I wanted to run in the Boston Marathon, there are specific core activities that I would need to do. What do you think the first and most important core activity would be? Of course, it would be to run everyday. It seems rather obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people get it wrong.
In business, he most obvious core activity would be to prospect, which in most cases means making cold calls everyday. But once again you would be amazed how many people want to be successful in their business or in their sales career but don't do the basic core activity of making cold calls. They are the same people who will say, "I'm working hard but nothing happening." Of course not, you're not doing the most basic necessary core activity.
Now if you don't know what the core activities are, find someone whose done it and model them. If you wanted to run the Boston Marathon, you would find someone who's already run it and ask them what they did. And today you don't even have to talk to them in person, you can read their books or articles on what they did.
If you want to be successful in finding more prospects for your business, either find someone who is already successful, pick up one of the hundreds of books on sales and marketing, or contact a Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Find out what core activities that successful business people and salespeople did to become successful and model them.
“Don’t change media. Don’t change message. Don’t vary your graphics format. Change your offers and headlines and even your prices, if you wish, but do not change your identity. Don’t drop out of the public eye for long periods. When you are ready to market your product or service, be prepared to put the word out consistently. Consistently means regularly – and for a goodly period of time.” “Consistency breeds familiarity, familiarity breeds confidence, and confidence breeds sales. If your products or services are of sufficient quality, your confidence in your offering, more than any other attribute, will attract buyers.”
-Jay Conrad Levinson,
(Guerrilla Marketing-Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from your Small Business)
“Keep in mind that your competitors are getting smarter every single day. So your real job is to augment your marketing attack. Strengthen your plan. Beef up your website. Add a few more weapons to your arsenal. Add more fusion-marketing partners. Try to earn more profits from your marketing investment. Marketing is changing daily. What new tactics and techniques might you use to get a louder bang for a smaller buck?”
-Jay Conrad Levinson, (Guerrilla Marketing-Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from your Small Business)
Guerrilla Marketing teaches us that we have three markets: the Universe, your Prospects, and your Customers. You need to make sure that you have a process in place to convert members of the Universe into prospects, prospects into customers, and customers into repeat customers.
In marketing to the Universe, the biggest market, you should spend approx. 10 percent of your time and budget. Although a smaller market, Prospects have a much bigger potential for profitability. Invest approx. 30 percent of your time and effort into converting prospects into customers. Your third market, your Customers, has the most potential for profits. They have already purchase from you, so they must like, trust and feel comfortable with you. Customers are primed for repeat sales, up-selling, and the most important factor…referrals. Guerrillas spend approx 60 percent of their time and budget on their current customers.
Did you land that great account that you have been after? Are things looking good for you? Is it time to kick back? Key point-Your biggest competitor isn’t that company that’s been around for years or is ten times the size of your company. Your biggest competitor is “Complacency”. You can not afford to become complacent, especially in today’s competitive environment. You can’t afford to sit back and count your commission checks. Remember…You best customer is right now, at the top of your competitor’s prospecting list!
Guerrilla marketers look for any opportunity to connect with their prospects and customers. Whatever their business or personal interest are, you should always be looking for things that you can give them that is not a sales pitch, but something they would appreciate. If they like motivational or inspirational quotes and stories and you run across one, send it to them. If they like golf, if you see an interesting article of golf, send it to them. By doing these little things, you are not only helping to build and strengthen your relationship with them you are building “top of consciousness” or “top of mind” with your prospects and customers. Key...People buy from people they like, trust and feel comfortable with!
The average business invest only“4%” of their gross revenues in marketing their business and use only two or three strategies or tactics to market their business. This might be the reason the average business doesn't make it to the five year mark. Do you want to be average? Guerrilla Marketing companies are not average. They are aggressive in their marketing and they know that marketing is not something you should do or something to do when business is slow. Guerrilla businesses market their business everyday. They utilize as many Guerrilla Marketing Weapons as they can use effectively. Guerrilla companies practice the concept of “Plan-Do-Review”. They measure and track every marketing strategy and tactic and constantly work on their “ABTS” (Attitudes, Behaviors, Tactics, and Strategies).
Guerrilla Marketing Imagination is not ability to dream up glitzy or unusual graphics and ads. Guerrilla Marketing Imagination is the ability to “think outside of the box” with ways to market your business, that other companies are not doing. One of the biggest marketing problems that companies have is “me-to marketing”. No matter what business you look at, most of the time they will market their business the exact same way, using the same one or two marketing strategies that every other business in their industry uses to market their business. Guerrilla Marketing gives us over “100 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons” to utilize in our marketing attack. At the very minimal you need to have “10” different Guerrilla Marketing Weapons included in your Guerrilla Marketing Plan and Calendar.
Guerrilla Marketing teaches us that on average, a suspect, someone who does not know you or your product or service, must be exposed to your marketing message nine times before they will become a customer. But…the challenge is; only one out of three exposures to your marketing messages gets through or penetrates a persons mind. So now we know that person needs twenty-seven exposures to your marketing message to finally become a customer. So the secret of Guerrilla Marketing success is “Patience”.
Have you ever noticed that most companies and salespeople in an industry tend to act alike and sound alike? They not only offer the same product or service, but they offer the same features and benefits, the same marketing method, and even the same sales presentation. This is probability because as industries grew, people left their current company to start their own company selling the same product or service. Of course they only know what they were taught in their old company, so that’s what they do to sell and marketing their new company. It’s a vicious cycle.
First of all, to be successful you must have a process in place to constantly research what your competition is doing. You need to know everything you can about your competition and your industry. Second, you must find a way to stand out from everyone else. With over 100 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons available, you don’t have to depend on the same one or two marketing strategies that everyone else is using. You should have a minimum of ten Guerrilla Marketing Weapons in your marketing plan that you are working on a consistent basis.
Is “Referral Marketing” one of your Guerrilla Marketing Weapons? If it isn’t, maybe it should be. Referral marketing is especially good if cold calling is not one of your favor activities. A gatekeeper is much nicer to you and more receptive to your request when you can call and say, “This is Dale Richardson, Is Mr. Smith in? Jim Jones asked me to call him.” Also, don’t forget to call or write and thank the person who gave you the referral.
When prospecting, don’t sell. Your objective when prospecting, is finding potential customers with interest in your product or service, and then getting an appointment with them to begin the selling process. When prospecting, ask a few qualifying questions to make sure they have some need or interest in your product or service and that they are the decision maker. Then go for the appointment. This strategy not only takes the pressure off the prospect, it takes the pressure off you.
Have you ever had a buyer call and cancel the order before you got back to the office? They seemed happy. They agreed to everything and signed the paperwork. What happened? The fact is you will never know what triggered their “Buyer’s Remorse”.
The key is to build some type of “Buyer’s Remorse” outlet into your sales presentation. After you have completed the sale, and before you rush out, add one more step to your sales process.
Confront your prospect with the possibility of “Buyer’s Remorse”. “You know Mr. Prospect, some people like yourself are too kind to tell me that our (product/service) isn’t right for them. So they sign the agreement and then after I leave, they call the office and cancel the order, so they don’t have to tell me no in person. Mr. Prospect, is there any reason why you would call and cancel the order after I leave today?”
You have forced the prospect to have “Buyer’s Remorse”, in a controlled environment. An environment, you can control. If they have “Buyer’s Remorse” after you leave, there’s not much you can do. You have relieved any pressure they might have, and also given them the opportunity to verbalize any “Buyer’s Remorse” they might have. But…because you are still with them, you now have the opportunity to deal with any issues they might have and to save the sale.
If they say, “No, there’s no reason I would call to cancel”, before they pick up the phone to cancel, they will at least have to face the moral issue of going back on their word to you. Will it work every time? Of course not. But instead of running out, with the agreement and your fingers crossed, you at least took some proactive measures to prevent “Buyer’s Remorse” and a cancelled sale.
Do you hear what the prospect is saying or do you only hear what you want to hear? Prospect have the same problem; they tend to only hear what they want to hear during your sales presentation and block out what they don’t want to hear.
During your sales presentation, make sure you clarify anything that is even remotely ambiguous. Also, ask for feedback from your prospect on items your have presented to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. Then again at the end of your presentation, do a recap of what you and the prospect have discussed, to confirm you are both clear and on the same page regarding the presentation details.
In a selling situation, do you tell the prospect all about you, your company, your product or service, and how great you are? Prospects can get that information from your brochure or website.
Potential buyers are only interested in one thing…themselves and solving their problems and issues. So instead of telling them all about you; ask questions to find out about them and their situation. If they took the time to have you come in, they have some problem(s) or issue(s) they want solved. Find out what they are and then sell the solutions (your product or service) to their specific problem.
Whether you call it strategic alliances, collaborative marketing, marketing partnerships or what Guerrilla Marketing calls "Fusion Marketing", it is one of the most powerful marketing strategies you can use. Fusion marketing allows you to exposure your business while not spending a lot of money.
Internet marketers are far ahead in this area. They understand the value of their customer mailing list to other non-competitive internet marketers. When one marketer comes out with a promotion, all of their "Fusion Marketing" partners send the promotion to their customer list. So instead of sending the promotion to say your 1,000 customers, if you have ten Fusion Marketing partners all with 1,000 customers, you now have exposed your marketing message to 10,000 potential customers. And the best part, it didn't cost you a penny more.
Find other businesses, which are not direct competitors, whose customers and prospects match your target market. Then find ways to piggyback on each others marketing.
The marketers, who use their imagination and "out-of-the-box thinking", will be the winners when it comes to Fusion Marketing.
What could be better than having your prospects and customers spreading word of mouth marketing about you and at no cost? Welcome to “Viral Marketing”. Viral marketing is spreading word-of-mouth about you electronically through emails. Just like when someone who is sick sneezes and infect people around them, and then these people infect others, viral marketing works on the same principle.
The classic example was Hotmail. As subscribers sent emails to their family and friends, there was a simple message on each email, “Get Your Own Free Hotmail Account”. Hotmail was the fastest growing subscriber base company in history.
Key Question: How can you utilize and benefit from “Viral Marketing”?
What could you use in your marketing that prospects and customers would want to send to their family, friends, and co-workers?
“Ask yourself, ‘Who else do my prospects patronize?’ A local restaurant asked themselves this question, and came up with the answer, ‘Beauty Salons’. So they offered two free dinners to all the salon owners within a two-mile radius of their restaurant. The salon owners took advantage of the free dinners, sampled the food and loved it. They during their “Moment of Maximum Satisfaction” talked up the restaurant and their food to all of their clients. Soon, there was a line outside the door of the restaurant waiting to be seated.” -Jay Conrad Levinson
“Time is not money, though you probably have lived your whole live believing the contrary. If you run out of money, there are more ways to scrounge up more. If you run out of time – well, that’s all she wrote. People do not like to wait, whether it’s on the phone, at your website, in your office, in their office, or when dealing with you in any way. They know that time is not money, so save them time and you will see the results in your bottom-line.”
“Not all marketing tactics are created equal. A simple tracking plan that is carefully monitored can help you save money, time and effort in your marketing. Your tracking plan will reveal which ones are superstars and which ones are duds. You then can spend more of your budget, time and energy on the marketing tactics that are working and eliminate those that are not working.”
“Your credibility is something you earn by doing the right thing. Your reputation is something you get by continually doing the right thing over a long period of time. Just like credibility, your reputation isn’t’ something you can pay for. You have to earn it. And it takes time to earn it. Not one business that you frequent had your confidence before you starting going there. They had to do many good things over and over again just to begin earning a good reputation. All guerrillas know that the number one factor in determing where and with whom people do business is confidence in that business. And a top-rate reputation helps build that confidence.”
“There aren’t many shortcuts to credibility, but your commitment to your guerrilla marketing plan is one of the biggest contributors of all. And commitment doesn’t cost any money. When people see that you’re truly interested in them, they will believe in you. When people believe in you, you have won credibility in their minds.”
“Neatness is hardly something you’d expect to learn about in marketing.Neatness proves that you care, that you take your business seriously. When I’m talking about neatness, I’m talking about not just your person, but also your office, your store, your car, your signs, your correspondence, and your workspace. They are all part of your marketing.”
-Jay Conrad Levinson
If you are sloppy in any area…prospects tend to believe that you will be sloppy in other areas. Any they don’t want sloppy “Quality” or sloppy “Service”.
“People who call your business should be able to sense the “Smile” in the voice of the person answering the phone. They should be treated graciously and made to feel important, as they are. Callers should be made to believe that they are right – even if they’re wrong. Every phone call is a golden opportunity for you to intensify your relationship with the prospect or customer.”
“Guerrilla Marketing is a collection of methods, weapons, and strategies you can apply today to more effectively compete with large companies in business warfare. Where they have huge marketing budgets you will be using your time, energy, imagination and your knowledge. You will use your time effectively combined with low cost or no cost marketing."
"The goal of Guerrilla Marketing is to achieve the greatest amount of profits with the least investment possible.”
Digital Ebooks contain useful information that people will find interesting and informing. They have more than just a Perceived Value, they have Real Value. They are similar to the books you buy from Amazon or Borders, but they are read on your computer.
It would be nice to give All your Clients and Prospects a ten dollar hardback book as a gift every month or two. But the cost would be prohibitive.
This is where Digital Viral Ebooks come in. Now you can give All your Clients and Customers, All your Prospects and even All your Suspects a book for the same Value but not the same Cost.
Utilizing These 3 Marketing Strategies with Your Personalized Digital Ebook
Send your Digital Ebook to everyone. All your family, friends, neighbors, co workers, business associates, people you meet at networking events, and everyone you meet. Send it to your current customers, your past customers, and all your prospects.
When you do this you are utilizing the 3 Marketing Strategies above:
You are giving a "Freeminum", with Real Value.
When you send your Digital Ebook to everyone, you are utilizing the concepts of "The Rule of 7" and the "Top of Consciousness Concept". When they open it, they think of you.
The Ebook has real value and is something they can pass on for others to read. When someone passes the book on or forwards it to everyone in their address book, this is "Viral Marketing".
Remember Girard "Rule of 250". If the average person knows about 250 people, and you send the book out to all your customers, prospects, family, friends, business associates, etc., how many people will potentially see your business card and have an opportunity to click on to your website? You do the math.
What is Viral Marketing? Viral Marketing is based on the analogy of how a virus is spread. One person "sneezes" or gives the virus to people they come in contact with. Those people "sneeze" on people they are around, etc. This is how one person can spread the virus to hundreds or thousands of people.
Viral Marketing is the same concept (but healthier). Just like those jokes or videos that are sent to one person, who sends it to everyone in their address book and then they all send it to everybody in their address book. You soon have thousands of people who read the joke or viewed the video.
It’s very similar to the business concept of Network Marketing. The reason it is very successful is that to have 1,000 people in your organization, you don’t have to personally go out and contact all 1,000 people. The concept of Network Marketing is that you share the business with 5 people. Each of them share the business with 5 people and now you have 25 people in your organization. Those 25 share it with 5 each and now you have 125. And it just keeps going, all based on the 5 you contacted.
*Joe Girard’s Rule of 250. Girard says that everyone knows about 250 people. How he figured this out was that he was talking to a wedding catererwho stated that the average wedding has 200-300 guests. He then was talking to a funeral director who told him that he orders 250 prayer cards for most funerals. All of his research showed that the average person knows 250 people.
Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world.
Marketing includes; the Name of your Business, the determination of whether you will be selling a product or a service; the method of manufacture or servicing; the color, size, and shape of your product; the packaging; the location of your business; the advertising, public relations, Web site, branding, e-mail signature, voicemail on your machine, and sales presentation; the telephone inquiries; the sales training; the problem solving; the growth plan and the referral plan; and the people who represent you, you and your follow-up.
Marketing includes your idea for your brand, your service, your attitude, and the passion you bring to your business.
Marketing is a complex process.
Every little thing you do, show and say-not only your advertising on your Web site-is going to affect people's perceptions of you.
This is not going to happen in a flash. Not in a month, or maybe not even in a year.
It is crucial for you to know that marketing is a process and not an event. And the process has no ending.
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