Marketing departments often put a large percentage of their assigned budget into advertising. With good reason - advertising means more views, which translates to more leads, more possible customers, and better revenue. However, this equation is notoriously fickle, sometimes eating up an entire department budget with only diminished returns to show for it.
Advertising itself is tricky as well - due to their abundance, people have learned to tune out most of the ads they see today, making vying for customer’s attention much more difficult. With billboards, posters, media and video advertisements, it would seem that the most obvious solution would be to outspend the competition - but that isn’t the only way.
Enter guerilla marketing - a marketing strategy that relies on low-budget, high-impact advertising that can draw massive amounts of attention and leads to your business, give you a pulse on the needs and wants of your target audience, and possibly even usher in a new branding style for your company.
Guerilla marketing is a strategy that rewards high risk with high reward - which makes it tricky to strategise and even more complicated to execute. However, like all marketing strategies, there are ways to leverage this to your advantage if you remember the core principles. Energetic, creative, loud - but most of all, unconventional. That’s the appeal of guerilla marketing.
Identify the location
Location is one of the key elements that needs to be paid attention to when it comes to guerilla advertising. Highly visible spaces with plenty of foot traffic is a must, as well as adequate space for your advertising to make an impact.
Visibility is the overall goal in guerilla marketing - a visible location can contribute much to your advertisement’s success. Location can also help in your advertisement itself by incorporating the structure or the landscape, making your already eye-catching marketing effort even more integrated.
Strategise your approach
Ideally, guerilla advertisements take the psychological profile of the their target audience when it comes to their approach. For example, an ad aimed at businessmen might take the form of something related to their routine, such as morning coffee runs or afternoon cigarette breaks. Guerilla advertising often relies on the “ah!” moment, which is when a customer notices and connects with your ad without it being forced.
Collect feedback
Finally, guerilla advertising should be an opportunity for you to know the outlook and preference of your customers. It’s a rare occasion for you to have access to such a large sample size that can pull in enormous amounts of data for your business to analyse in your future campaigns.
Guerilla marketing draws people, and therefore data to your event. Aside from making an impression, it’s the perfect opportunity to know exactly what kind of impression you have managed to make, as well as how you can use what you’ve done and integrate it into your business plan. Gathering feedback is critical for your metrics, as well as solid support to your business ROI.
Properly strategised and executed, a well-thought out guerilla advertisement has the capacity to reach audiences far beyond the initial locale, with minimal effort and budget. While certainly, the tried method of buying out ads may work for business today, customers will always love a little novelty and creativity in what they see - and guerilla marketing may be just the thing to reach that audience.
Interested in learning more about marketing and how can you make it work best for your business today? Contact our team of experts at myCEO to find out how we can help you optimise your marketing efforts.
