Week 7 – MBA6101 – Guerrilla Marketing

In Guerrilla Marketing's Chapter 7 Secrets of Saving Marketing Money, Levinson doubles-down on his advice from previous chapters: "don't feel that you must continually change your marketing campaigns.

While this is financially sound advice, the real savviness comes from a commitment to one's marketing campaign once it is fleshed out. All the more reason to try to get it right the first time, investing the appropriate time and resources to planning out what the year looks like. Once implemented, it is important to not distance oneself from performance management & analysis so insights can be gleaned and the plan calibrated for optimizations, not being gutted.

Further into the chapter, there is emphasis on various Pro Tips that are unbeknownst to most entrepreneurs. These include:

1. Bartering: it's not just for the Middle Ages. He suggests Googling "barter" to see how many sites are listed.
2. Trade Magazine ad space: this is definitely an "inside scoop" that anyone in the advertising business has known about and his suggestion to not assume that rate cards are set in stone is a good negotiating tactic that ad agencies use all the time.
3. National Magazine Remnant Space: get in touch with Media Networks, Inc., a company devoted to selling remnant space to local advertisers for cheap. Request a free media kit at (800)225-3457. You can get your ad into a national magazine for a steal. Pro tip: get the specs upfront so you can design your ad units accordingly for speedy insertion.
4. Co-Op Advertising: this one makes total sense as an opportunity for a "win-win". I would add that if an entrepreneur gets copy from a business partner, slightly tweaking it (if allowed based on any contractual obligation) would ensure you aren't only driving traffic to their page and making it your own helps based on SEO principles.
5. Per Inquiry or Per Order arrangements with an advertising channel: another "insider's tip"!
6. Tracking Codes: these are critical to have direct correlation between engagement and advertising asset. A build on this: leverage vanity URLs that drive to the same landing page. One can see which URL is working harder, not just where the traffic is coming from, and typically indicates best brand-recall.
7. Annual Marketing Calendar: I cannot even tell you how many Fortune 100 companies do not do this consistently! Many large organizations are silo-ed and this is one way the smaller businessperson can have a leg-up.
8. Be Pithy in Marketing Message: Levinson suggest 30-second over 60-sec vids but since the publishing of the book, the ad industry is seeing 15-sec or less with the hook required before the 6-sec mark. Skippable ads are between 6 and 20 seconds long and viewers must watch only the first five seconds before they can skip to the video they came to see. Note: non-skippable ads are longer, averaging 15-20 seconds.
9. Hire a Professional Designer: hiring a pricy professional to design your first ad or website will help ensure there's a brand identity that will become your calling card.
10. Start an eNewsletter: it's inexpensive and a quick read. Even better: drop in URLs for quick clicks to drive traffic to your website or social channels!
11. Library Shoots: in the ad biz, these are shoots that are done to capture as many scenarios or variations as you plan to need/use. See bullet number seven above: if you have a calendar, you already should have an idea of what your marketing asset should look like!
12. Market to Customers over Prospects: they have had at least one experience with you. If it was a great one, encourage word of mouth/referrals by offering them a kick-back like a free or discounted product or service.