Send to Kindle

The above image is neither viral marketing nor guerrilla market. This is just good creative.

I can’t think of anything right now.

At least, not any examples.

What’s an example of something that people commonly think is something that it’s technically not? I mean, if a real soup Nazi were to taste your bisque, would he really think it was a bisque or would he call it hot ketchup? I’m looking for an example of that here.

In any case, while we wait for the example crowdsourcing effect to take, well, effect, guerrilla marketing is like that.

Many claim to do guerrilla marketing. Few really do it.

Here’s the secret sauce: If viral marketing is about drafting and emotionally vesting otaku at the conception stage, guerrilla marketing is about positioning. Viral is about people. Guerrilla is about place. The right mix of people creates self-replicating excitement and gossip. The right place ensures that your competitors and noise gets locked-out.

This place can be 2 dimensional (geo-coordinates), it can be 4 dimensional (time), it can even be in a 5th dimensional space (data and intel).

But one thing it must be is exclusionary by nature.

If you go pasting “guerrilla marketing posters” on subway walls and someone else can come right over the top of those posters and paste their own on top of your’s, that’s like Che Guevara or Ho Chi Minh picking ambush locations where American troops were able to ambush them.

Guerrilla marketing strategy must be exclusionary by nature.

When Mark Cuban said that PR was not a long term business strategy, that might be what he meant. Business strategy works when you’ve locked down an exclusionary choke-point like a patent or a multi-year exclusive partnership agreement with someone who has. Guerrilla marketing strategy requires the same ability to communicate and persuade with ZERO outside noise.

Since we’ve spent enough time on theory, let’s dive into real world examples.

What’s that one movie that was a sequel where the main character dressed up as other people and pranked people throughout the movie? The sequel flopped as soon as people started tweeting during the movie. I think it was a British actor. Barat, was it? Crowdsourcing–begin!

While the movie flopped, the guerrilla marketing was brilliant.

In fact, Twitter was aflame with buzz about that movie and it’s sequel. The lead crashed live broadcasts to nation wide audiences like Good Morning America. The anchors couldn’t do a thing about it. After all, they were locked into filling their LIVE time slot. Let’s call this a 2d and 4d ambush point.

That leaves 5d.

We ran a guerrilla marketing campaign where we asked the most vocal Verizon Wireless broadband customers to sign a petition to bring next gen wireless broadband to their city. That online petition had a check box. It asked if another carrier brought next gen wireless broadband to their city first, would they want to be alerted. By default, the box was set to “YES.”

Our client WAS another wireless broadband carrier.

We brought them exclusionary data-intel. They won.

To talk about how Sparkah can build you a viral marketing and guerrilla marketing strategy that works, contact us now.

The post Guerrilla Marketing Strategies that Work for Retail and eCommerce appeared first on Guerrilla Marketing Strategies.