Guerilla marketing involves using unconventional techniques to grab customer attention. These tactics are eye catching, creative and connect with audiences on a deep level. From graffiti to printing custom stickers and even well-designed publicity stunts, guerilla marketing strategies typically possess a ‘wow’ factor that can help elevate your business, first to a talking point, and then perhaps to an enterprise that’s renowned for innovation. This is precisely what makes guerilla marketing an especially useful concept for smaller businesses, as it allows you to spread your brand on a big scale using cost-effective techniques.
A large part of guerilla marketing is making the most out of your money, which is why so many small businesses have equated guerilla marketing to ‘going viral’ on social media. But it’s important to keep in mind that this dynamic marketing discipline encapsulates more than just viral TikTok videos – even if they can be an extremely cost-efficient way of spreading the word about your brand.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how brands in 2024 use guerilla marketing to capture our attention, and how you can apply these tactics to your own company.
Use Holistic Branding
In 2024, branding is completely different from what it once was. There’s a whole new set of tools that didn’t exist back then, including social media, search engine marketing and push notification and email advertising. You’ll want to make sure you’re present on as many platforms as possible. It’s also crucial to understand the idiosyncrasies of each platform in order to know how to advertise there.
While the digital stuff is obviously important, you should also take care not to neglect traditional branding strategies. This includes printing physical collateral like stickers, posters and branded business cards.
One of guerilla branding’s main goals is to put your brand in as many people’s minds as possible. This means that they should see you wherever they look: you should be present on the stickers people put on their laptops, in the ads they see when they boot up Facebook and on the flyers they pass while driving.
Conduct Extensive Research for Strategy Development
If you’re a smaller business, you might be tempted to just make things up as you go along. After all, startups face lots of uncertainty, so it certainly helps to be flexible.
However, this doesn’t mean you should go into your new venture blind. Almost all successful startups go through a period of research and planning before going into business. The more information you have about your market, your audience, your competitors, etc., the higher your chances of success.
Before even starting a business, one of the most important things to do is to ascertain whether or not there’s a market for your product or service, and whether or not you can compete with the existing brands in the same space. Not doing this can lead to you throwing away lots of money and time on a business idea that was doomed to fail from the very start.
It’s important to prepare an overall business plan and a marketing plan. Yes, yes, we can hear you groan. However, these tools act as a roadmap of your vision for your company and help keep you on track when you need to make tough choices.
Develop Unique Content that Showcases Your Brand
Think about the ads that stick to your mind. Chances are, you remember them because there was something unique about them. The human mind works like that: we tend to remember unusual things.
You’ll want to make sure your online and offline content stands out. You can do this from several different angles. You might want to use striking visuals that immediately pop off the page, or use a message that your competitors haven’t thought about before.
However, contrary to what some people might think, not all publicity is good publicity. Avoid controversy for controvery’s sake. Don’t do anything that you know will make people mad just to get clicks, and don’t do anything contrary to your brand values and to reasonable ethical standards. This can backfire in a really big way.
Harness the Power of Word of Mouth
One of the best, and most cost effective, ways to do guerilla marketing is through word of mouth. If your customers are evangelising their friends, they’ll be doing some of the work for your marketing team. Word of mouth marketing can be (although is not always, as we’ll see later) free.
There are several ways to take advantage of word of mouth. One is simply to provide a really good product, service or experience that people will naturally want to tell their friends about. Another is to create some sort of incentive for customers to spread the word. This is usually financial: you’ve probably seen referral discounts or cashbacks on mobile banking apps and in restaurants.
And then there’s developing content that’s designed to be shared (i.e. content that’s capable of going viral). As we’ve briefly mentioned above, you can’t really plan to go viral – it either happens, or it doesn’t. What social media analysts have been able to identify, however, is that a lot of viral content with substance does tend to explore intersections between cultures, be it in the form of fusion foods, or even cultural dances, music, languages, or just societal norms as a whole. If your content is able to present a critical analysis of melding worlds, then chances are it will be more shareable to your audience because it inherently offers more value. So think critically about what kinds of digital content you can develop that not only showcases your brand, but also demonstrates your company’s value both commercially and with regards to community.
Marketing is completely different in 2024. These days, many brands are turning to guerilla marketing to increase brand awareness while keeping costs down. The increased viability of guerilla marketing has somewhat leveled the playing field. In the past, larger brands could beat their competition by simply outspending them, but it’s now easier than ever for small brands to spread the word.
Want to unlock the power of guerilla marketing for your own brand? Then be sure to apply any or all of the strategies we’ve outlined above to grow your brand from the ground up.
