Guerrilla marketing involves a lot of effective communication tactics, such as non-verbal, thought-provoking messages, humour and visuals. These are important things to consider when working on a guerrilla marketing strategy in your next advertising campaign.
As a marketer, you
need to be creative; this sometimes means adding some unconventional techniques of promotion in order to sustain your consumers’ interest in your brand. Guerrilla marketing is the bond you can use between you and your audience to
enhance that consumer experience. media update’s Nakedi Phala takes you through three methods you can use to make the best out of your guerilla marketing game plan.
Here they are:
1. Utilise busy public spaces
The best place to run an outdoor guerrilla marketing campaign has to be in an urban area.
Why? Urban areas are where people live, work and play.
The urban area is usually constrained by high traffic volumes as there are
always many people in the city, especially during business hours (8am — 5pm). But how do you take advantage of this public space? You can use some of the following tactics:
- Incorporate intellectual games: They’re a convenient way for raising brand awareness, and often they encourage engagement more than traditional promotion would. These include games that people usually play at home, except now, they would be playing them with your brand. For example, you can use a giant chessboard with some of the chess pieces shaped or formed to resemble some part of your brand or product.
- Magnify your product: When you maximise your brand, it helps you develop an interactive relationship with your consumer. For example, if your brand is a paint product, you can build a giant can of paint in a spillage position and have small tins of paints that the public can use to sign their names on a board using their favourite colours.
- Utilise purpose-driven marketing products: A product that serves multiple purposes has a greater chance of succeeding and generating sales. If your product is a shower gel product, you could build a shower booth branded with your logo. And, if you stock up the shower booths with some product samples, it is likely to be a great hit!
- Be fun: It helps audiences enjoy engaging with your brand and this is one of the greatest ways to boost consumer morale. Suppose your brand is an airline service; you can set up a branded dummy aircraft at a mall where the public will get an opportunity to learn how an aircraft functions while having fun.
The main objective is to place your brand in a public space where it will push the public to play, interact, and learn about your brand or product in a way that adds sentimental value in a consumer’s lifestyle.
2. Create a unique brand placement campaign
One of the main goals when it comes to guerrilla marketing is to build a positive and long-lasting connection with your consumers. You can do this by embedding something that a consumer can make
use of. Be innovative!
Correctly used, guerilla marketing tactics can even help to increase sale margins. For example, consider you are a plastic company specialising in making crockery and you want your product utilisation to improve. You can partner up (co-brand) with an ice cream brand that can agree to replace their stick ice cream with a plastic spoon or reusable straw. It’s important to make sure that the utensils are marked with your brand’s logo.
And, as a means to accelerate buying, you can label the campaign as a limited edition. This way, consumers will be persuaded to buy the product as it will be perceived as a special item — one that not many people will have.
When placing a product, you should strive to make it unique and reusable so that it will create a long-lasting impression between your brand and the consumer. Remember,
value is an important element in any guerrilla marketing strategy.
3. Go digital with guerrilla marketing
You can utilise guerrilla tactics in digital advertising — even though it’s a virtual platform. Digital is all about getting your creative juices flowing and creating content that challenges your competitors.
To nail your next online guerrilla marketing campaign, you can use:
- Creative writing. When you create content, don’t just write for the sake of writing. Make sure that your content is thought-provoking.
- Video elements. Use elements such as background sounds or music and add visuals that enhance your brand’s appearance in order to make it more distinctive.
- Elements that encourage engagement. You can design a digital spinning wheel where your consumers can play and stand a chance to win a prize.
It’s all about striving to offer your audience something new.
A great example of a brand that ran a successful digital guerilla campaign would be Debonairs Pizza. The campaign featured a headless man delivering pizza to customers, and the reactions were recorded and used on social media.
In essence, Debonairs Pizza achieved its goal —
people were curious. The campaign evoked emotions, sparked a social media trend and, most importantly,
ignited a conversation about its creativity in promoting its brand during the month of Halloween.
Selling a brand through guerilla marketing methods is all about using creativity and unconventional ways of building brand awareness. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments section below.