1. The first step is to research everything you can. That means carefully investigating your market, your product or service, your competition, your industry and your options in media. What media reach your target audience? What media makes them respond and buy? Should you focus on advertising or direct marketing or a combination of the two? There are answers to these questions and guerrillas have the knack for coming up with the right answers. As a person who is already connected to the Internet, you've got a head start in the research department. There is loads of information online that can propel you in the direction of success.
2. The second step is to write a benefits list. Have a meeting. Invite your key personnel and at least one customer -- because customers are tuned in to benefits that you may not even consider to be benefits. Example, my wife patronizes a certain bookstore regularly, not because of their books, but because of the carrot cake they serve in their cafe. Once you have a list of your benefits, select your competitive advantage because that's where you'll hang your marketing hat. If you haven't got a competitive advantage, you'll have to create one because you'll need it. After all, anyone can come up with a benefits list. Figure out why people should patronize your business instead of that of a competitor.
3. Step number three is to select the weapons you'll use. In my third guerrilla marketing online column, I listed an even 100 weapons from which you may make your selection. My recommendation is to use as many weapons as you can. Fifty of the hundred weapons are free. After you've selected the weaponry, put the weapons into priority order. Next to each weapon, write the name of the person who is in charge of masterminding the use of the weapon plus the date it will be launched. Consider each date you write to be a promise you are making to yourself. Guerrillas do not kid themselves or lie to themselves, so be realistic. The idea of a guerrilla marketing attack is to select a lot of weapons, then launch them in slow motion -- at a pace that feels comfortable financially and emotionally. My average client takes 18 months to launch an attack. Don't rush.
4. The fourth step, and this is a toughie, is to maintain the attack. The first three steps are extremely simple compared to this fourth step. Maintaining the attack means sticking with your plan and your weapons even though you don't get the instant gratification you want so much. Everyone wants success to come instantly, but it doesn't happen that way in real life. The Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country helped make Marlboro cigarettes the most successfully marketed brand is history. But after the first year of marketing, they didn't increase sales one bit for Marlboro. Maintaining the attack made it happen.
5. Step five is to keep track. Some of your weapons will hit bulls-eyes. Others will miss the target completely. How will you know which is which? By keeping track. By asking customers where they heard of you. By finding out what made them contact you. Keeping track is not easy, but it is necessary. If you aren't ready to keep track, you aren't ready to launch your attack in the first place.
6. Step six is to make a guerrilla marketing calendar. This should be 52 rows long and five columns wide. The first column is called "Week" -- listing in which week of the 52 weeks you did what you did in marketing. The second column is called "Thrust" -- referring to the thrust of your marketing that week. What were you saying? Offering? The third column is called "Media" and it refers to which media you were using that week. The fourth column is called "Cost" and lets you project how much you'll be spending that week. The fifth column is called "Results" so you can give a letter grade to the week -- you know, an A, B, C, D or F. After one year, you compare your calendar to your sales figures and eliminate all but the A's and B's. It takes about three years to get a calendar loaded with slam dunks. Once you have one you'll feel like the client who said of his, "It's a lot like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying."
7. The seventh step is to create a guerrilla marketing plan. Seven steps to succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack. If it sounds easy, reread this column. It works, but it's not easy.
Jay Conrad Levinson in the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, Founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching program and Co-Founder of The Product Factory and Traffic School. He has been featured on Oprah.
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