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by
Edward M. Grosso
Fuel for your business
Generating extraordinary profits
According to Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the
well-known Guerrilla Marketing series, “If
you had all the money wasted on marketing each
year, you would be richer than Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet combined. That’s Billions!
Why? There are many reasons, but there is one
compelling reason and that is most people understand
the words to marketing, but they don’t understand
the music of marketing. The music of marketing
is — relationships. Leveraging the music
of marketing can create Guerrilla Marketing strategies
that generate extraordinary and sustainable profits
for small businesses owners.”
There is an old marketing expression: “20%
of your clients will buy no matter what.”
These clients are coming to you with an urgent
need or they are simply compulsive buyers. There
will be another 20% that will never buy from you
no matter what. They are simply not interested
or they just don’t like the way your chin
is chiseled. The other 60% are people who range
somewhere between apathy and purchase readiness,
from cold strangers, to warm consenting partners.
This 60% is what marketing is about. So, a part
of marketing is to develop a strategy and a plan
to convert those 60% from strangers into being
consenting partners with your business.
In other words, to be a successful Guerrilla
Marketer your mindset should be much like that
of battlefield commander:
What are the essentials
of triumph?
— from Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- Those who know when to challenge and when
not to challenge will triumph.
- Those who recognize how to use the numerous
and the few will triumph.
- Those who agree on superior and inferior objectives
will triumph.
- Those who prepare to lie wait for the unprepared
will triumph.
- Those who lead without interference from a
Ruler will triumph.
Thus, it is said:
- Know the other and know yourself: one hundred
challenges without danger;
- Know not the other and yet know yourself:
one triumph for one defeat;
- Know not the other and know not yourself:
every challenge is certain peril.
You must strategize and plan to triumph!
Understanding the
new marketing terrain
The new marketing terrain is tough. Imagine a
huge slab of metal between you and your clients.
This metal is called clutter. It is estimated
today that a major metropolitan area has over
3,500 marketing messages delivered each day. The
experts also tell us that it takes 27 impressions
to work through this metal between you and your
clients; that is, to get clients from apathy to
purchase readiness — a formidable task. But
the most important finding is that not one marketing
weapon by itself can penetrate through this metal
clutter — not advertising, not networking,
not a Web site, not any one of them. What works
are combinations of marketing weapons strategically
timed for a particular part of the attack. So
what works, is a strategy and a plan.
So, where do you begin?
Taking the wisdom of Sun Tzu, to triumph you need
a well-made marketing strategy and plan, so let’s
begin there. Here are the seven steps to creating
a Guerrilla Marketing strategy and plan.
- purpose of marketing strategy
- competitive advantages and benefits
- target markets
- selecting your marketing combinations
- defining your niche
- defining your identity
- your marketing budget
Once you have completed these steps, you will
be grounded firmly in your target market’s
realities ready to create your marketing attack.
Check out Fuel cells
to help you get started!
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Fuel cells
Tips on how to create
a successful Guerrilla Marketing plan
Marketing plans range from volumes of pages to
absolutely winging it; from too big and too hard
to maintain, to too little — and neither
work well. So, keep it brief but usable.
Here are some questions to help you create your
marketing strategy and plan.
- How can I factor success, growth, change,
and flexibility into my marketing plan?
- Begin planning with research in mind. What
are my products, services, benefits, market,
industry, competition, customers, prospects,
media, Internet, and technology?
- How do I put my marketing goals in plain sight
— making it an unmistakable path?
- How can I make my marketing plan understandable
and brief?
- How can I make my marketing plan invite action?
- What is the purpose of my marketing strategy
and plan?
- What are my benefits and competitive advantages?
- How can I create a marketing strategy and
plan that can be followed without strain and
is flexible when needed?
- How can I use my marketing plan as a benchmark?
Focus your efforts
on activities that give the highest payoff.
- Be prepared by getting to know your client’s
business.
- Know the marketplace and your competition.
- Build your network with people who can be
reciprocal sources of referrals.
- Position your product or service as “need
to have” versus “nice to have.”
- Demonstrate how you can increase revenue,
lower costs, and increase profitability for
your client.
- Stay motivated by following valuable leads
— but know when to call it quits.
You will also need a good understanding of what
marketing is not. Marketing is not: just advertising,
just direct mail, just telemarketing, just brochures,
just yellow pages, or just a tradeshow. Marketing
is not complicated and it’s not a miracle.
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Fuel for your soul
Remember to make your
marketing real
I’m reminded of the famous German
poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s question: “When
does God pour the earth, the stars, into us?”
This question is a striking way of putting the
issue of work and creativity together; the issue
is one of becoming real. It is when our
creativity has an opportunity to manifest itself
in our work that we do, indeed, become real.
So create your marketing from within you —
become real.
Here’s another reminder of the importance of self in business.
This is from Rolf Osterberg, the author of “The
Corporate Renaissance."
“The primary purpose of a company is to serve as an arena for the personal development
of those working in the company. The production of goods and services and the making of profits
are by-products. ” — Rolf Osterberg
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