by Mark Waldin, Agile Marketing Executive What is guerrilla marketing and how do you do it? That was one of the core questions being asked by a group of entrepreneurs last night at the Think Tank event hosted by the Northwest Entrepreneurs Network (NWEN) last night on the Seattle University campus in Seattle.

At the event was a panel of very good marketers: Rip Warendorf – Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Zango, Steve Brodie – Chief Product and Marketing Officer of Skytap, and Sally J. Vilardi – Co-Founder and President of Do My Reminders. I thought they were all well spoken marketeers. But I think the topic of guerrilla marketing went underplayed. So, here is my take.

What these people were asking was about marketing promotion and advertising – that is, creating awareness and interest in their product among their target audience. What they were adding to the equation was I don’t have the capital to fund it. This of course is a common occurrence among entrepreneurs. Further to that is that most people think of marketing dollars as risk money. They invest it but they may not see the return on it they were hoping for. This makes them skittish on borrowing to invest in marketing.

To get marketing without spending (much) money one has only one option: spend labor. This is the one thing that entrepreneurs have that they consider (almost) free because it is somewhat elastic (I can work longer and harder!). That’s it in a nutshell. Spend your labor dollars.

But guerilla marketing exists at the intersection of labor and low hanging fruit. There is nothing magical about marketing and like many activities the curve on expenses vs return is logarithmic. To get a few customers the cost per customer is relatively low but as you try to scale up to big numbers the costs increase exponentially to a point where spending more money yields almost nothing. Guerilla marketing exists near the origin of this graph where cost per customer is low or common parlance, the low hanging fruit in terms of marketing expense per acquisition.

To exercise your low hanging fruit one must look at each situation individually. It becomes a combination of determining a) who are the people with the most pressing need for my product/service, b) which ones are easiest to reach, and c) what low cost marketing vehicles exist for me to reach (some of) these people. Low cost marketing vehicles include using some of the following criteria:

  • geography – people physically close to me are cheaper to connect with than those far away
  • events and conferences – doing speaking engagements at organized events is free if you can sell your expertise to the organizers
  • editorial – exercise the media to get articles written about what you are doing
  • product reviews – if your product is of the right type you can get it reviewed by a publisher
  • networking – also known as direct selling, work your network to make connections with potential buyers or people who know potential buyers
  • flyers, door drops, sandwich boards – for the right product, cheap direct marketing pieces with a lot of labor can be effective
  • blogs and industry pundits – work the blogs, online media, and the movers and shakers in your specific industry
  • web site – create a web site, add useful content and make it a place people want to come to stay current
  • forums – work forums, add your comments and suggestions and always leave breadcrumbs back to your site
  • referrals – use the customers you acquire to get new leads. Being a small company is advantageous. Use being small as a tool to solicit help from your customers to get bigger. You’d be surprised at the results.

Bottom line is that guerilla marketing is good for a boot strap to get you going. It is not a scalable marketing method but is great when you are small and cash strapped. It is extremely hard work and labor intensive; be prepared to sweat. Realize that this is not a quick start method. Rather it is a convenience for people who don’t have the money to make a rabbit start. Plan accordingly. Last, plan your business beyond the guerrilla phase. Determine how long the guerrilla phase is going to last, how far it will take you, what you will do next, and what it is going to cost you when you do.