“Traditional Marketing” v/s “Guerrilla Marketing” – Part I

What is Guerrilla Marketing?
Guerrilla Marketing is pursuing conventional goals using unconventional means.It begins with an idea for how to generate profits for a business and become a circle when that business has the blessed patronage of repeat & referral customers.

More about “What is Guerrilla Marketing” as described by it’s so called father Jay Conrad Levinson here
In my opinion:

From a blogger’s point of view, Guerrilla Marketing comes into picture when the no of readers of your blog increase since, the first few readers of your blog are the ones that have spread the word about your blog

Traditional Marketing v/s Guerrilla Marketing:
There are lot of differences when we compare the traditional marketing with Guerrilla Marketing and this is the strategy that keeps Small & Medium Businesses(SMB) alive & kicking.In the book “The best of Guerrilla Marketing”, Jay Conrad has described 18 strategies that differentiates traditional marketing from Guerrilla marketing.The article is divided in two sub-parts, the first 9 key differentiators are listed below:

Note: Guerrilla Marketing is referred as GM in the article.

Strategy #1 – Invest Time, Not money:
Traditional marketers say that a marketer’s primary investment should be money.With GM, the primary investments should be time, energy and imagination.If marketers are willing to invest enough time, energy and imagination;they don’t have to invest as much money.

Strategy #2 – Measure performance by Profitability:
Traditional marketing measures it’s performance by sales while guerrilla marketing focusses on profits.Anybody can achieve high sales, but it takes talent to generate ever increasing profit.
For example: A store owner may feel that more the no of purchasers in the store, more is the profit.But many times, more sales does not result in an increasing profit.The reason – They are not making a lot of money on each sale & the cost of doing business is subtracting more.Hence, guerrillas focus more on profit because that’s how executives build their business.

Strategy #3 – Spend Small:
Traditional marketing has always been suited for big businesses.The reality is GM is geared to small businesses with big dreams – but a tiny bank account

Strategy #4 – Maintain Focus:
Traditional marketing says that companies should grow their businesses large & than diversify into different fields & services.GM says that companies will probably get in trouble if they do that; the ability to maintain focus will lead to a company’s success much more than it’s concept of diversifying.

Strategy #5 – Know the tools:
Traditional marketing is full of guesses; marketers are not sure if it includes sales and they are not certain if advertising really is marketing.Guerrilla marketers feel no sense of intimidation and to them, there is no mystique about marketing.

Strategy #6 – Eliminate Guesswork:
Traditional marketing has always been about guesses whereas GM is based more on psychology.For example: Guerrilla marketers know that 90% of purchase decisions come from an unconscious mind, and they know that such a manner of accessing human unconscious mind is through repetition.

Strategy # 7 – Grow Geometrically:
Traditional marketing has always said that companies should focus to add new customers one at a time and that is an expensive way to grow : Arithmetically. GM tries to grow companies geometrically, enlarging the size of each transaction; and having more transactions from each customer.It is always easy to sell to an existing customer which in turn results into the birth of new customers(as a result of referral from the existing customers)

Strategy # 8 – Target individuals:
Traditional marketing always aims it’s messages at groups,the larger the group the better.GM aims it’s message at individuals , just a few at a time; if it’s going to be a group, the smaller the group the better.

Strategy # 9 – Follow Up:
Traditional marketing seems to have aimed at making sale, period while GM is big on Follow Up.Guerrilla Marketers say “You have to make a sale and than follow up with that customer”.Most of the lost businesses is not due to bad service but due to loss of apathy after the sale.Customers are ignored after the sale.
That’s why Guerrillas follow up with all of their customers and stay in touch with them.They can’t wait for customers to come to them; they have to constantly be proactive and get in touch with their customers,through any medium.This also gives an indication that “You are valued and are very important “

The other nine differentiators would follow in the next article.