The Guerrilla Marketer – How to Take Your Marketing to the Streets

Guerilla marketing is about representing your business in an edgy and unique way. This can mean using hp 6830 ink to create a lifesize cutout on a street corner or engaging your employees in a public flash mob. When you decide to take your brand out of the office and into the public, it’s time to disrupt the landscape and leave a lasting impression on your potential consumers. Read on to find how to take your marketing to the streets, and land the perfect guerrilla marketing campaign.

The Mission

Guerilla marketing tactics aim to use non-traditional advertising activities in order to get brands onto the streets and in the minds of potential customers. The most successful methods are easy to understand, simple to implement and inexpensive for the average small business marketing budget.

Public Participation

Audience participation is key to ensuring ultimate impact and retention in your audience. While a creatively placed ad in the street can stir up some interest, actually including the audience in the event is a sure-fire way to keep your brand on their mind into the future. So what’s the best way of doing this?

Designated spaces: Brands can utilize spaces to encourage audience participation. For example, the “kissing point” guerilla marketing campaign by a popular lip balm brand, provided the opportunity for participants to kiss their loved ones goodbye at the station platform.

Flash mobs: Flash Mobs are one of the most popular forms of public participation in guerrilla marketing. A mob is an unassuming group of people in a busy public space, beginning to sing, dance, or act a choreographed routine out of the blue. With the help of video sharing apps such as Youtube, you can film the whole routine and inspire the world beyond those who happened to witness the performance.

Pranks: Any public performance as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign needs to carefully toe the line between exciting commuters and annoying them. Pranks can be a great way to engage audience participation in a fun and lighthearted manner. Small businesses have engaged in a range of creative and fun pranks, including employees in Star Wars Costumes challenging pedestrians in lightsaber battles. Remember, the aim of the prank is to engage passersby to draw attention to a local business, not to ruin their day.

Public Art

Using public art for guerrilla marketing is all about staying on brand and creating maximum impact. Depending on your brand, this may be strategically based stickers on relevant items. For example, Guinness the popular beverage company uses small stickers placed on pool cubes (regular features in the bar scene!) Other companies prefer targeting a wider audience. One coffee chain drew their cups of coffee in chalk over subway grates, with the train steam creating the illusion of a hot steaming cup of coffee. This is a great way of reminding the public about your product at a targeted time of the day.

Hiring a local artist to use chalk or temporary paint in some street art is a great way to get local visitors interested in your brand. You can create clever optical illusions or create a bold marketing statement. Either way, as long as it’s connected to your brand, it is sure to get people talking.

Pop Up Events

Unique pop up events are a great trailblazer for a larger event of product launch. Free samples and activities are a great excuse to get your future clients in the same room to accept your flyers, posters and other marketing materials. These events are a great way to get people excited about your product and get your sales numbers soaring.

Guerrilla marketing is a great way to break out of your promotional comfort zones and add some life to your brand. Before you reach for the standard brochure and flyer, get your marketing out of the boardroom and onto the streets.

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Laura Costello is in her final year of a Bachelor of Law/International Relations at Latrobe University. She is passionate about the law, the power of social media, and the ability to translate her knowledge of both common and complex topics to readers across a variety of mediums, in a way that is easy to understand.