Guerilla Marketing Techniques
| February 27th, 2004The following is a completely hypothetical situation, but I’d love to hear your responses.
You work for a store that focuses on a particular societal issue close to your heart. There is a national conference on that issue taking place in a few days in another city (your store had no plans to be a vendor there, because there is another store with the same focus in the area the conference was happening). However, at the very last minute, the conference had to be moved to your city. You now have 3 days to come up with some marketing technique to take to the conference to get your store noticed and bring in some customers. The vendors will remain the same, and that’s full, so tableing is not an option. You also have no budget. What are some guerilla marketing techniques you would use to accomplish your goal?
February 27th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
What’s the “societal issue” in question?
This comment was written by PinkDreamPoppies.Report this comment to the moderators
February 27th, 2004 at 12:59 pm
pick one.
This comment was written by bean.Report this comment to the moderators
February 27th, 2004 at 1:42 pm
Okay, here’s an idea.
You weren’t here for Epiphany, Bean, but Kip and Jenn had this neat idea of putting playing cards into the presents they wrapped. And we actually had a lot of fun seeing what was written on the cards and if we had winning hands.
So take a bunch of ordinary playing cards and use paper, scissors and glue-sticks to add appropriate quotes to an ordinary deck of playing cards. For instance, if the business was a civil rights group, you could put in quotes from MLK Jr (in word balloons coming out of the Jack’s mouth, or whatever), civil-rights related jokes (Q: “How many straight white men does it take to change a light bulb?” A: “Just one, but good luck finding a straight white man who wants ANYTHING changed!”), quotes from mystery novels featuring politicized black protagonists, funny quotes from a black comic strip - whatever. Have a mix of inspiring quotes and fun quotes. Keep them short and punchy.
(If you have a volunteer with computer skills, you can easily use photoshop to put images of people related to your store’s theme on the playing cards, and maybe a bit of info about the people. You could make it a “civil rights leaders collectable cards” thing. But that’s just extra, and it would take time to put together, and you only have three days - so maybe you should skip that)
And, of course, the logo, name, phone number and location of the business goes on the back of each card, along with something like “can you collect a winning hand?”
Then take it to a xerox machine and make bunches of copies (nine cards to a sheet), ideally on heavy stock. (This is the most expensive part of the whole idea - but since you’re getting nine cards per sheet, it’s still cheaper than flyering). Don’t xerox all 52 cards - the idea is to make it easy for people to collect winning hands. So xerox a lot of aces, queens, kings, and jacks, and also some nines and tens, and maybe a two or a joker just to be funny. (Use George W. Bush as a Joker). Xerox lots of hearts and clubs, so it’s easy for people to get flush hands. Cut apart the sheets.
Then, during the conference, your volunteers go in to distribute the cards. Leave them on empty seats, on bathroom counters; slip them into the pages of free newspapers; put them on the tables of the nearest eatery (or the cafateria, if there’s one in the conference hall); etc, etc. You’d have to do this during the whole conference, since as cards get picked up you’ll want to replace them.
If it’s affordable, you could even make it something like “bring in a winning poker hand to [Store Name] and get a prize!” The prize could be something really really cheap, like a pin or a fridge magnet. That would be nice for drawing people in, but you could do it without the prize, too.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 27th, 2004 at 4:12 pm
Or to save even more money than Amp suggests - although perhaps not being as effective - we might try just getting a lot of volunteers to wear t-shirts from the store, (maybe saying “Ask me about Crazy Raznor’s Discount House O’ Civil Liberties”)to be conversation starters and get a good word of mouth campaign running through the program.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 27th, 2004 at 6:11 pm
What you want is something ultra-cheap that will distribute itself, and advertise you.
I was going to say send people out there with T-shirts and/or hats. (Find a cheapo-deepo printing shop and some VERY cheap white cotton XL tees, apply name of store on front and map TO store on back, send people out to give them away and just walk around). But that’s expensive, and it’s just advertising, not an incentive.
What about something boring like a flyer with a coupon. Amp’s idea about the cards is fabulous, and if you had a table there you’d get a lot of attention. But you’re outside the convention, and you need to get them to LEAVE THE BUILDING and come to you, which is hard. You need a goodie: very substantial savings on something specific these people will like that you’ve got in stock (a book? for free? or almost-nearly free?).
Let’s put it this way: people at conventions have paid a lot of money to be there, and they’re liable to spend all their time in a little sealed bubble, inside the hotel. They mean to see the city, but they don’t have time. If someone tells them there’s a great discount house of Liberties across town, they’ll think ‘that’s nice’ and then forget. If someone tells them there’s a 15% off sale at the discount house of Liberties, they’ll think “hey! I should get my buddies and check it out!” and then forget. But if someone hands them a coupon that says “bring this coupon into the Discount house of Liberties for a FREE copy of “Stupid White Men” and there’s a map on the back of the coupon showing which bus to take to get there, they will GO, because it’s a good book and it’s freakin’ FREE. If they’ve already got a copy, they’ll give the coupon to their buddies because it’s just like giving them a copy of the book. And when they come they will come with friends, because they’re at the con with friends, and at least some of them will buy something because hey, they got something for free, and they feel a little guilty.
Yes, it’s expensive. But you’ll get business, which is worth a lot, and you’ll get known, which is worth more. Make sure you have a mail-order catalogue to give out to the nice people when you give them their goody. And make sure it’s the kind of goody that will make sensible people leave a convention that they paid to attend — a really nice one.
This comment was written by anon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 28th, 2004 at 7:25 am
Graffiti!
This comment was written by Bob H.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2004 at 9:54 am
real-time brainstorming (if I’m not already too late):
1) those insulators for coffee — if you offer a bunch of freebies (and thematic, no less) to the on-site coffee place, there’s a good chance they’ll take you up on it, and there’s your walking billboard. this, of course, depends on finding a printing house overnight. and it’s not as cheap as, say, free ideas. ;)
2) think college: a few strategically placed flyers with little tear-off bottom corners (so you can copy many less, but folks end up with a reminder). if you’re far from the convention, you’ll probably still need an incentive to get folks there (free coffee or donut holes if they come before the first conference session?).
3) wearable signboard — you don’t need to steal table space or pay for lots of copies, just two pieces of posterboard and some marker. get all the information on there as simply as possible, with big lettering, and let folks ask your volunteer for extra info.
4) is everybody at the conference penniless? put together a list of cheap places to stay — hostels and b&b’s or even friends with spare couches — and offer the info/connections in your shop only. (this could be the incentive for the flyer or signboard ideas)
hope you tell us how it worked out!
This comment was written by acm.Report this comment to the moderators
March 1st, 2004 at 10:19 am
hope you tell us how it worked out!
Nothing to work out. As I said in the opening post, this is a completely hypothetical situation. There is no real conference, no real need for these tactics.
It was an assignment (of a sort), which I have completed.
This comment was written by bean.Report this comment to the moderators
March 2nd, 2004 at 6:21 am
Coupons. Everybody loves them and you can make them for next to nothing. Just hand them out at the door, leave stacks in th ebathroom, etc.
This comment was written by Keith.Report this comment to the moderators