7 Guerilla Marketing Tactics That Won't Break the Bank

Finding new customers is tough, especially if you're trying to do it on a shoestring. So how do you go about getting people to notice you if you don't have a big marketing budget?

Here are a few ideas...

Find key influencers - These are people that talk about you all the time. Get them in your offices, your store, treat them nicely if they get you new customers. Talk about how appreciative you are about them talking about your business.

Visit a convention - Instead of getting information from people selling their services and goods, why not go to a convention and pass out flyers or coupons to all of the booths and collect and business cards that the booth may offer. Be careful so as not to waste their time since they're actually there to sell themselves. Then follow up with an email marketing campaign reminding them of how you received their information.

Local Bartering - Drive reciprocal traffic to a neighboring business so that each of you can promote the other businesses as an add-on. In our neighborhood, a local brew pub offers beers from a brew pub across town and vice versa. It's a nice cross promotion and reminds customers who might be visiting one neighborhood or the other.

Signature files - I've talked about signature files before, make sure you include them in all of your outgoing email personal and business email.

Yellow Pages - Sounds archaic right? But it doesn't cost too much for a display in the local yellow pages. Some people still find what they need by flippin' pages.

Merchandise with your logo - Give customers and employees cool things to wear with your logo on it. At VerticalResponse we give employees great jackets and messenger bags, it's a great form of advertising.

Chamber of Commerce - Become a member of your local Chamber of Commerce and attend the regular gatherings or send a representative from your company with business cards and coupons.

Got any guerilla ideas of your own to share?

Comments

[Ray Knight]

I wrote and published a series of articles entitled Branding on a Budget and Brandishing Weapons which include many ideas I developed or applied to my former business and for many clients through the years. Readers may find them of interest- and you can't beat the price-FREE. FInd them on this link

http://www.rayknight.com/Articles%20and%20White%20Papers.htm

[Melanie]

With a new website and not a lot of cash flow, I've been trying many different methods for the past few months.

A great guerilla idea I have seen but haven't tried yet is stamping your info on a dollar bill. I have read up on it; it's not considering defacing because the intent is not to destroy the bill. I may try that one soon!

I have to say, as far as attending a convention and handing out your info; I have seen this as generally taboo, since convention attendees have paid to have a booth and soliticing them is frowned upon (I've seen signs posted to this effect). I have found collecting their information and following up with them is easier.

I think attending outdoor festivals could be a great way to promote, depending on your product/business. I just went to Sunfest in West Palm Beach and there were tons of people there, all eager to see what was in the booths. And it only cost about $300 for 4 days.

Yellow pages, hmmm...I think they truly are WAY too pricey! And for some of us that are strictly virtual, it's not really that helpful. I would love to hear other folks' ideas about driving traffic to sites. That is a tricky business!

(That's part of what inspired me to launch www.listasaurus.com, since Yellow Page ads are too expensive. Part of what we offer are Business Directory ads for less than $8.50 a month--BIG difference in price, no?)

I've just tried advertising with Pay Per Post, where you can offer "opportunities" for bloggers to post about your product, site, etc. It seems like a good way to start a buzz, we shall see! So far not a lot of return yet, but it's a pretty good idea.

As far as Chambers of Commerce, be careful out there everyone! Do your homework, be sure to talk to people before joining. I've had a LOT of problems with my chamber not following through on their promised services, and it was a very costly membership.

Hope this helps, and I would love to hear more ideas from folks about your marketing tactics!

Melanie
Get Paid to List Your Classifieds!
www.listasaurus.com

[Alaska Artist Dianne Roberson Hendrix]

Donating small items with your business name on them to local charities is a win win situation. Even a very small donation will get your name on all the charties ads and mail outs, but a larger donation will get you a photo featured on their marketing efforts.

[Bob Heiney]

These are all very useful ideas. The most compelling is the "Drive reciprocal traffic to a neighboring business so that each of you can promote the other businesses as an add-on" suggestion. This has many opportunities to profit from what some marketers such as Jay Abraham refer to as "back-end' profits.

Thank you for an excellent short list of ways to grow my business!

[David]

An extension to Karen's 'Contest' idea is to give away your own products and/or services as the prizes in competitions run by the organisers of exhibitions or other events. You get wider publicity than by running your own competition, and it'll be a targetted audience if you've picked a relevant event.

For example a Consultant could give away a number of free initial meetings, which was precisely what they would be hoping to 'sell' as an exhibitor or visitor anyway!

And it costs you less than giving away money!

[Janine]

For Joe - "collect and business cards that the booth may offer" has nothing to do with being CAN SPAM compliant. I would agree that you should ask if they mind receiving email from you when they give you their card to make it permission-based.

[Joe]

Visiting a convention, collecting cards and then spamming the people who paid for a booth? Are you not CAN-SPAM complaint?

[Karen Henke]

Another way to spread the word is to hold a contest. You could have an essay contest and give away a scholarship or give something to a local school nominated by your customers. You get great press covering the contest and the winners.

[Kristin]

The different yellow pages also have websites now. We just got a GREAT deal for a 1/4 page ad in 4 different yellow pages in the surrounding area and a listing on their website.

The website listing was what sold me on it...because I use their particular site from time to time myself, so I know it works. But getting the printed listing with a nice-sized ad was the icing on the cake.

[Al]

Great ideas...except for the "yellow pages" one. What the heck is the yellow pages? Some thing from the 1970s?