Guerilla Marketing—an oxymoron?
Forbes is suggesting the use of ”guerilla marketing” for small businesses. There are a few things about it that seem off. First of all they claim hiring guerilla marketing professionals (an oxymoron in itself?) can cost up to 8% instead of the standard 4% allocated to maketing. Secondly, they say that the concept of guerilla marketing is getting to really know your clients rather than plastering large scale “old-media” with blanket advertisements. And thirdly, the Top Ten Techniques are oddly standardized.
When I think of guerilla marketing I think of graffiti, plastering walls and bulletin boards with fliers, and in general using low-cost options to get information out. This is contrary to everything Forbes is advocating. There is nothing daring or alternative about their top ten list (send out cards to top clients off season, give out information in newsletters or speeches, answer questions through your website...). Ok, I’ll give them the littering of library books with business cards as something a little daring for business—but wouldn’t it be better to run off a really cool bookmark and place that in books instead? But for the most part all of the suggestions seem to be marketing—nothing new about it.