Week 2 - MKTG 6101 - The Need for Guerrilla Marketing

Unlike large corporations who have large marketing budgets to spend on every type of marketing, entrepreneurs and small businesses need to harness guerrilla marketing techniques to make the most of their limited budgets. There are plenty of marketing platforms such as websites, signs, ads in the paper or on t-shirts, commercials and so many more. Depending on the target audience and the product or service being marketed, there are different techniques that would be more beneficial for a small business to invest in. Identifying the most effective technique for a small business can be the sole cause for their success or failures. 

Jay Conrad Levinson writes in the book Guerrilla Marketing “Speed and flexibility are the essence of guerrilla marketing” (p. 18). Large corporations have a chain of approvals that they must receive before they can move forward with a marketing possibility. A small business, on the other hand, has speed and flexibility on their side by being able to avoid the long approval chain and make the decision quickly. This is a great benefit to a small business that doesn’t have the budget for an expensive marketing campaign but is able to quickly provide a response to a last-minute opening. 

Levinson identified three key concepts of guerrilla marketing: quality, flexibility, & innovation. Providing consumers with a quality product or services keeps them coming back and leads to word-of-mouth marketing. Flexibility, as mentioned above, is seen in a significantly smaller management structure. Innovation is especially important in this day-and-age. Once a business has a strong foundation, modernization is a great way to stay relevant by introducing new ideas, products, and services. 

References:

Levinson, J. (2007). Guerrilla Marketing, 4th Edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness