Entrepreneurs Should Learn Guerrilla Tactics

Small business owners in Northwest Arkansas have a chance to go guerrilla.

On May 5 at 6 p.m. in the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce, University of Arkansas Walton College business consultant Bill Fox will present a three-hour training seminar on “Guerrilla Marketing.”

Guerrilla marketing, like guerrilla warfare, is based on the idea of smaller, undermanned opposition successfully battling larger and wealthier foes.

Fox was certified by “Father of Guerrilla Marketing” Jay Conrad Levinson last fall and will share 17 guerrilla marketing campaign secrets, 200 guerrilla marketing tips and examples of how guerrilla marketing works.

Registration is required and available online or by calling the Walton College and the cost is $30 at the door.

Levinson has written the series of “Guerrilla Marketing” books that have sold 14 million copies in 42 languages since the first edition was published in 1984. It has since grown to 35 volumes and Levinson certified a representative from each of the state’s seven Small Business and Technology Development centers.

“Guerrilla marketing is marketing focused toward small business owners,” said Trish Kalbas-Schmidt, training coordinator for the Walton College SBTC. “It’s a philosophy that wants people to spend time being creative instead of spending money.”

Time and energy are possessions any successful entrepreneur should have, and cost nothing. Guerrilla marketing emphasizes relationship-building as a small business owner’s best weapon.

“You can use non-media weapons,” Kalbas-Schmidt said. “Public relations, community relations, word-of-mouth, e-media, blogs, Webinars, podcasting, chatrooms … The idea is you become a reliable source, then a trusted source.

“When someone needs a product they will turn to you.”

Knowing their customers personally is an advantage large companies often cannot attain and the guerrilla marketer must press that advantage, Levinson writes in an article titled “The Process of Marketing”:

“Your attack must be characterized by a very strong tie with your own target audience. You know them. You serve them. They know it. Guerrilla attacks do not suffer from your lack of resources, but instead prosper because lack of capital makes them more willing to try new and innovative ideas, concepts ripe for guerrillas but not for huge companies.”

Kalbas-Schmidt said one example of guerrilla marketing is offering to host a blood drive, something a Siloam Springs business did soon after Fox’s first seminar last fall.

Without spending a dime, the business was able to get it’s name out and earn some free publicity through local media.

“[Businesses] are always giving away free stuff, but small business owners don’t always have the ability to do that,” she said. “You may not be able to give financially, but you can give your time and your business to hold a blood drive or food drive and get media attention.”

Kalbas-Schmidt said the guerrilla marketing philosophy states business owners should spend 60 percent of their time on their existing customer base, 30 percent on prospecting and 10 percent on what Levinson calls “the universe.”

“Keep alert for new niches at which you can aim your attack,” Levinson wrote.

“Large companies don’t have the luxury of profiting from a narrow niche. No matter how successful your attack, never lose contact with your customers. If you do, you lose your competitive advantage over huge companies that have too many layers of bureaucracy for personal contact. Guerrilla marketing is always authentic marketing and never acts or feels to be impersonal, by-the-number marketing. It never feels like selling.”

Knowing the difference between the features of a product or service versus its benefits is the trait of a guerrilla, Kalbas-Schmidt said.