Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times: Is Your Business Slowing Down? Find Out Why Here!

By Jay Conrad Levinson

The multimillion-selling creator of Guerrilla Marketing offers action steps for businesses stuck in a rut or roiled by a recession.
 
Chances are, your business could use some help about now, regardless of the ups or downs of the economy. Let’s face it, we all could.
 
In this book, bestselling author Jay Conrad Levinson gives you a treasure trove of marketing tactics to help you weather even the toughest times. It tells you exactly how to position your business so you can propel to new heights you never dreamt were possible. Each of the twelve chapters in Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times includes action steps you can use, and an exercise to help you focus your energy on the areas of your business you must change. It’s real-life advice from a real marketing expert.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781933596112

Jay Conrad Levinson

Jay Conrad Levinson is the author of more than a dozen books in the Guerrilla Marketing series. A former vice president and creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising and Leo Burnett Advertising, he is the chairman of Guerrilla Marketing International, a consulting firm serving large and small businesses worldwide.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

TOUGH TIMES DON'T

HAVE TO BE AS TOUGH

AS YOU THINK

In every down economy some businesses lose money while others seemingly coin money. This course is designed to put you into the latter category. The plain fact is that guerrillas have an advantage during tough times. They are able to work in relatively shorter time frames. Their penchant for information enables them to market more quickly and creatively to market needs.

The guerrilla lives by different rules during tough times than during boom times. The guerrilla attacks when the competition retreats and the attack is concentrated where the guerrilla offers specific product or service advantages. Retreating companies leave voids in the market, ideal niches for guerrilla companies.

Guerrillas do not commit all their resources to any one front because they try to maintain resources for new options and for potential confrontations with the competition. Flexibility is an asset. Successful guerrilla companies try to be inconspicuous about their success, reducing the chances of being copied when attacked by their competitors.

They know many companies have scrubbed or reduced their marketing budgets to combat tough times and that it will cost those firms three dollars for every dollar formerly spent to reach the same level of consumer recognition and share of mind they previously enjoyed.

Guerrillas are aware that their prospects are more likely to recall marketing messages delivered consistently during a fragile economy even if they are smaller and less frequently delivered. So they maintain the attitude of a guerrilla even when the economic situation is in its darkest days.

In a dog-eat-dog economy the Doberman is boss, said Edward Abbey, the author and naturalist. In this regard, the Doberman and the guerrilla have a lot in common.

Guerrillas know that they must seek profits from their current customers. They worship at the shrine of customer follow-up. They are world-class experts at getting their customers to expand the size of their purchase. Because the cost of selling to a brand-new customer is six times higher than selling to an existing customer, guerrilla marketers turn their gaze from strangers to friends.

This reduces the cost of marketing while reinforcing the customer relationship. To guerrillas, follow-up means marketing to some of the most cherished citizens of planet Earth — their customers.

When your customers are confronted with their daily blizzard of junk mail and unwanted email, your mailing piece won't be scrapped with the others, and your email won't be instantly deleted. After all, these folks know you. They identify with you. They trust you. They know you stay in touch with them for a reason. So they'll be delighted to purchase — or at least check out — that new product or service they didn't know you offered. They'll always be inclined to buy from a company they've patronized instead of experimenting with a company that has not yet won a share of their