The BEST Guerrilla Marketing Strategies You NEED to Know

0:00Ten years ago, I made the decision to build my personal brand that was elevated, yet approachable, and reflected who I was, not just what I did. I created my website with ShowIt because it's true drag-and-drop freedom, so you can easily build and update your site. Plus, their real human support team, game changer. Want to try it for yourself? Head to jasminestar.com forward slash showit for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe. Every member on your team has been exposed to different campaigns and events and experiences, and when you combine these, well, then you're cooking with fire.

0:33The sales manager might understand customer objections that translate into powerful marketing hooks. A graphic designer might have a seemingly ridiculous visual concept, but wait, it captures attention. You just never know what comes to fruition when you tap into the potential of your team. Welcome back to the Jasmine Starr Show, a place where we discuss business mindset. And today, how to generate a lot of excitement and attention in a marketing campaign. Oh, yes, the love language. Let's go. But before we begin, I want to read some kind words from Patricia DeLandres. Patricia left a review and said, Thank you so much for the informative, clear, and useful content.

1:12I'm loving them and taking notes daily. You are helping all of us grow stronger and wiser. Patricia, thank you. The team and I celebrate these reviews, and they mean more to us than you'll ever know. If you would like to leave a review, this is your reminder. Please do it. It means the difference to the show and what we produce. Now, today we're going to talk about marketing and many forms, but my favorite is scrappy marketing, the type of promotion that mixes a lot of restrictions in a short amount of time. Back in October 2019, we had a team retreat in Newport Beach and a few members presented an idea for a Black Friday sale.

1:47Now, I'm going to be honest, I was against the idea because it was less than a month away and I did not think that we could pull off like a successfully flawless promotion in that time. That's the thing I love. I want it to be successful and I want it to be flawless and I want it to be energetic. Now, the team asked, under what circumstances might I say yes? Oh, clever little, clever little brains. Okay, so I said, the entire project must be planned and buttoned up in two weeks. The entire tech team, they had to be done no more than, it wouldn't take more than one week. And they got zero dollars in advertising.

2:23Okay, I want to pause here. Do you see what I did? I said, in order to get to yes, we must put up restrictions. The more restrictions you have, the more scrappy the marketing campaign will be. So if you're sitting here and you're thinking, okay, I don't have any money. Restriction. I don't have a lot of time. Restriction. I don't have a lot of attention. Restriction. The more restrictions you have, the scrappier you're going to become. But oftentimes, it is the scrappy promotions that are complete game changers. Okay. So even though I gave like the biggest restrictions and I was like, there's no way they're going to agree.

2:56To my shock, they agreed. Now I'm going to be real. I didn't want to be part of the promotion because JD and I had a vacation planned. And I was like, I really need this time to unplug and I don't want to be pulled into a promotion. So the team had said, the team planned the internal launch just for social curator members on Black Friday offering a$25 promotion. Okay, so there's a little bit of a backstory here. At the time, Social Curator was$49 a month. And at the time, we had a per action plan cost. So when somebody came into Social Curator, they got that month's action plan. But if they wanted to buy any back action plans, they would have to buy them for$49 a month.

3:41Now, the difference now with Social Curator is somebody comes in and now they have access to the entire library. But at the time, in that course and that build, you had to buy them individually. So when the members were paying$49 a month and we offered$25, it was like 50 % off any of the back action plans. But we offered that Black Friday sale for the$25. Okay, now they're all on the same page. Now let's talk about the results. You know the backstory. You know the restrictions. You know why I didn't want to be involved in the promotion. So while I sat by a pool in Maui, the team ran the launch flawlessly and we made$52 ,000 in one weekend.

4:17We used scrappy marketing within our community via newsletters and sent text messages without spending any money on advertising. It didn't take more than three weeks from the team. We simply made the sale all about the members. The team got really personal and the community loved the experience. So, I mean, come on, y 'all. Like I'm sitting there and all I'm seeing is updates from the team who took it, ran with it, had restrictions and said, we are going to get to yes. Scrappy marketing at its best. So this short and sweet episode is for you if you're wanting to create a lot of excitement and get a lot of attention around an offer.

4:57And maybe you're not afraid to be bold and go against the norm. And maybe, just maybe you want to create a memorable experience for your audience. Yes. Okay. You're in the right place. And this is how it's going to go. We're going to talk about companies that created these types of campaigns successfully and what made them successful. You know, I love me a good story. Oh, yes. Then we're going to go over four tips on creating this type of marketing campaign. And then finally, I'm going to give you three ideas to create your own marketing campaign that's going to be memorable and buzzworthy. Okay, let's dive into it.

5:28But first, there is a term for this type of marketing, and it's called guerrilla marketing. It originated in the 1980s and was coined by J. Conrad Levinson. And this refers to an unconventional, kind of out of the norm marketing tactics designed to make a high impact. Now, the goal is to use creativity, maybe use a shock factor to capture audience attention, and then you want to generate buzz. Now, the best part, well, in my humble opinion, this is what I think the best part is, is that it positions you and your brand as leaders and makes your audience think, hey, if they're this innovative in their marketing efforts, their product or service must also be pretty cool, pretty revolutionary too.

6:04And even though these marketing efforts can be typically done at low cost, big industry players like Coca-Cola, they use these kind of guerrilla marketing tactics to get a very hard ROI. So let's get into some successful guerrilla marketing examples. The first I want to share with you is hands down my stinking favorite. They take the cake. The crown goes to them. I have not seen a better scrappy marketing campaign. Well, actually I'll talk about Arrival in a second, but Okay, I didn't add this in my stories, but as I was like, you know, I want to keep this episode short and I cut out the story and here I am adding the story.

6:40One guerrilla marketing campaign that I thought was very, very, very interesting. The former CEO of Bumble, her name is Whitney, and they did not have a lot of money when they started. So what they did is they said, we're going to start off by targeting college campuses for Bumble. Now, for those of you who are not familiar, Bumble is a dating app and it's predominantly led by females. Females get to choose who they want to engage with. Anyway, so they made shirts that said Bumble, bright yellow shirts that said Bumble. And what they did was they had these girls walk into college classes in motion, walk into the class wearing her Bumble shirt, look around and say, oh, I'm in the wrong room.

7:14And then she walked out. So just imagine this young girl wearing a bright yellow Bumble shirt across the front, walks in, looks around, and she became a walking billboard for people to say, well, what's Bumble? So all of a sudden, they had captured the attention in a classroom of their prime audience of a person of their like user a female on a college campus y 'all the cost of a teacher got them endless amount of attention i loved that one but whitney does not get the crown here's why spotify y 'all spotify their annual you know that year wrapped campaign where everybody's sharing it on social media that, geez, Louise, by doing this, Spotify allows their users to see and share most of their listened to songs, their favorite artists, their podcast and genres over the past year.

8:08Y 'all, this dropped maybe like, I think it was like four or five years ago. It's so simple. It is so genius. They give their users their own personalized data and it is presented in a visually engaging way. And what do they do? It encourages them to share their results on social media. And this campaign turns users into brand ambassadors, generating huge, huge organic reach and engagement. And here is the best part. It not only promotes Spotify service, but it also fosters a sense of community amongst listeners. It is absolutely brilliant. So, time out. I saw this video. This marketing campaign works so well that I saw a video, again, on a college campus of somebody who was sitting, Think of this like in an amphitheater and they were sitting in an elevated higher row behind somebody else and they saw somebody in Canva modifying their Spotify's year wrapped in review to change their actual results.

9:06How do you know marketing is so flipping good is when other people want to be part of a different social conversation that doesn't reveal their true listening habits. You guys, people are creating their own marketing content based on another organization's marketing content to self-identify as being part of a community. Get the heck out of here. Okay, that's why they have the crowd. So now here is your marketing action. Can you think of a way that you could create a piece of digital content that's personalized to your customers to share? Another example of guerrilla marketing is the hashtag share a Coke campaign.

9:43I don't know if you remember this was, I mean, it was huge. And it seems so silly when I talk about it now, but Coca-Cola personalized their cans by replacing that iconic Coke logo. And what they did is they replaced it with popular names on their bottles, like with a signature font. Now, this campaign encouraged customers to find bottles and cans with their names on it or like names of friends and to share photos on social media with the hashtag share a Coke. This generated a huge amount of user-generated content. It increased the social media engagement and drove sales as people searched for their personalized bottles.

10:18Now, here's one thing that I thought was extra smart. This is why they get like the, that amazing head nod. You could even order custom cases online with a name. Again, innovative, brilliant. They're creating their product and having their people market it for them. So now here's your marketing action. If you create physical products, can you think of a way to personalize them to generate customers excitement, you know, as they post and share. Okay, I'm going to do one more. Okay, this is the head not part two. We're going to do one more, and then we're going to get into some simple strategies to get your brain going.

10:53So you can create guerrilla marketing strategy because you know, on this show, we all about action. The third example I want to share is Dove's real beauty sketches. So I really like this one, because it just resonated on deep level. So Dove hired a forensic sketch artist to draw women at two different times. The first time, the artist drew a woman based on her own description of herself. The second sketch was based on a description provided by a stranger who had just seen the woman. Now, the two sketches were compared side by side, revealing that the sketches based on the stranger's descriptions were more flattering and accurate than those based on a woman's self-perception.

11:35That is so freaking powerful. This campaign truly showed the difference between how women see themselves and how others see them. Now, the videos of these sketches, man, they were shared widely on social media, and they garnered millions of views, and they sparked conversations around body positivity and self-esteem all under a while, all under a while. But that campaign, that campaign was significantly reinforced Dove's message of real beauty and it started a ton of conversations around self-image and body positivity. Okay, so how can you create campaigns like this for your business? I'm going to share some tactics and ideas, but first, here are four tips to creating your own guerrilla marketing campaign.

12:16Number one, know your audience. Not just the ideal client. You hear me say that all the time. It's like, know who you're marketing to, know who you're marketing to, but like your audience. Now, I know it seems counterintuitive. I mean, everything that we do is to market to our ideal client, right? Especially when we're marketing to them, like talk to them specifically. But guerrilla marketing thrives on reaching people who might not be actively searching for your product or service. This is somebody who maybe knows that what they need exists, but they're not sure your product has to do it. It has very little to do with selling and it has more to do with brand awareness.

12:48That's guerrilla marketing. It's always mostly like an exposure play. Now, don't get me wrong, your ideal client, they should always remain the bullseye, right? That's who you're going to be focusing on. Basically, guerrilla marketing lets you cast a wider net of people who know they might need it, but they're not sure that your business exists. Number two, focus on team-wide creativity. Why team-wide? Well, here's one reason. I watched one of Leila Hermozzi's reels and she said that she had everyone in her marketing and sales department write for ads because they needed a copywriter. They ran the ads to see whose ads were top performing.

13:25And it was the social media manager who was getting paid$15 an hour. That person became the copywriter, then became the creative director. And now that person owns their own marketing company that does$30 million a year, right? So every team member on your team has been exposed to different campaigns and events and experiences. And when you combine these, well, then you're cooking with fire. The sales manager might understand customer objections that translate into powerful marketing hooks. A graphic designer might have a seemingly like, well, that seems like a ridiculous visual concept, but wait, it captures attention.

14:03You just never know what comes to fruition when you tap into the potential of your team. Okay, tip number three is to leverage relevance and trends. Guerrilla marketing thrives on three main things, surprise, timing, and relevance. And by leveraging these things, you can tap into the cultural mood and be seen as a brand that truly authentically understands the audience and speaks their language and is still really on trend. I can't help but think of when Wendy's, the fast food restaurant, it released a rap album or when Wendy's had a Twitter beef with McDonald's and they knew their audience was teens and young adults.

14:39And they knew that the audience of teens and young adults used Twitter and listened to pop and hip hop music. Well, okay, these campaigns were perfectly timed. They were highly relevant and it led to increased reach, engagement, positive brand perception. Okay, you guys are like, clearly I'm on a flow. I'm just going here. Finally, number four, give it meaning and purpose. The Dove campaign did a really good job. Now, by demonstrating that your brand cares about something that's just more than sales, you foster a deep connection with your audience. They see your business, not just like a product or service, but they see it as a brand that shares their values.

15:16And this builds brand affinity and loyalty. And that like goes beyond just like, oh, it's a good marketing campaign. No, it's a good marketing campaign because they've all seen and known. Now, here are some ideas if you want to create a guerrilla marketing campaign like this on your own. Let's get started. The first idea is to create a social media challenge. Remember, I'm just offering ideas to get your brain going. You can design a fun and engaging challenge that encourages users to participate and share their experiences. Okay, so for example, a fitness brand could start a 30-day push-up challenge where participants post videos of their progress using a specific hashtag.

15:50Now, I want to share a past guest of ours, Chalene Johnson. I'm going to link to her show in our show notes. I think she's just so smart, brilliant. She thinks fast. She talks fast, and she's so scrappy. she had a hot girl summer walk and she had a hashtag and all she said was get out and walk once a day your commitment for 30 days was to walk to add your hot girl summer walk and she got tens of thousands of women to participate in this challenge and this right here works is fantastic girl marketing so if somebody's out there using that hashtag it's broadcasting to that person's friends families people who follow that she's doing this walk and people are like oh i think I want to do a hot girl summer walk.

16:28And they became joining of it. Now, none of these people had an idea of who Shaleen was, but by positioning herself in guerrilla marketing as the lead of it, it got people talking and knowing about Shaleen in new ways. How much did it cost her? Nothing but a hashtag. What I really love about this method is that the participants get a result. Remember, when creating a social media challenge, you want to keep it simple, engaging, and relevant to your brand that's result-driven. This will encourage participation. It's going to get a lot of buzz for your business. Now, another idea is to run customer contests by letting them have a voice in your business.

17:04Now, I've seen people do this, like have them choose your marketing campaign or like a marketing slogan. They can title the podcast that you're planning on launching. They can name an upcoming product. You can even let them choose a product or service that you're going to launch next. And if you choose the idea, well, no, you're going to reward them with a gift card, a free service, whatever. just make sure and this is very important that you follow through on whatever promise you've given them have you seen the pepsi where is my jet documentary on netflix if you haven't it's about how in the 90s pepsi had a promotional campaign where they promised a harrier jet in exchange for a huge amount of points that you can earn from buying their products well somebody tried to claim it and they didn't deliver the jet.

17:48And it cost them a lot in legal disputes and reputational damage. Anyway, like when done right, and definitely not like Pepsi, this is such a great brand awareness and great PR. It shows that you listen to your audience and you care about their feedback. Here's the best part. Doing this will give your audience a stake in the game, your game that becomes their game. They know that you care about them and you care about what you offer and your company is not just about one singular voice. Okay, so my third and final idea for you is I'm going to call it a brand mashup. Really, what this is is a collaboration with complementary brands or businesses that create unique products or services or experiences.

18:29What I think would be really cool and beneficial here is a campaign seeking out talent within the community or an audience for your company. For example, A clothing brand could give a chance to their community members to collaborate with a local artist to design a limited edition sweatshirt with their artwork. Now, this cross-promotion not only introduces your brand to a new audience, but it also creates buzz around the possibility of a potential partnership. You're going to position yourself as somebody who gives opportunities and is loyal to your following. Okay, now I'm going to take a deep breath.

19:00clearly you guys clearly do you guys want to know as a side note i always thought guerrilla marketing was like guerrilla bananas guerrilla no no no it's guerrilla like in colombia guerrillas okay we're gonna do a recap of what we just went over first we defined guerrilla marketing as unconventional marketing tactics to make a high impact and we need to do that through creativity and shot factor we went over some really killer examples of this type of marketing and you learned four tips for creating your own guerrilla marketing campaign. One, know your audience deeply to broaden your reach while staying true to your core.

19:34Two, encourage team-wide creativity by tapping into diverse perspectives within your team. Three, leverage relevance and trends to authentically connect and create a cultural zeitgeist. Four, give it meaning and purpose by aligning your campaign with values beyond sales to create deeper connections. Y 'all, thank you. I want to encourage you to keep pushing your boundaries and going against what's normal. Your business is meaningful and it deserves attention. If you would be so kind to leave a review, I would be honored and I would love to read it on a future upcoming episode. From my heart to yours, thank you.