Today’s guest post comes from Colour Graphics and is a great reminder that guerilla marketing tactics should not be overlooked by small business owners, so long as their ROI is being tracked. Here’s Colour Graphics with more details about how to make the most of your limited marketing budget:

There are many ways you can successfully market your business: poster campaigns, roller banners, fabric banner stands, leaflets, online campaigns…

They all aim to do the same thing: attract attention and convert fans and followers into buying customers.

Some do this spectacularly well. Others fail spectacularly. But what makes the marketing campaign a success? Is it a mix of marketing know-how and good luck? Or just being in the right place at the right time?

Is guerrilla marketing the answer?

Guerrilla marketing is the process by which a company creates a buzz around its brand, product, or service by using marketing techniques that are ‘disruptive’. Guerrilla marketing is a phrased with its roots in guerrilla warfare. One side of a civil war or conflict would arm the local populace and encourage them to be as disruptive as possible, part and parcel of guerrilla warfare tactics. Guerrilla marketing is similar but without the weapons. It is a creative and visual assault on the senses. It doesn’t just prod people into taking notice, it literally shakes them by the shoulders, grabs their chins, and turns their faces in the direction that the campaign wants them to look: at the brand, at the product, at the service.

With the economy rocky in recent years, it was a breath of marketing fresh air, the thing that made people sit up and take notice. Some would argue, it’s been overdone of late. Some say it’s dead.

Or you could breathe new life into it and create a buzz around your project. Guerrilla marketing is STILL relevant.

Geographical and location targeting

Want to break into a new area? Want the citizens of a town or city to take note?

As a small to medium sized business, your marketing budget will be at full stretch. You need something you can rely on to create a buzz or an air of excitement about you and what you offer. A mass outdoor poster campaign, projected messages on buildings, and so on are relatively cheap but incredibly effective.

Offline and online

Guerrilla marketing can be more than just flash mobs. It can be an online and offline activity. In terms of social media use, for example, the relationship between brand and customer is becoming more important. Marketing is no longer passive – place an advert and people come flocking – but interactive, a conversation that builds over time.

Guerrilla marketing does just that. Or it should do.

Return of investment (RoI)

How much do you spend on marketing? How much do you get back? In other words, for every £1 you spend on marketing your business, how many £££s does it bring in?

Do you measure? (If you don’t, you need to start because you need to understand how effective your marketing activities are). In terms of guerrilla marketing, for relatively minimal outlay, the rewards in terms of spending consumers can be significant.

Stay relevant and effective

Marketing campaigns can be so boring… or, you can have fantastic, creative campaigns for products and companies that are a little on the boring side. Which category would you rather be in?

It’s hard to stay ahead and creative in marketing, producing campaigns that attract attention and are successful. Once a successful idea is created, everyone seems to copy it until the next big thing comes along.

This is why when budgets are tight and great ideas in short supply, guerrilla marketing is the chosen marketing avenue.

Cut through noise and busy-ness

We live in a crowded world where our senses are assaulted on a daily basis. Watching TV, you are bombarded with adverts. There are adverts in pages and pages of glossy magazines. Your social media accounts and newsfeeds have some relevant and some useless adverts littered across them.

Your marketing needs to cut through this and guerrilla marketing does just that. Guerrilla marketing has been described as ‘the new frontier in influence’. Can your marketing campaign be described as that?

Need inspiration?

Guerrilla marketing is easier than you think and not the sole preserve of big business with big budgets. But you can certainly look to the big players for inspiration…

Own a gym? Add dumbbell weight to the overhead holding bar on local buses with an advert telling people where you are and why they need you.

Own a coffee shop? Have window transfers made and stick around door handles of your café door. Have your brand on their and the brand of coffee or tea etc. that you serve. Works well with any food or drink establishment.

What guerrilla tactics can you think of your business? Why not share them with us?

Colour Graphics is an online design and print agency. Creating printed marketing tools for campaigns all over the UK, we can help your business too.