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7 Steps to Becoming a Guerilla Marketer

Natalie Judd

November 30, 2006

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A staggering 85% of small businesses destined for failure bite the bullet or go bankrupt during their first five years. The remaining businesses that hang in there only break even: only 4% of new businesses make a sizable profit after 5 years.

Lack of marketing savvy is one of the main reasons this happens.

Marketing is a waste of time and money if you are not attuned to the real world. Reality is that your clients and prospects are constantly being bombarded with cut-rate pricing, new products and services and enticing offers everyday. Successful marketing can not happen in a vacuum and does not have to cost millions.

Instead, businesses can have a very successful marketing program on very little budget if they do it the right ways. During a recent teleseminar for the Internet Master Series, Jay Conrad Levinson outlined a seven sentence marketing plan for listeners. The plan should take no more than five minutes to write and marketers should revisit the plan every 6 months.

The plan should follow this outline:

1) Define the physical action you want your target audience to take. For example do you want them to buy things, respond to a promotion, click on your website, call your 800# etc. By listing this out you can start to refine your message and determine how to reach your targets.

2) Define your competitive advantage that you will stress to get them to take this action step.

3) Define your target audience or audiences. Marketers often overlook key audiences so make sure that you list them all.

4) Define the marketing weapons you are going to use to get your message out. There are 100 ways to market and 63 of them are no cost. You need to select the things that you will do to get your message to your target audience.

5) Define your unique position, what is your niche in the marketplace.

6) Define your identity. Your identity must be steeped in the truth and stem from a place of trust.

7) Know your budget. Express this as a percentage of gross sales. The average business in the U.S. only spend 4 percent of their gross sales on marketing This is a key reason most businesses fail in the first five years.

Just as in a good marriage, marketers need to do everything with commitment. Mediocre marketing with commitment will do far better than great marketing without commitment. By following a simple discipline of guerilla marketing and launching a savvy marketing campaign, you can tip the scales in your favor and be one of the survivors.

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