Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing

How to Get Started with Guerrilla Marketing

"Jay is a genius. Now you can be one too. Just do what he and Jeannie say, don't tell anyone where you got the ideas and you're in. On the other hand, that would be selfish. Time to tell everyone you know what an amazing resource you're getting..."

Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae

"The Guerrilla Marketing series has gained the well deserved trust of millions of followers worldwide who have benefited greatly from its wisdom. Now comes the Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing that will enable readers everywhere to adopt the mindset of a guerrilla marketer in order to achieve better business results, at less cost, faster. This is a wonderful book from equally wonderful people."

Stephen M.R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything

"If you are starting a business on a tight budget, this book is for you! The Father of Guerrilla Marketing reveals dozens of high impact, low-cost strategies for getting new customers using time, energy and imagination. If you want to start making money from your new business, get this book!"

Mitch Meyerson, founder of Guerrilla Marketing Coaching

"Sit down, buckle your seat belt and be prepared to succeed. With this book you no longer have excuses to fail but a system to succeed. The Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing is consistently unique and stimulating and provides unquestionable value to all who pick it up, peruse it and use it."

Al Lautenslager, bestselling co-author of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days

"Forget the retired business executives with the firm handshakes and the sincere eye contact. Forget the SBA. Forget the seminar speakers with the expensive haircuts and the million-dollar smiles. If you want the best, most proven, most widely used and easiest-to-implement advice in the world on how to market a startup business, go no further than Jay and Jeannie Levinson's new book. They know what really works, and you need to know what they are so generously willing to share with you."

David Garfinkel, author of Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich

• Interview with Jay Conrad Levinson

• With a smile from ear to ear and a twinkle in his eye that just screams I have a secret I’m dying to tell you, Levinson describes his unconventional marketing methods and views on marketing today.

• Q: You published your first Guerrilla Marketing book in 1984 and Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing just came out in January 2008. How would you differentiate your new book, Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing, from your original Guerrilla Marketing book? Has the approached changed or evolved since the original?

• A: The basic approach has been refined and updated, but the spirit remains the same-- getting more from marketing while investing less. The new book also goes much more into technology and internet marketing.

• Q: Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing focuses a lot on the personality traits, attitudes and attributes of “a Guerrilla marketer.” Can you describe the importance of these things to the overall marketing plan success?

• A: Unless a person has those traits, attitudes and attributes, they are starting from deep in a hole. These are crucial for a company that wants to succeed with marketing and hold on to their customers for life. The importance of the Guerrilla Marketer’s personality traits really cannot be overestimated.

• Q: What do you think of the state of marketing today? What do you think is the most valuable tool to a Guerrilla marketer?

• A: Marketing today worships at the shrine of cleverness--that is a sad state. The most valuable tool to a guerrilla marketer is a clear understanding that marketing's purpose is to generate ever-increasing profits, to begin with a simple marketing plan, and then to commit to that plan.

• Q: Where should advertising fit in a business’s marketing mix?

• A: Advertising is only one of two hundred marketing weapons. To work, it must be combined with other weapons such as a website, email, superb service, and follow-up. Advertising no longer works on its own, but is crucial to lead people to your website. That's where the real money is to be found.

• Q: Once readers have finished your book and implemented all of the actions you advise, what’s next?

• A: What's next is to commit to those actions, take those actions, double up on those which hit it out of the park, and eliminate those which did not succeed in a big way. Keeping track of all marketing in which you engage is an invaluable task so that you know the winners from the losers. The book takes readers by the hand and leads them to the actions that come next.

• Q:Why is networking an important part of marketing, and do you advise that business owners take a specific approach to it?

• A: Yes, networking is a very important cog in the marketing machine. The guerrilla approach is not to go after people who are standouts but to be the kind of person that other people seek out. Networking is the beginning of long and fruitful relationships. Guerrillas revere relationships.

• Q: In your book, you include a chapter on what you call Fusion Marketing. Exactly what are you referring to?

• A: I'm referring to locating businesses with the same prospects as yours and the same standards. It means thinking less of competition than cooperation. When you enter into co-marketing efforts, your reach and frequency go up, but your costs go down because you are sharing them with others. As an example think of those tv commercials that seem to be for Mcdonald's, then seem to be for Coca-cola, and end up being about the latest Disney movie. Think also of Fedex and Kinko's which brought fusion marketing to the front of the stage. Yet most fusion marketing occurs amid small businesses.

• Q: What do you think about websites? Every business seems to have one, but from a guerrilla marketing perspective, what should business owners be doing to maximize the value of their sites?

• A: They should know why they want a website in the first place and then assure that it has powerful content. It must have a pleasing design, be easy to navigate, have opportunities for viewer involvement. It should talk about the visitors and not about yourself, and when people contact you because of it, you must follow up with them immediately. Finally, you must promote your website offline, where most people live, and you must maintain and nurture your site as you'd maintain and nurture a newborn baby. But if you do not understand marketing, you'll have an uphill battle with a website.

• Q: What should businesses consider when they are preparing a marketing budget?

• A: They should realize that in 2007, the average business invested 4% of their gross revenues in marketing. Guerrillas invest an even higher percentage, but they know that their prime investments will always be time, energy, imagination and information--rather than mere money.

• "Marketing today worships at the shrine of cleverness. That is a sad state." --The Father of Guerrilla Marketing

• Who is the Father of Guerrilla Marketing? His resume includes having spent a good part of his career on the creative teams that built household names such as The Marlboro Man, The Pillsbury Doughboy, Allstate’s good hands, United’s friendly skies, the Sears Diehard battery, as well as Green Giant. However, it was his innovative, take-no-prisoners, unconventional approach to marketing that he shared with the world in 1983 in his book Guerrilla Marketing that earned him the moniker he carries today--The Father of Guerrilla marketing, also known as Jay Conrad Levinson.

• Introduced in the early ‘80s, Guerrilla Marketing showed small- and medium-business owners how to take control of their marketing and trade some of their financial investment for time, energy and imagination to come out with a more effective, higher-impact marketing campaign. Required reading in many MBA programs worldwide, it has sold over 15 million copies and is now in 44 languages.

Jay Conrad Levinson is the Father of Guerrilla Marketing - the bestselling marketing series in history - as well as 55 other business books. His books have sold more than 14 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 39 languages. He is the chairman of Guerrilla Marketing International.

Jeannie Levinson is the president of Guerrilla Marketing International and co-founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Association. With decades of sales and marketing experience, she is a sought-after consultant, workshop leader and radio guest.