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The 80 Best Guerrilla Marketing Ideas I’ve Ever Seen

Here is the first in this list:

I didn’t get it at first – but the “fleas” are people walking accross the foyer of an office building or mall, so this is the view for people looking down from the 3rd or 4th floor.

Pretty clever huh?

Here are 79 more: The 80 Best Guerrilla Marketing Ideas I’ve Ever Seen

I’d looooove to brainstorm with you and come up with clever ideas like this for your business. Call me today (07) 575 8799 or email me

- Sheldon.

Which one is your favourite?

Tell me in the comments below.

Like what you see here? If so, please subscribe so you get notified about new articles.. Thanks for visiting!

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By Sheldon – 5 February 2010

Have You Tried Guerilla Miniature Billboard Advertising?

Whilst driving to Mount Maunganui yesterday I spotted these tiny billboards strapped to street light polls and road signage opposite Mount Maunganui High School:

Shows the 3 copies of the billboard a few metres apart

Close up of the minature billboard

Simply tied to the pole with wire

4 Lessons You Can Learn From These Guerilla Miniature Billboards

What can you learn from this clever “guerilla” method of advertising? Could you replicate this strategy for your business?

1. Do it cheap.

  • They are made of the core-flute just like real estate signs.
  • There is no graphics.
  • You could get them made for about $10 each.
  • Budget looking can be very effective. When you get junk mail in your letterbox at home do the crappy hand-written flyers get your attention first before the sleek professional Warehouse/Dick Smith/KFC flyers? For sure.

2. Keep your message simple.

  • Mountain bikers know what “MTB” means so this headline captures the target audiences attention.
  • On a full size 6m x 3m billboard your word limit is about 11. So in this case you have about 5 words.
  • What simple 4 or 5 word headline can you use to cut through to your target audience?

3. Choose a single call-to-action.

  • In this case, you just visit the website if the headline “MTB Downhill Racing” appeals to you.
  • The website address is related to the headline so it’s reasonably easy to remember.
  • On a website you can state 5 or 6 different ways to contact you, on a miniature billboard you must choose just one.
  • A website address is very good. A phone number could work but many people prefer to check you out anonymously via a website rather than call a number and get “sold to”.

4. Repeat your message.

  • Normally you don’t get the chance to repeat a standard 6m x 3m billboard 20 metres down the road, because it’ll double your costs.  So you are only giving your billboard one chance to be read as your potential customers zoom past at 50 kph or 100 kph.
  • In this case there were 3 miniature billboards about 20 metres apart.
  • I didn’t really notice the first, but I quickly read the second, and I read the third carefully.
  • It made an impression that a single exposure would not have.
  • In fact, I turned my car around and stopped on the side of the road, took some photos, wrote this article and visited www.mtbtauranga.co.nz.  That’s the magic of repetition.

“Great, but are these billboards legal?”

Probably not. The Tauranga City Council probably has a bylaw which prohibits this sort of guerilla advertising, and other councils around the country do too I bet.

If they get a complaint from the public (or your competition!), the council will take them down for sure (you probably won’t even get fined!).

But until then, you’ve got yourself some very cheap and effective advertising, so go for it!

Like this idea?

I have a million more.  Give me a call on (07) 575 8799 to tell me about your business and we can think up some clever ideas about how to generate more sales for you. At the very least sign up to this blog using the form on the right!

- Sheldon.

Posted in Advertisement Critique, Advertising, Marketing.

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By Sheldon – 29 January 2010

62 Ways to Advertise Your Business

Cinema

1. Pre-movie Advertisements
2. Product Placement in-movie

TV

3. 15/30 second Television Advertisements
4. Infomercials
5. Programme Sponsorship
6. Television Interviews (“Public Relations”)

Newspaper

7. Regional Community Newspaper – freely distributed
8. Regional Daily Newspaper
9. National Daily Newspaper

Radio

10. 15/30 second Radio Advertisements
11. Radio Interviews (see “Public Relations”)

Outdoor

12. Ummmm (*Tom D to fill in soon*)
13. Billboards
14. Video Billboard
15. Bus shelters
16. Bus backs
17. Truck sides
18. Car signage
19. Outdoor signage on your building
20. Posters around town
21. Free standing at the mall
22. Hot air balloons / blimps

Mail

23. Addressed Mail
24. Un-addressed PO Box Mail Drop – Flyers/Postcards
25. Un-addressed Residential Mail Drop – Flyers/Postcards

Direct Marketing

26. One to one sales calls (in person or on the phone)
27. Telemarketing surveys

Online

28. Text Ads (eg Google Adwords)
29. Organic Search Engine Optimisation
30. Banner advertising (banner, skyscraper, applications/software eg msn messenger)
31. Email Marketing / Newsletters
32. SPAM
33. Directories (eg YellowPages online, NZS.com, Finda.co.nz, Trademe.co.nz)
34. White papers / e-books
35. Blogging
36. Social Networking sites (eg Bebo, Facebook)
37. Contribute to Special interest forums (eg Google Groups)

Magazines

38. Gossip style Magazines (eg Woman’s Day)
39. Industry Specific Magazines (eg Needles and Pins weekly)

Printed Directories

40. YellowPages
41. Local Directory

Website

42. Your website
43. Campaign specific mini-websites

Sponsorship

44. At Sports venues (paint the field, billboards, signage around the field)
45. Of Charities

Branded Objects

46. Pens, Coffee cups, T-shirts, bags, clocks etc

Public Demonstrations

47. Set up at the mall (or in the supermarket)

Guerrilla Advertising / Alternative Advertising / Stealth Marketing

48. PR stunts
49. Word of mouth
50. Viral (video, email, postcards, CD’s)
51. Legal graphitti
52. Chalk on the sidewalk
53. Logos in the snow/sand
54. Flyers under car windscreens
55. Video projection onto side of building
56. Night-time shop window video or laser light show
57. Sponsored humans

SMS text messaging

58. SMS text messaging

Public Relations

59. Distribute press releases (for print & online publication)
60. Or Contact Journalists/Reporters directly with something newsworthy

Tradeshows & Expos

61. Exhibiting at Tradeshows and Expos

Seminars

62. Seminars

Have I Missed Any?

Please add them to the comments below.

Time to hire your own marketing department (but at a fraction of the cost)?

Contact us today or book a free 45min consultation now

Posted in Advertising, Business Strategy, Marketing.

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By Sheldon – 27 January 2010

New Features From FeedMyInbox – More Than Just Converting RSS (News Feeds) Into Emails

Do any of the following apply to you?

  1. Have you heard about RSS but can’t really be bothered with it?
  2. Do you have a few favourite blogs or news sites, but it’s up to you to remember to check them for new content?
  3. Do you have a News Feed (RSS) Reader like Google Reader but it’s a pain keeping up with it?
  4. Are there newsletters you’d like to sign up for but you don’t like giving away your email address?

If you answered “YES!” to either of those, then I have good news.

First, a quick definition of RSS:  It stands for “Real Simple Syndication”, and it just converts blog articles and news articles into a file format (XML) that can be understood and distributed using any RSS reader.

4 Reasons Why I Use The FeedMyInbox Method For Converting RSS Into Email

  1. I can keep up to date with the latest content of 50+ blogs effortlessly
  2. If I’m one of the first to comment on these blogs, hundreds of people will read my comment and that is good branding for me (and they have a link back to my website in my comment)
  3. I can avoid getting distracted by filtering these messages automatically into a folder that I can look in when I’ve finished with the task at hand
  4. If I get sick of a blog, I can unsubscribe with one click. Simple. Clean. Efficient. (And I never have to email the author “please take me off your list”!)

A few months ago I wrote about www.FeedMyInbox.com: How to receive News Feeds (RSS) via email

Well, they have just added more features.

How FeedMyInbox Worked Last Year

Last year you could simply:

  1. Paste in the feed url of the website you want to subscribe to
  2. Type in your email address

And you would start recieving those feeds as emails.

Easy.

New Features Added To FeedMyInbox This Year

With an account, now you can:

  1. Customise the subject line of incoming emails (really handy, because most bloggers don’t name their blogs very well)
  2. Opt to receive those feeds in real-time, or choose another time of day you’d like to receive them (I like to have them in real time so the freshest are always on top)
  3. Opt to receive the entire article in the feed as an email, or just the title and a hyperlink
  4. Download a “Bookmarklet” to your web browser, so subscribing to a new feed is only 1 click away

They are offering a free trial of up to 5 feeds (I’d like to see them extend this to 10 so people get a chance to get addicted).

Give it a try yourself, see the “Get Notified By Email About New Articles” widget on the right of this page? Just add your email address there and you’ll get notification about new articles on this blog.

Posted in Web Tools.

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By Sheldon – 22 January 2010

Email Newsletters: 10 Tips For Designing & Building Your Email Newsletters

Great advice from Smashing Magazine about how to design and build your email newsletters:

  1. Respect your reader. Don’t waste their time or attention.
  2. Ask nicely first.
  3. Focus on relevance.
  4. Design with a goal in mind, so that you’ll know if it worked.
  5. Make unsubscribing easy.
  6. Code like it’s 1999 (literally) and use inline CSS.
  7. Always include a plain text version.
  8. Don’t assume that images will be viewed.
  9. Follow the law.
  10. Test everything before sending, because you can’t take it back.

Read the entire article: Design and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul)

Posted in Advertising, Marketing.

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By Sheldon – 21 January 2010

Is PayPal The Easiest, Cheapest Way For Your Non-NZ Customers To Pay You Into Your New Zealand Bank Account?

I’m hoping that this article will save you the 45 minutes of research I just had to do.

  • Do you have clients or customers based outside of New Zealand?
  • Do you want to know the easiest, cheapest way for those non-NZ customers to pay you into your New Zealand bank account?

That’s exactly what I wanted to find out.

I found many options, most of which I’d never heard of.  But one brand kept coming up again and again: PayPal.

I found lots of criticisms, but it is probably the #1 payment service in the world, so let’s just go with that.

But I’m worried my profit will be whittled away with fees.

My next mission was to find out what fees will I be charged:

  1. For the transaction?
  2. For currency conversion from US dollars to NZ dollars?
  3. For withdrawing the funds from my PayPal account into my New Zealand bank account?
  4. For receiving the funds into my New Zealand bank account? Will my NZ bank charge me?

You’d think I’d easily find the answers to these questions on PayPal’s website. Sadly, no, that is not the case.

1. What fees will I be charged for the transaction?

  • 3.4% + $0.30 USD

Source: PayPal Website

2. What fees will I be charged for currency conversion from US dollars to NZ dollars?

  • 2.5%

Source: PayPal Website

3. What fees will I be charged for withdrawing the funds from my PayPal account into my New Zealand bank account?

  • $1.00 for amounts below NZ$150
  • Free for amounts above NZ$150

Source: Helium.com

4. What fees will my bank charge me for receiving the funds into my New Zealand bank account?

  • Zero. (I’m guessing. If I’m wrong, please correct me in the comments below)
  • But it can take 6 – 8 days to arrive

Example #1: US$100 transaction

  1. Transaction Fee: 3.4% x US$100 = US$3.40 + US$0.30
  2. Currency Conversion: 2.5 % x US$100 = US$2.50
  3. Withdrawal Fee: US$1.00 because US$100 = NZ$135 which is below the NZ$150 threshold
  4. Total PayPal Fees: US$7.20 = NZ$9.80 (which is a whopping 10% of the clients invoice!)

Example #2: US$200 transaction

  1. Transaction Fee: 3.4% x US$200 = US$6.80 + US$0.30
  2. Currency Conversion: 2.5 % x US$200 = US$5.00
  3. Withdrawal Fee: Free because US$200 = NZ$270 which is over the NZ$150 threshold
  4. Total PayPal Fees: US$12.10 = NZ$16.47 (which is 8.2% of the clients invoice)

Here’s a cool world currency calculator if you want to do your own calculations.

Recommendations:

  • Wait until you have more than NZ$150 in your PayPal account before you withdraw the funds into your New Zealand bank account

Posted in Ecommerce, Marketing, Web Tools.

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By Sheldon – 15 January 2010

Has Telecom New Zealand Finally Got Their Shit Together? Perhaps So.

Everyone likes to beat-up the big brands.

They are an easy target.

There is always something to complain about.

And its comforting that your complaint is just one of many because you know there are hundreds or thousands of customers who feel the same way you do.

You don’t expect to get an official response. You just want to get your feelings off your chest.

Telecom NZ is one of those brands.

You hate Telecom.

I hate Telecom.

Everyone hates Telecom.

Don’t you just dread the prospect of being forced to give them a call to report a fault, or deal with a billing issue, or set up a new service, or anything?

For the next couple of days you probably tell everyone you meet about how an hour or two of your precious time was wasted on hold to Telecom’s call centre in India/Phillipines for an issue that should take 2 minutes to fix (or should never have occured in the first place).

You are not alone. I’m just like you.

So when Vodafone started offering home lines a few years ago I switched over. It felt good to support the underdog.

It’s been 3 years now since I’ve had to deal with Telecom.  But last week I switched back because I had heard good things about Telecoms new broadband plan “Big Time“, and I was tired of my broadband provider Xnet.

I watched Telecom change their logo a few months ago, and noticed they have updated their website too, but I thought that was the end of it – just cosmetic changes, nothing too serious.

But I was wrong.

They have upgraded their service too.

Here’s my experience over the last 10 days:

Contact #1:

  • Called to signup with Telecom.
  • They took my account numbers for Vodafone and Xnet (my broadband provider at the time), and promised to close those accounts for me.
  • We chose a switchover date of 31 Dec 09 to avoid any double billing.  [WIN!]
  • I demanded that the connection fee be waived. They agreed. [WIN!]

Contact #2:

  • On the 4th of January, after 4 days of smooth operation, there hadn’t been any improvement with my broadband speed (0.7Mbit/sec). I was disappointed. This was the primary reason I changed.  I called the Telecom help desk.
  • My call went through to the Phillipines which worried me. I gritted my teeth. But the lady on the other end of the phone knew her shit inside-out!  [WIN!]
  • She ran through some tests including a check on the distance to the nearest Telecom exchange, and among other things, suggested I turn off my modem for 60 seconds. By the end of the call my download speed had increased 50% (to 1.5Mbit/sec).  [WIN!]
  • She also detected that my modem was only ADSL, not ADSL2, so she suggested that was another reason for slow speeds.  She asked if I had received my free modem from Telecom yet. I had not, so she transferred me to dispatch in New Zealand and stayed on the line to introduce us “Sheldon, I’ll now have Frank on the line ‘Hi Sheldon!’, he’ll take you through the next steps”. [WIN!]
  • Frank said the modem hadn’t been sent out yet (perhaps with all the public holidays over the last few days), but he’d send it out now and it should arrive either next day or the following day.  It arrived this morning at 7am – just 14 hours after the phone call [WIN!]

Contact #3:

  • I plugged in the new modem (Thomson SpeedTouch ST536v6) and it installed itself (no installation CD required). The download speed is 6 times faster than my old modem (4MBit/sec). [WIN!]
  • But I wanted to set a password on the modem to reduce the chance of it getting hacked. I couldn’t find the IP address to get access to the Control Panel anywhere! Spent 60 minutes searching online before I finally found it on page 135 of the manual for the modem on the official website [FAIL!]
  • I was pretty annoyed and thought I better complain. I decided to try Telecom NZ’s Twitter account @TelecomNZ (which had auto-followed me when I mentioned the word “Telecom” in a tweet yesterday).
  • Jennie replied to my tweet within 4 minutes. I told her a few more details in another tweet and she promised to look into it [WIN!]
  • I just wanted to save the next person some trouble, but even just having my complaint acknowledged is huge. [WIN!]

So far so good.

Have you had a pleasant experience with Telecom since the rebrand?

I’d like to hear it. Share your story below.

Posted in Critique / Review, Marketing.

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By Sheldon – 8 January 2010

A Successful Business Owner Told Me “No I Don’t Have A Website, In Fact I Don’t Do Any Advertising”

Earlier this week I needed to find a catery for my cat because we are going away for a few days in January.  A friend of mine is a vet and she recommended both Te Puna Cat Resort, and Top Katz Boarding Cattery (also in Te Puna).

I searched Google for each, and both times the Finda business directory delivered their phone numbers.  Neither business seemed to have a website of their own.

I called Te Puna Cat Resort first and because my call was outside normal hours (it is not unusual for catteries to operate only between 8am and 10am, and 4pm to 6pm), I left a message (which they still haven’t returned, now 3 days later).

I called Top Katz next and Kathy, the owner, answered. I told her the dates I needed and she said she had to go and check her appointment book in her office and would call back in 5 minutes. She called back in 3.  She did have room. I asked if she had a website (in the hope that I could build a website for her) she said:

“no, I don’t have a website, in fact I don’t do any advertising at all, and I’m always full.  I have clients who drive down from Auckland (more than a 2 hour drive each way) to drop off their cat, and then return to Auckland to fly out for their holiday.  This business started as a hobby for me and now it’s full time for me plus I had to get my husband to quit his job so he could help too.”

Wow.

(I booked on the spot. I didn’t want my cat to miss out on this experience)

  • Imagine having so many regular clients you have to turn most new clients away.
  • Imagine having the freedom to choose how busy you want to be, how much business you want to handle
  • Imagine being so sort after that your clients feel like they are in an exclusive club that’s not taking on new members

You must be thinking: “Top Katz must be expensive”.

Nope.

$10 a night.

The same price or cheaper than other catteries.

I have some ideas about how you can build your business into a customer magnet like this. Call me on (07) 575 8799, or email me.

- Sheldon.

Posted in Advertising, Marketing.

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By Sheldon – 1 January 2010

Want Free Media Exposure? What The News Media Values & How You Can Get Your Business In The News

Yes, you can buy air time for your TV ads or radio ads.

Yes, you can buy space for your newspaper ads.

But you can also get mentioned in all of these media for free if you can create a newsworthy story.

The first step is to ask the question “What do news editors look for in a news story?”

Step 1: What Do News Editors Look For In A News Story?

Source: “News Values”, Wikipedia

  • Frequency: Events that occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization’s schedule are more likely to be reported than those that occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are not likely to receive much coverage.
  • Negativity: Bad news is more newsworthy than good news.
  • Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater effect than something that is an everyday occurrence.
  • Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those that are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background in which the events take place.
  • Personalisation: Events that can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than one in which there is no such “human interest.”
  • Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic. “Cultural proximity” is a factor here — stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.
  • Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.
  • Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.
  • Conflict: Opposition of people or forces resulting in a dramatic effect. Stories with conflict are often quite newsworthy.
  • Consonance: Stories that fit with the media’s expectations receive more coverage than those that defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Note this appears to conflict with unexpectedness above. However, consonance really refers to the media’s readiness to report an item.
  • Continuity: A story that is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia. This is partly because the media organizations are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public (making it less ambiguous).
  • Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news values but also on those of competing stories. (Galtung and Ruge, 1965)
  • Competition: Commercial or professional competition between media may lead journalists to endorse the news value given to a story by a rival.
  • Co-optation: A story that is only marginally newsworthy in its own right may be covered if it is related to a major running story.
  • Prefabrication: A story that is marginal in news terms but written and available may be selected ahead of a much more newsworthy story that must be researched and written from the ground up.
  • Predictability: An event is more likely to be covered if it has been pre-scheduled. (Bell, 1991)
  • Time constraints: Traditional news media such as radio, television and daily newspapers have strict deadlines and a short production cycle, which selects for items that can be researched and covered quickly.
  • Logistics: Although eased by the availability of global communications even from remote regions, the ability to deploy and control production and reporting staff, and functionality of technical resources can determine whether a story is covered. (Schlesinger, 1987)

- Retrieved from Wikipedia 24 December 2009

Step 2: Which Of These Newsworthy Indicators Can You Influence?

Many of the news values listed above are out of your control, but some are within your control.

An example is Prefabrication. If your Press Release is written so well the editor barely needs to modify it, they may be able to fill a space when one becomes available.

Need help to get free media exposure for your business?

I’m here for you. Call (07) 575 8799

- Sheldon.

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By Sheldon – 24 December 2009

Contacting a WebSite Owner Via Email? An Easy Way to Get Your Email Message Noticed

I’ve just made a discovery that I’d like to share with you.

Firstly, I’m a big fan of email.

5 Reasons Why Email is my Preferred Method of Communication:

  1. It provides me with a permanent record of what was said to who and when
  2. It’s more reliable than my memory for recording facts
  3. It doesn’t interrupt the person I’m sending it to, they can read it in their own time
  4. I can write it at my leisure and send it off anytime day or night when it’s ready
  5. It’s free

But the biggest disadvantage is:

Incoming emails are easy to ignore.

And it’s even easier not take the action that the email message asks for eg “email me back if this of interest to you”.

How often has your response been “Nope! Delete!”?

How to Get Your Email Message Noticed:

If you are contacting a website owner for whatever reason (at the moment I’m contacting a bunch of American website to ask for advertising space), here’s a trick that will get your email message noticed:

If you see something broken on their website, mention it in the email.

Even better, write a second email 5 minutes after the first (forwarding your first email so it’s attached to the bottom), and mention the bug then.

Just about every website has something broken like a spelling mistake or a link that doesn’t work.  The website owners are always keen to hear from someone that took the time to notify them of the bug.

For Extra Impact:

Pick up the phone and call the person you sent the message to (only costs 4c per minute anywhere in the world with a calling card such as Kiaora Card).

You could say “hi, just wanted to check that you received my email, my email system has been acting strangely lately”.

That’s the way to get noticed.

Need More Help?

If you own a small to medium sized business in Tauranga, I love to help you improve your sales, marketing and advertising. Call: (07) 575 8799 or email me.

- Sheldon.

Posted in Marketing, Sales.

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By Sheldon – 23 December 2009