Should Your Digital Marketing Include Guerrilla Marketing?

You've likely heard of guerrilla warfare, the attack strategy formed on the basis of "the element of surprise," and used heavily by the Patriots in the American Revolution. But we're not here to give you a history lesson. Instead, we want to have a little chat about guerrilla marketing, a form of inbound marketing whose name was derived from the surprise war tactic.

Now we're sure you're wondering: what on earth do marketing and warfare have to do with each other?

Well, admittedly, not much. But the element of surprise can work in mysterious ways.

Although inbound marketing is more about seamlessly integrating marketing and advertising messages into platforms and programs people are already using, guerrilla marketing takes this a step further. 

Guerrilla marketing is about putting your business in front of people while they're doing things they were already doing, but in a big way. Rather than a quick Facebook post or a Twitter ad campaign, you're doing something unconventional. You're going above and beyond, reaching the heights of creativity and experimentation, to really put your business out there. You're getting in people's faces.

But, like, in a subtle way. Real world use of guerrilla marketing is innovative and eye-catching. For instance...

Duracell Batteries created a guerrilla marketing campaign where they put branded flashlights on all sorts of light-up objects around town, making it look like Duracell was powering them. Clever, noticeable, but also subtle.

Frontline Flea & Tick Protection blew up a photo of a dog to use as the floor of a mall, knowing people walking around the upper levels would see it. And at first glance, the image really does look like a dog covered in bugs.

How can a candy company make creative use of an ad on a bench? Well, if you're Nestle, you paint it like an opened Kit Kat wrapper that reveals a delicious chocolate bar! What a perfect way to create a craving for candy in anyone walking or driving past.

These are just a few clever examples of guerrilla marketing that businesses put out into their surroundings.

But how do you translate campaigns like this into digital marketing? 

Although guerrilla marketing and digital marketing are very different, the two can also work together extremely well. Here are three examples of how you can do this.

1. Real world integrated with digital.

First of all, you can create a real world guerrilla marketing campaign to do locally or near your business's headquarters, followed by a digital aspect of the campaign. Integrating the two works well to involve both locals and members of your audience that may live in other areas.

You can live stream the location of your guerrilla marketing tactic on Facebook so your audience can see how passersby reacted. You can encourage user-generated content surrounding your guerrilla marketing campaign (i.e., asking people to share it online with your campaign's branded hashtag). You can ask people to check in on Facebook or create a geo-filter on Snapchat to help increase awareness of your campaign.

2. Create an online money-making campaign.

One thing to keep in mind about guerrilla marketing is that it is not at all customer-centric. It's 100% business-centric and coming up with a fun and entertaining way to put your business in someone's face and get people talking about your brand.

And it's totally possible to do this with a digital campaign. Try creating a one-off product surrounding a social issue, a holiday, or something totally random and made up. Think outside the box on days and seasons that other companies are coloring in the lines.

One company that is great at coming up with crazy ideas like this is Cards Against Humanity. Of course not every business will be able to emulate the campaigns that this brash card game company has, but it's a great start to get the wheels turning. 

On Black Friday a couple of years ago, a time when most businesses are offering products at huge discounts, CAH decided to open up a donation landing page on their website. The catch? They would dig a hole, and keep digging as long as people kept donating on that page. At the end of the day, they raked in a cool $100K, just to dig a hole. The company is no stranger to Black Friday jokes, either, even jacking up their prices one year to make a joke of the mega sales holiday.

3. Dress up your entire online presence.

Guerrilla marketing is about doing something unexpected, and completely dressing up your online presence is one way to attract attention. If you're celebrating a business milestone, event, or launch, or wanting to simply make an impression, think of a way you could switch up your website and social media branding to really grab eyes.

Perhaps you change every profile photo to black and switch up the main colors on your website so it looks blacked out. Maybe you change it to purple, or gold. Maybe you add an element of your new product or launch. Making a huge change like that all at once is a guaranteed way to get people talking about what's going to be coming. 

Guerrilla marketing can be difficult to implement, but when done correctly it can have people talking about your business and your campaign for years to come. Does it have a place in digital marketing? Sure, if you have the time and resources to see your campaign through. Some methods can be more costly than others, but the point of guerrilla marketing is to get big results. Many businesses have even bet their entire company on a single guerrilla marketing campaign.

One thing to remember is that guerrilla marketing is not typically an ongoing strategy the way digital marketing is. You have a timeline for your campaign, and during that time you need to have all hands on deck. If your business is in the position to try something new, maybe you should consider what a guerrilla marketing campaign would look like for you. Ready to get your brainstorm on? Contact us to see how we can help your business.