Content Marketing Today

Guerrilla Marketing Guru: "Content is Key"

In a content-packed presentation in Southwest Florida, the father of guerrilla marketing, Jay Levinson, added an important new element to his decades old recipe for low-cost marketing success: Content.

Guerrilla Marketing Defined:

It is a body of unconventional ways of pursuing conventional goals. It is a proven method of achieving profits with minimum money.

Unconventional, indeed! Reversing traditional sales and marketing wisdom, he suggested that we sell the state and not the sizzle. “People don’t buy products from sizzle.” He suggested you imagine that you are marketing to your mother. You know for sure that she wants substance and not fluff. In other words, ” you must provide relevant content. ”

New mindset needed: It’s about giving

Although much of what he discussed could be found in his 1993 edition of Guerrilla Marketing, the reference to content was brand new. He stressed the need for a new mindset:

” It is not about taking. it’s about giving. We live in an information age where we give away information. It makes customers want to do business with us.”

He is well aware of the fundamental changes in buyer behavior which require equally fundamental changes in our perch to marketing. He noted, “there has been a sea change in marketing. You can no longer make a sale with marketing. You must first get people’s consent to send them more information. This begins a dialogue which enables ongoing interaction between buyer and seller.”

Web sites must be “you” oriented

As always, Levinson seems a bit ahead of many mainstream marketers. He emphasized that we should not be doing “me” marketing online. Rather our web sites should be “you” oriented—that is focused on our customers’ problems and how to solve them. Moreover, “fresh content is essential because if visitors love what you offer they will come back again and again.”

Promote on-line off-line

Some what counter intuitively, Levinson emphasized that offline promotion of your online content should be a core element of your guerrilla marketing strategy. In fact, if he believes that you must pursue an integrated marketing program by combining advertising, public relations, and Internet activities.

It’s gratifying to note, that marketing veteran Levinson has brilliantly integrated the very best of current thinking with those traditional marketing elements which still work. And, as he emphasized repeatedly, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to create an effective guerrilla marketing program.

Three presentation secrets

For those of you who give talks or workshops to promote yourself or your organization here are three observations about his excellent presentation:

• although many of us think PowerPoint slides are essential, he spoke with no visual aids whatsoever.

• he told a lot of stories, all of which were absolutely relevant to his core material.

• at least six times during his presentation he reminded the audience that they can get a free the list of 200 marketing tools by giving their business cards with e-mail addresses to his wife in the audience. I’m guessing that he picked up at least 100 new email addresses for his list from that simple technique.