Three short Guerrilla Marketing stories that will get you thinking….

1. A savvy restaurant owner knew the value of asking the Guerrilla question,”What other businesses do my customers patronize?”

Realizing that competition was fierce in their neighborhood this owner used imagination rather than pure marketing dollars to spread the word of her fabulous food. She distributed coupons for two free dinners to all the hairstyling salons within a one mile radius of the restaurant. Of course the stylists checked out the restaurant. Because the food was as marvelous as advertised the hairstylists talked it up to every one of their customers at the salon! As you know gobs of information is exchanged at a local hairstyling salon or barbershop. News spread fast and her business became the talk of the town.
This is an example of true Guerrilla spirit: a tiny investment, a huge imagination, a happy payoff.

2. People will always spend money to solve a problem before spending to improve something that is already OK. Guerrilla florist Hugh Atkinson knows that this is true in every area of life and not just business-to-business marketing. After all of the social expressions of the year-end holidays, flower sales can drop off until Valentines day. His solution is a small road sign that simply asks, “How mad is she?” He’s never had a busier January thanks to the sign.

3. A pizza restaurant in Indiana used imagination to perk up their marketing strategy. Realizing the intense interest in football they printed up a two-sided circular. One side read “half price off of any large sized pizza at Marios” and their address. The second side said in bold print “Go Hoosiers”. They handed out the circulars at the entrance to the football stadium and as you might imagine after every hometown touchdown hundreds of people held up “Go Hoosiers” and thousands of people read the coupon for Marios Pizza.

I hope it gets your thinking about ways you can grow your business using only time, energy and imagination instead of money.

Mitch Meyerson, Founder of Guerrilla Marketing Coaching

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