Guerrilla Marketing is based on the concept of “guerrilla warfare,” where small groups of lightly armed warriors can engage and defeat a larger, more powerful enemy by using simple tactics and capitalizing on the element of surprise and the advantages of being nimble and adaptable to the terrain. Just like guerrilla warfare is a matter of quickly mobilizing lightly-armed, often untrained soldiers, guerrilla marketing is ideally free or cheap. Instead of spending huge amounts of money on traditional advertising, guerrilla marketing is about making the best use of limited resources and finding ways to cheaply generate attention while spending effort and energy instead of money.
Guerrilla marketing can take many forms:
- Spectacles: In New York City, G.E. did a guerrilla marketing campaign to announce a new type of washing machine that could be preloaded with six months of detergent at a time. They strung huge clotheslines in Times Square with six months’ worth of laundry, superimposed over large-size printouts of the new washing machine. For a virtual event, your spectacles are more likely to be presented online (for example as a viral YouTube video), but, the principle is largely the same.
- Street teams: Another guerrilla marketing tactic involves hiring actors to build buzz by making in-person appearances on the street. For example, the Discovery Channel hired actors to dress up as lifeguards and spend time sitting at “lifeguard stations” on the street in Manhattan to promote the channel’s Shark Week.
- Giveaways: A simple way to generate buzz for a product is to simply give samples away on the street, whether it’s a new variety of soda or a sample of a new type of personal care product. This is a simple way to put the product in the hands of customers and create some immediate visibility. In the case of a virtual event, this might take the form of a free digital download or other gift that can be easily made available online.
- Flash mobs: T Mobile has gotten huge publicity and millions of YouTube views with its flash mobs, like this one, where professional singers welcomed back travelers to Heathrow Airport with upbeat renditions of popular songs. While Flash mobs happen in the real world, the big payoff comes later when the project goes viral online. As a result, there is no reason that virtual events can’t benefit from this kind of approach.
There are a few key principles to keep in mind if you’re going to use guerrilla marketing to promote your next virtual event:
- Be honest: Guerrilla marketing is based on making simple, honest claims. Don’t try to promise too much. Instead, just give people the facts and extend a simple offer to attend the event. Don’t promise them the world. All you want is to get their attention in an unexpected way.
- Don’t annoy people: Guerrilla marketing can backfire if it’s not handled with care. If your guerrilla marketing efforts come off as too aggressive, invasive or insincere, you might alienate your audience.
- Keep it relevant: Merely getting attention for its own sake is not useful. If your guerrilla marketing generates attention but without getting people to connect that attention with the message of your virtual event, then it didn’t work.
Here are a few quick ideas for how to do guerrilla marketing for a virtual event:
- Reach out to partners and influencers: If you’re hosting a virtual trade show, make sure to include your exhibitors, sponsors and partners in your guerrilla marketing efforts. Any marketing messages or buzz-building efforts need to be shared and cross-promoted by all of the different parties involved in the event. Ask your event partners to spread the word about your virtual event on their social media networks.
- Include offline efforts: Just because it’s a virtual event doesn’t mean your guerrilla marketing has to be limited to online channels. For example, if you’re hosting a virtual event for employees from a valued customer, you could hire a barbershop quartet to sing a song in the lobby of the company’s building. If you have high-value attendees that you definitely want to have in the audience at your virtual event, you could send them a delivery of cookies or flowers at their office, with a reminder card.
Guerrilla marketing is likely to become a more important part of the overall marketing effort for virtual events, as companies look for ways to create interest, seize attention and build buzz, without spending a lot of money. Just remember to keep it honest, keep it relevant.
Instead of putting on empty stunts, the best guerrilla marketing reminds your audience of the value that your virtual event offers, and gives them a memorable offer that makes them want to attend.
Join the conversation. Agree with me? Good. Disagree? Even Better! Tell me why…
Have you ever used guerrilla marketing to promote a virtual event? What worked, and what didn’t? Which of these guerrilla marketing principles have you seen at work in your own virtual event promotions?
About Ike Singh
Ike Singh Kehal is the CEO and co-founder of Social27, a leading virtual events solution with Enterprise clients across the globe. Ike is a respected business professional with 15+ years of marketing, sales, and business development experience. His latest company, Social27 was founded in 2007 to take advantage of the growing need for social media and game dynamics integration in virtual events. Prior to starting Social27, Ike drove numerous startup projects, including Indiabulls Retail, where he was CEO. Previously, he held various business strategy positions at Microsoft, spread over a seven-year period. Ike is a committed member of the virtual events community and contributes regularly to the discussion at http://www.virtualeventshub.com