Recommended | Aim It Media

Guerrilla Marketing success in 7 steps

By: AimItMedia Sunday, 29th of March 2009

1. Find the inherent drama within your offering: something about your offering that is inherently interesting.

2. Translate that inherent drama into a meaningful benefit: people buy benefits, not features. Stick with one or two … three at most.

3. State your benefits in as believable a way as possible: it must be accepted beyond doubt. Begin with the inherent drama and turn it into the benefit(s).

4. Get people’s attention: people don’t pay attention to “ads” they pay attention to what interests them. Forget the ad. Make the product or service interesting!

5. Motivate your audience to get involved: tell them to visit you online, come to your store, call or email you. Tell people exactly what you want them to do.

6. Be sure you’re communicating clearly: zero ambiguity is your goal. Communicate from the customer’s perspective and make the message clear.

7. Measure your finished marketing materials against your creative strategy: use a creative strategy to maintain consistency and as a guideline for all your marketing materials. This strategy is your business’ blueprint.

Paraphrased from: Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition

Guerrilla Marketing your Business

By: AimItMedia Sunday, 22nd of March 2009

Wow! I’m so jazzed up from just the first chapter of this book that I had to share some of it with you.
Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition

I’ve been a long-time practitioner of his methods since 1994 and love that they are updated for today’s tech.
I’ll be paraphrasing below and adding my own insights mixed in a bit.

Defining Guerrilla Marketing: Every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. The art of getting people to change (or maintain) their mindsets to do business with you. It is the truth made fascinating. It is a circle. It is a science. It is a business and the purpose of a business is to earn profits. It requires an investment in time, energy, imagination, and information. Profits are the ONLY numbers that tell you the truth about your Guerrilla Marketing efforts.

Key concepts of Guerrilla Marketing:

90% of all purchase decisions are made in the unconscious mind and Repetition is the key to that mind.

The way to grow a business is geometrically (enlarging each transaction, engaging more transactions per sale with each customer, using referral power of those customers, and traditional forms of marketing).

68% of all business lost is due to apathy after the sale (ignoring customers after the purchase). Guerrilla Marketing preaches fervent follow-up.

Cooperate with similar, non-competing, businesses in joint marketing efforts (Fusion Marketing).

Points made to the eye are 78% more memorable than points made to the ear.

Practice “You Marketing” in which every word and every idea is about the customer.

Understand the “Lifetime Value” of a customer.

Give away free and valuable information to your customers.

Combination Marketing is the way to go. Use an ad to get the customer to your website. Use a website to get your customer to your store. Use your “Lifetime Value” concepts to make the sale and build the relationship. These relationships are the key to your profits vault.

Monthly take stock of your new “relationships” you’ve created and strengthen them.

Guerrilla Marketing requires you to be “technocozy” (up to date with new technology) … but if you aren’t and have no desire to be, that’s where Aim It Media steps in and helps you.

Aim your message at the individual, not some disbursed group.

Realize the stunning importance of those tiny but supercharged details that make your message intentional.

Gain the customer’s consent to receive more marketing from your business. This is often referred to as “opting-in” or “Permission Marketing”.

Create a dialogue with your customers making them involved in your interactive marketing efforts. Relationships grow from dialogues.

Guerrilla Marketing identifies 200 Weapons of Marketing (and many of them are FREE!).

Want to learn the 200 Weapons of Guerrilla Marketing?

You can either buy the book Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition and study it from cover to cover, or hire Aim It Media to do all the hard work for you.

Visit my website now and sign up for my D.A.R.T.S. Newsletter(over in the sidebar ==>), or just email me.

Brand Development for Retail Businesses

By: AimItMedia Sunday, 8th of February 2009

Branding has evolved from focusing on the actual products or services to taking an important role in the entire consumer experience.

There are many aspects to the retail environment that must ve considered when designing a consumer experience. Every item in the store, from the window displays and signage to product labeling, must all be consistent in their mood, tone, and delivery of the brand promise.

Here are 5 key elements you must get right in creating a great brand expierence.

1. Exterior Signage: Make sure it’s large enough to be legible from a distance and don’t forget to take different lighting situations into account (i.e. at night, through fog, etc.).

2. Interior Signage: Use it to guide your customers through your store so they can find what they seek.

3. Point of Purchase: Call attention to specific products and/or specials.

4. Merchandise Labels: Consider size, style, flavor, scent.

5. Marketing Collateral: Promote and reinforce your brand with product brochures, advertising displays, credit card applications, postcards, coupons, etc.

Paraphrased from: The Complete Graphic Designer by Ryan Hembree
The Complete Graphic Designer: A Guide to Understanding Graphics and Visual Communication

Brand Development and your Business

By: AimItMedia Sunday, 1st of February 2009

Brands are much like corporate identity in that they require visual consistency. However, the application of a brand extends well beyond two-dimensional, printed collateral; it includes the entire customer experience, everything from the logo and packaging to customer service and the retail environment. All the various elements of the branding work together to help customers form an opinion about your business, it’s products and services. This is known as the "brand experience."

Here are 5 key reasons why branding adds value to your business.

Customer Recognition: Branding helps to identify and distinguish your business from your competitors and helps your customers to remember your business when it’s time to buy.

Resonates Core Values: Branding gives meaning to the intention of your business’ core values and enforces those values into a memorable form for your target audience.

… continue reading “Brand Development and your Business” »