10 Guerrilla Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business Offline

As a business owner, you’re constantly looking for ways to grow your business. While most of the articles I write focus on growing your business online, today I’m going to focus on the offline side of things.

Before the internet came along, one of the oldest forms of marketing was called Guerrilla Marketing. This marketing concept was established to help small businesses expose their brands or products by direct offline exposure via foot traffic or word of mouth buzz from people who were talking about their brand or products.

Guerrilla marketing is a strategy used by small businesses who are facing budget constraints to hire a professional firm for their advertising needs. This strategy aims to achieve conventional results by using unconventional methods. This marketing strategy invests in energy, idea and creativity rather than money to reach its target market.

Here are 10 guerrilla marketing ideas to grow your business offline:

1. Public Relations

PR has been one of the oldest forms of guerrilla marketing. However, it still remains to be one of the most effective ways to get buzz building around a business or brand even today.

The great part about PR campaigns is that it generally is absolutely FREE and you promote your product or brand to major publications. These publications will highlight your business or write an article featuring your business it in, thus exposing your company to a large audience. When launching StatFuse, this was one of the ways that we obtained 10,000 users in 2 weeks during our beta!

2. Street Propaganda

Another very old & effective form of guerrilla marketing is known as street propaganda. Coming up with creative marketing campaigns in local neighborhoods or areas that you think your business is relevant is a great way to get some attention.

I am definitely not promoting you to tag up your local neighborhoods with graffiti, but ideas of street propaganda can vary. For example, we’ve had local kids in the neighborhood that are already hanging out earn some extra money by handing out our flyers. The aim of street propaganda is to really give your brand exposure in a certain area.

3. Give Discounts

The next best word after “FREE” to capture someone’s attention is “DISCOUNT” or “SALE”. A popular and effective guerrilla marketing strategy used by businesses often times is offering coupons.

While sites like Groupon and LivingSocial tend to dominate the coupon market, there are numerous other ways to get your coupons out there. People still tend to read local print newspapers and many neighborhoods will often have coupon books distributed to the houses in the area. By including your business and a small little coupon, you can definitely expose your brand to a new audience.

4. Support Local Community Events

One of the most successful ways that I’ve been able to give my business positive exposure over the years has been through supporting the local community. If your local community is having any charitable events, become a sponsor. By becoming a sponsor, you can do a meet and greet with the locals while promoting a great cause.

Building a solid relationship between your business and the community can help boost popularity and sales. You can offer products or giveaways to the public while embedding your brand and business, which can lead to them buying from you and increasing your sales down the line.

5. Give Stuff Away

Remember how earlier I said that the best word people love to hear is FREE? If you have a little bit of a budget and are willing to use it for a giveaway, you can really get some hype around your business.

Free is a word that everyone loves to hear. Give something for FREE away to your customers in exchange for an email address or a phone number. I see these types of giveaways taking place all the time. In fact, just the other day I was at the Angels baseball game and Honda was doing a giveaway. Get a free backpack and pair of sunglasses by just filling out a form with your name, email address and phone number. They must have collected at least 2,500 data points at that game.

6. Random Acts Of Kindness

All marketing aside, entrepreneurs should all go in with the mindset of making the world a better place. That’s why I’m an entrepreneur. Making money, having awesome sales numbers and scalable business models are all great, don’t get me wrong. Howvever, making a difference in the world is the greatest thing of all to me.

Another way to reach your market and advertise is by doing something that can put a smile on the face of your customers. Everyone wants to receive simple acts of kindness, such as free hugs for children from having a brand mascot act a fool (if you have one). Find ways to be creative while helping people as you capitalize on exposing your brand.

7. Make It Rain With Stickers

Another super awesome way that we made StatFuse go viral in the early months of launching was through the use of stickers. We were targeting high school students and we decided to print a bunch of stickers to give away to them for FREE.

Stickers were an amazing form of advertising for us. They were sticking our stickers on their notebooks, backpacks, laptops and even other students. The best part of all this was that our brand was constantly being exposed through the use of these stickers. Stickers are an inexpensive and efficient to way show off your business to the world.

8. Pop Up Shops

This method of guerrilla marketing has become extremely popular in recent years and many businesses have thrived as a result of it. Another way of reaching your target market, is by reaching them in the flesh.

Setting up a pop up shop in various high traffic locations can be a GREAT way to gain brand exposure and to directly sell your products to customers. Setting up a temporary physical store at street corners, or within a store, is a way of bringing your point of sale to your customers.

9. Hire An Influencer

While most people turn to social media influencers to be a brand ambassador, you can look to offline influencers as well. Hiring an influential person to promote your product can influence your customer to purchase your product.

Influencers, as they are called, can use their fame and connections to endorse your product and get noticed by the public. If you have a product that doesn’t necessarily cater well to a social influencer, try to find an offline influencer that can make a big difference.

10. Urban Hacktivism

Now before I mention this, I am in no way condemning anything that is illegal or done without the permission of those who need to be asked. An unusual way to advertise and evoke curiosity to the market is by using creativity through the urban world.

A really awesome and cool marketing idea I had seen a few years ago was in Downtown Los Angeles. A street wear brand had created a ‘scavenger’ hunt of sorts that led to their store and warehouse. They ran this scavenger hunt by using the existing street signs as clues and leaving behind clues at various public places. I don’t know exactly how successful this campaign was, but when I did visit the store during the time that they were running the scavenger hunts, I noticed a line all the way to the parking lot.

Conclusion

Guerrilla marketing is about using your marketing skills mixed with creativity, ingenuity, imagination and innovative ideas that can titillate the public’s interest at a low cost. In this post, I shared 10 guerrilla marketing ideas grow your business offline.