Week 3 - MBA 6101 - Guerilla Marketing

 

Hello,

One could argue that there are many means to successful marketing. How many books are available on the subject, eager to teach their own variation of the standard methods? But, for a small firm who must elbow their way into a market full of established heavy weights, Jay Levison has the guerilla marketer focus on sixteen simple words. The words are commitment, investment, consistent, confident, patient, assortment, subsequent, convenient, amazement, measurement, involvement, dependent, armament, consent, content, and augment (Levison, 2007). A few words that cover a wide swath of necessary guerrilla marketing activities.

 

 

For this blog, there will be a focus on only a couple of these words and their corresponding impact. Be warned, Levinson does caution that for a successful guerilla, all sixteen words must be utilized. Commitment, investment, and armament are linked together. First, the marketer must be willing to make the commitment of resources and time to invest into their venture. As a small firm, there are not many resources simply lying around, and the decision may be difficult. Nevertheless, a commitment cannot be short term. Instead, the owner will need to dig in and stick by their guns, trusting that the action taken will yield results.

The investment of these resources into the armaments of guerilla marketing is vital. As Thucydides writes, war is not so much a matter of armaments as of the money which makes armaments effective (Thucydides, 1954). What does this mean? It means it takes money to compete against the big players in a market. That is where the commitment is important, and the willingness to invest, but the investment is not spent frivolously. Instead, the guerilla marketer spends those hard-earned resources on effective armaments that will carry the small firm’s message to the customer’s ear. Utilizing three of Levison’s words is a good start, but as warned earlier, the dedicated guerilla must utilize all sixteen to be successful.

 

Citation:

Levinson, J. (207). Guerilla Marketing, Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from your    Small Business. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Thucydides. (1954). The History of the Peloponnesian War. Penguin Group.