The United States is in the midst of an entrepreneurial explosion, one of
the most hopeful signs for the country’s future. As an author, you are
an entrepreneur. Every book you write is a separate enterprise with its
own fate and its own reckoning that balances income against expenditures.
For guerrillas, the only business criterion that counts is profits.
Marketing is anything done to sell a product or service and maintain
relationships with the people who make the business possible. Fortune 500
companies spend millions to market their products.
But like most entrepreneurs, authors don’t have millions to spend. They
have to be guerrilla marketers. They have to use unconventional weapons
and tactics that substitute time, energy, and imagination for money. That is
the essence of guerrilla marketing.
What are the characteristics of guerrilla marketing as opposed to traditional
marketing?
Guerrilla marketing differs in twelve ways:
1. Traditional marketing uses as big a budget as possible; guerrilla marketing substitutes time, energy, and imagination for money.
2. Traditional marketing is geared to big businesses; guerrilla marketing, to owners of small businesses with a big dream but not a big bankroll.
3. Traditional marketing measures effectiveness with sales; guerrilla marketing, with profits.
4. Traditional marketing is based on experience and then judgment that involves guesswork. Guerrilla marketing is based on psychology—the laws of human behavior that determine buying patterns.
5. Traditional marketing recommends that businesses increase their production and then diversify by offering allied products and services.
Guerrilla marketing recommends that you maintain your standard of excellence by focusing on writing your books, and diversify only if you can create synergy that helps sell your books without lowering their quality.
6. Traditional marketing encourages linear growth by adding new customers.
Guerrilla marketing also encourages attracting new customers but recommends that you grow your business exponentially by using service and follow-up to create more transactions, larger transactions, and referrals from your present customers.
7. Traditional marketing advocates destroying competition; guerrilla marketing urges you to cooperate with competitors and create win-win opportunities with other authors.
8. Traditional marketing believes that one marketing weapon alone can work; guerrilla marketing believes in the synergy created by a combination of weapons.
9. Traditional marketing urges businesses to count their monthly receipts to see how many sales they’ve made; guerrilla marketing recommends that you count how many relationships you make each month because each relationship can generate many receipts.
10. In the past, traditional marketing didn’t encourage using technology because it was too complicated, expensive, and limited; guerrilla marketing has always embraced technology because it’s simple to use, reasonably priced, and limitless in its potential.
11. Traditional marketing identifies a handful of marketing weapons that are relatively costly; guerrilla marketing begins with a base of one hundred weapons, more than half of which are free, and urges you to create others.
12. Traditional marketing intimidates small-business owners because it is enshrouded in mystique and complexity; guerrilla marketing removes the mystique and puts you in control.