Book Review - “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson

Let’s start off by asking, What is Guerilla Marketing? In the book, “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson, the author says that guerrilla marketing is all about adapting. It is about changing. It is about not continuing the same techniques and ideas, but constantly keeping an eye on your marketplace to see what can be done differently.

“Success-found companies are either growing and changing or dying. Failure to adapt is the leading cause of death.”

This is the main theme of this book. Pay attention to your surroundings and adapt. The author makes sure to explain that the word “marketing” is not always about future prospects. It is about prospects as well as current clients. More than half of your marketing should be devoted to existing customers, or the effort and investment it took to obtain those customers could be wasted.

Guerrilla marketing tactics are not always about spending money. Traditional marketing has always maintained that to market properly, you must invest money. Guerilla marketing maintains that if you want to invest money, go for it, but you do not have to if you are willing to invest time, energy, imagination, and information. The author explains how the guerilla approach is different from the traditional approach by giving many examples. One of them that stuck out to me is about a logo. Traditional marketing urges you to have a logo that represents your company where guerilla marketing is more than that. Guerilla marketers will have a meme that represents their company in addition to just the logo. Right now, as you read this, you are probably thinking of a few company’s memes in your head that stand out.

In the book, the author asks his readers to stop for a second and ask yourself whether you are marketing properly right now. He states that the answer is probably no if any of these danger signals are present.

My sales are driven mostly by price.

Customers cannot distinguish my products or services from those of my competitors.

I use disconnected sales gimmicks.

I do not have a unified plan for imparting my message to my customers and to the trade.

He goes on to give a few more examples…Read the book to find out what they are.

Per the author, the secret to being a great guerilla marketer can be summarized in 16 words. Each of these words ends in “ent”.

Commitment, investment, consistent, confident, patient, assortment, subsequent, convenient, amazement, measurement, involvement, dependent, armament, consent, content, and augment. He goes on to explain the context in how guerilla marketing relates to each of these words. Read this for yourself. It will be worth it. The author goes into great detail in describing how you can become a guerilla marketer.

At the end of the book, he compares some guerilla marketing tactics to “acting like a child.”

-Children are persistent.

-Children ask a lot of questions.

-Children refuse to be restricted by the realities of others.

-Children have very active imaginations.

-Children rarely accept no as a final answer.

-Children enjoy learning.

-Children love to be the first to talk about something new.

-Children try to make everything fun.

-Children talk until they believe that they’re understood.

Wow.

If you want to make next year your best year ever, I would recommend “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson.