Guerrilla Marketing... in Action, The Body of Christ (9)

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

Guerrilla Marketing (2007) by Jay Conrad Levinson has been updated since its initial release in the early 1980's. This latest addition has been updated to include today's technology advances and new culture affecting how we market today. It is very timely in that the current economic conditions bring acute relevancy to its ideas and principles. Guerrilla marketing is not based on how much money you have to spend, but the time, energy, imagination and information you have to spend. We are in an era of innovation. This puts Guerrilla Marketing in excellent position to make the most of these times.

Guerrilla Marketing simplifies, explains how entrepreneurs can use marketing to generate maximum profits from minimum investments. The small business is in a better position to get up close and personal with its customers.

When you fully see the true nature of your business, your goal, your strengths and weaknesses, your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and the needs of your target market, your positioning will be that much easier to determine and your strategy that much easier to plan. Small businesses have an advantage over large businesses in that they can occupy smaller niches and prosper by dominating them. Identify your target markets and take aim.

The seven-sentence Guerrilla Marketing Strategy:
1. The purpose of marketing is the physical action you take.
2. How you'll achieve that purpose... your competitive advantage and benefits.
3. Your target market.
4. The marketing weapons you will use.
5. Your niche and your position and what you stand for.
6. The identity of your business.
7. Your budget expressed in a percentage of gross sales you'll spend on marketing.

Creative marketing is only creative to the effect it sells the offering. To be successful in your creative marketing follow these seven steps.
1. Find the inherent drama within your offering.
2. Translate the inherent drama into a meaningful benefit.
3. State your benefits in as believable a way as possible.
4. Get people's attention.
5. Motivate your audience to get involved.
6. Be sure you are communicating clearly.
7. Measure your finished advertisement, commercial, letter, etc., against your creative strategy.

The key to successful marketing is a smart creative strategy. Talk about the experience the prospect will experience after owning what you are selling.

Every marketing vehicle has its own particular strengths. Limitless marketing weapons are available to you. Which do you choose? Choose the one's you can do well. Be aware of the marketing weapons available. Launch many of them. Stay aware which are failing and which are working wonders. Eliminate those missing the mark and double the ones hitting the bull's eye.

When you choose your weapons, create your marketing calendar. The calendar may be weeks or a year in length. Launch as many weapons as you can effectively. But only those you know will be read, seen or heard by your target market.

As an example, a handyman used the marketing methods at minimal costs: Canvassing, personal letters, circulars, brochures, signs on bulletin boards, classified ads, yellow pages, direct mail, free seminars, trade show booth, public relations, production, on-line classified ads. A music mart used brochures, newspaper displays, radio and TV spots, search lights, website. The idea is to create a synergy among what you use. Two great marketing methods combined with two other media creates an impact greater than four.

Today the small business can research more effectively than ever. With Internet search getting better and more exhaustive, much information can be obtained and networks formed with key business relationships than ever. Websites, files on line, chats, professional social networks, surveys.

Levinson goes into detail on how to use mini-media marketing. The areas covered include canvassing (how to make presentations flow), business cards, personal letters, telephone marketing, circulars, brochures, classified advertising, gift certificates, signs (big and little ones), signs on bulletin boards, desktop publishing, yellow pages. Then he has another section on maximedia marketing. This includes newspapers, magazines, radio, television, direct-mail marketing, envelopes, postcards, catalogs, direct-mail wrap-up.

A new-media marketing is taking a strong foothold. Internet marketing is coming up as the most powerful new media for marketing. Remember the rule of thirds. Develop a budget for online marketing. Spend a third of it in developing your site, a third in promoting your site, and a third in maintaining your site. Internet marketing has these three components.
1. Begin with a wonderful product or service.
2. Create a motivational website.
3. Send emails with hyperlinks to your website.

Create a blog. Provide information in an informal, entertaining style. Everyone can be an author or publisher. Many blog sites can be hosted free. You can be current with information daily. (Note Levinson's blog applications at his website below.)


Podcasting, the distribution of audio, video over the internet are great to listen to and view what you want to, when you want to.

Nanocasting is like podcasting but targeted to a specific audience. It blends podcasting, streaming, and e-commerce technologies. It is a narrow casting to a defined market group.

Email is the most widely used. Emails should be brief, short paragraphs, getting to the point quickly. Updates, newsletters. special offers, preferred customer offers are some ways to use it to stay personal with your customers.

Websites now can be built with many Internet tools available including templates so that the average business person can make his own. Keep it simple, friendly and make it easy to get around. Subscription websites are common with periodicals, publications and professional services.

Other applications are teleseminars (live seminars conducted over the phone), webinars (a visual seminar conducted over the web), E-books are becoming part of websites, automated marketing with payment made on line, and search engine optimization gets them to you faster.

Info-Media Marketing provides valuable information that leads to more sales.They include free consultations, writing for publications, having free seminars, doing free demonstrations, doing an e-zine (a digital magazine), columns and articles and hitting the club circuit with free speeches.

Human-media marketing is marketing yourself. Be likable. Be a personality others like to be around. Arm your sales people with media weapons. Provide your employees with a business fashionable look, clothes that look nice and carry your name and slogans. Establish an inner circle who will market you, and make frequent contact with your customers. Develop skills in saying hello and goodbye... smile, make eye contact, and use the person's name. Tell your stories and stories using real customer experiences. Provide sales training, network and make sure you get as many business cards as you can. Become an affiliate with others. Above all build satisfied customers who will tell great stories about you.

Levinson concludes this section with these general thoughts.You are really in four businesses at once... the one on your business card, the marketing business, the service business, and the people business. You serve people by finding out what their interests really are and showing them that you really care about them.

Levinson concludes the book with nonmedia marketing. These don't cost you to do them but they will cost you if you don't. First, service is everything a customer really wants, what they pray for.

Public relations is making the most of every relationship you have with everybody. Everyone gives you free publicity. Make sure it's good publicity.

Trade shows are a great place to meet people, both the attendees and the exhibitors. You will be amazed how much other exhibitors will spread the word after spending a day getting to know you more in depth.

Fusion marketing is the mutual helping of each other through collaborations, co-marketing, partnering, etc. Get involved in the community, join groups, clubs, associations.

Following up is a great marketing tool as most people appreciate you staying in touch. Always look for ways to stir up word of mouth. It's amazing how many times someone comes to you because a friend recommended you.

Sponsor contests and create a competitive advantage that makes you stand out from others. Get your elevator speech down so you can get this across in a minute or less. And guarantee what you do to limit the risk others may carry in their mind as they consider using you.

The Guerrilla Marketing attitudes are passion, generosity, speed, neatness, good telephone demeanor, value, easy to do business with and flexibility.

At the conclusion of Guerrilla Marketing is a list of 200 marketing weapons to strategically, with synergy, combine to advance your marketing position. Additional resources are at the end of the book and more on Guerrilla Marketing at the website. Since the Guerrilla Marketing concept was introduced in 1983, Levinson has written many books on a variety of applications he has for many businesses. Be sure to check out the hundreds of article topics and relevant blog.
http://www.gmarketing.com/

In the second part of the Body of Christ in Action, Dr. J. Robert Ashcroft spends most of his time in 1 Corinthians 13 and 14.

The fulfillment of all the functions of the gifts rests on the power of the love the Holy Spirit gives us. To be in one accord and have pure unity is the central nerve of the best of everything. John expresses this in 1 John 4: 8-13:

"But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us." (NLT)

Paul refers to love as the most excellent way. We should follow the path of love, especially in the Body of Christ. It is a sacrificial love as every one considers others more important than themselves. This is the cement that holds, creates a bonding unity, in the relationship of the Believers. Then in this Agape love of God all the Supernatural power of God can be manifested. God is there in all of His Supernatural power, if we are in His love.

All the eloquence we possess is nothing without love. Without a demonstration of love in all we do, all we do amounts to nothing.

As we consider the Supernatural gifts of the Spirit of eloquence, prophecy, understanding mysteries, all knowledge, faith, meeting needs of the poor, even becoming a martyr, if we do not have love it amounts to nothing and we profit nothing by it. Within the Body of Christ it accomplishes nothing. Our highest priority is to be completely yielded to the Holy Spirit.

In our own humanity it is impossible to achieve the quality of love. So we are locked into a total dependence upon the Holy Spirit. The emphasis and practice of waiting for the Holy Spirit must be our first consideration. Such a challenge must be kept ever before us in our present environment.

These rudiments of love must never leave our conscious and functional times...love is patient, always kind, not envying others, or boasting about ourselves, being constantly unselfish, mild and even tempered, not being suspicious of others, unhappy with evil, rejoicing in truth, surviving in pressure, full of stubborn faith, with and unwavering confidence in God's power, enduring to the end in all challenges and goals, and refusing to relent in love, love never fails.

To attain love is to grow up in our faith, have a clear vision of Jesus and what He has done for us, holding an honest knowledge of ourselves, practice this highest and greatest virtue throughout all we do, making love supreme. To have unity in and among believers is the key to our power as the Body of Christ in Spirit. Love must be practiced first, last and always by those in the Body of Christ in their actions and attitudes to each other.

To strengthen the unity of the Body of Christ, these mandates will preserve the unity... to be informed, be unselfish and be courteous.

Be Informed
Follow after love. With love we have no divisions between those who put love up front in all they do. The Supernatural is free to work as it expands to the levels only it can. Desire Spiritual Gifts. So it requires to wait for them, wait in God's presence. Tarry until they come. It is important to give time to tarry, or wait for, the leading of the Holy Spirit to show itself. Of all the Spiritual Gifts desire to prophesy. Make this a top priority in order to communicate the Word of the Lord to the Believers.

Be Unselfish
In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul suggests that if someone has a message in a tongue not known to the group, to share it... only if there is an interpreter. Otherwise keep it in private and not for public expression. Although, if more than one has a message as such, it should be kept to two or three at the most. Paul goes on to say that we should not forbid people to speak who have a gift of tongues. The point being made is that we should be considerate of others and cooperation should rule the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit in a group.

Above all prophesy... then everyone can understand you. Again, if you have a Word from Spirit it should be limited by two or three as well. The Spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophets. What this implies is all things are in control and there is not a spirit of things being out of control. All things should carry with them a sense of agreement among the group and the unity then brings the manifest presence of God's Spirit. As we agree together in His Name we can expect all kinds of unexpected workings of the Spirit among us.

Be Courteous
The Spirit is gentle. The Spirit came on Jesus like a dove. A dove can be easily frightened away. We are to be building up the community of believers. We will see this accomplished if we find the grace from the Holy Spirit to treat one another with respect, neither grieving the Holy Spirit or our fellow believers.

When we apply the love in 1 Corinthians 13 and the etiquette expressed in 1 Corinthians 14, we will go a long way to insure the unity of the Body of Christ. Thus we make ourselves candidates for the manifest presence of the Lord. Where He is, the Power of Jesus looms in all His mighty power.