I remember when Guerrilla Marketing came out. I was so excited. Here were a bunch of different methods to run powerful marketing campaigns without spending a dime.
It was revolutionary.
At last, the average Joe could build a business even with a marketing budget no deeper than his pant pockets.
The philosophy laid out in that book still holds good. It is still possible to sell products without buying a 30-second spot during the Superbowl.
The methods are still good too. There are plenty that I use all the time.
But Web 2.0 and social media has poured a pile of new weapons into the guerilla marketer\’s arsenal.
Today it\’s possible to spread a message about your product to thousands of people without going anywhere near your wallet.
And best of all, you can do it directly.
Blogs let you communicate with thousands of people at a time. Facebook groups can let those people talk about your product among themselves. And Twitter, of course, gives you the opportunity to converse with individual buyers while letting everyone else see what you\’re saying.
All of those tools are hugely powerful. And every single one of them is free.
Or rather every single one of them is almost free because even though you can write a blog post for nothing, set up a Facebook account without paying for it and tweet all you want without running up a bill, you will be spending a fortune on something else.
Time.
Time isn\’t exactly money – write \”20 minutes\” on a check and the cashier won\’t find it very funny – but it can be measured in money. The hours you put into tweeting or blogging on your personal website are an investment. They might not deliver revenue right away but they should deliver in the future.
Marketing of any sort takes time and it takes effort. It\’s not enough to come up with a good idea and know that people will love it. You have to set aside hours to tell them about it, generate interest and get everyone excited.
That\’s the job of being an Internet marketer. Social media hasn\’t changed the need to spill time into marketing. It\’s just made it a lot easier – and a lot more fun.