People love to share their experiences, whether it’s posting on Instagram about how great the sandwiches are at the new place on the corner, or tweeting about the fantastic customer service is at their car dealership. This is referral marketing.

In the age of sharing everything and anything on social media, in blog posts, or over a drink, it’s crucial for dealerships to do everything they can to create positive customer experiences. The reason: If your customers had a memorable experience — good or bad — you can be sure they’re talking about it.

According to Nielsen, 85% of customers report they either completely or partially trust recommendations and reviews from family, colleagues, and friends regarding products and services. This makes these types of reviews the highest-ranked source for trust and verifiability.

In short, people trust the opinions of products and services from the people they care about most.

Referral marketing is powerful for many reasons, but what sets it apart from other marketing strategies is that it can almost effortlessly lead to more customers and strengthen your existing customer base — that is if you’ve provided an experience worth raving about.

So how can you use referral marketing to your advantage? We’re breaking down how you can create and implement a referral marketing strategy that converts.

Many business owners focus on products too much.

From its appearance and the price to their website and how it looks.

But is it nearly enough? 

Because recognition is the most critical aspect which is often overlooked, who will buy your product without knowing about the customer experience offered by your dealership?

This is where Referral marketing comes in.

It is how people get to know your products and services and visit your website.

One of the easiest ways to generate more leads is through referral marketing.

Referral marketing is the technique used by brands like PayPal, Uber, and Airbnb to drive traffic to their site.

Take Uber, for instance.  The user gets rewarded with “Free Rides” if they refer the service to their friends and the success story is for all of us to see.

Uber and various other companies that leverage referral marketing are spot on because 92% of respondents trusted referrals from people they knew.

92% is nothing to sneeze at; it's a huge deal.

As you can see, referral marketing is a reaally good way to generate new leads for your site.

Here are 10 ways to use referral marketing to generate new leads

1. Use Referral Marketing To Acquire Email Addresses 

Email addresses are like pure gold for marketing and sales professionals.

But like you need to mine hard to acquire regular gold, you have to go to great lengths to acquire email addresses.

But with referral marketing, the process of acquiring emails become decidedly easy.

In this system, you can ask your existing customers to refer people to your website and then persuade them to fill up an online form, thus acquiring plenty of email addresses or contact information.

Referral marketing forms aim to capture 3 emails or more. There are referral marketing forms that capture as much as 15 emails at once.  

This is one of the reasons why referral marketing helps you generate new leads.

It works by capturing the friends or connections of your customers.

In fact, referral marketing works because of the relationship between your customers and their referrals.

Since they are referring people that they know, the trust is already there. Because of this, they no longer need to convince their referrals to sign up or make a purchase. The referral himself may be willing to do it in his own free will because of his relationship with the referrer.

2. Encourage Referrals Through Rewards

Nothing valuable comes free in the industry.

Another reason why referral marketing is so attractive is the rewards.

You can’t just ask your customers to refer you to their family and friends without giving them something in return. If you do that, you’ll find that they will barely take any action.

If you want them to take action, you need to reward them and you can also automate this by using referral software.

In referral marketing, this is called as a referral incentive. It is what you give to your customers in return for referring their family and friends to your website.

Your reward can be of any form – discount coupon, gift card, extra dollars, and more.

Always remember that the reward you choose is of value to the client.

For example, you are giving a recent college grad a 10% discount on a product that targets relatively older strata of society. This idea is bound to fail big time. They are unlikely to take action.

So look at your sales and look at your most popular products.

Look at the purchasing behavior of your customers.

Look at the webpages that they visit the most. This will give you an idea of what type of reward will suit their tastes.

3. Reward both the parties 

Referral marketing doesn’t have to be exclusive to referrers. You can reward your leads as well.

Here’s the thing, if you only reserve rewards to referrers, your leads may not sign up or purchase from you.

It actually goes two ways.

This is what I am talking about. The referrer is giving someone $15 dollars off and getting the same in return. This means that neither party will be feeling left out, leading to a long chain of referrals.

Put yourself in their shoes.

Suppose someone is referring a product to you (and the referrer is getting a proficient discount to do so), but what’s in it for you?

Yes, you now have more trust in the product because a friend or an acquaintance is suggesting the product.

But is it enough to compel you to buy it?

While you need to give referrers a reward to encourage them to promote you, your leads also need the same. So you should consider rewarding both the referrer and the person who is being referred to the product in your referral marketing program.

So how does this increase your leads?

Well, rewarding your leads can also generate more referrals.

Since they have something that they can get out of signing up, they have a higher likelihood of taking action.

The best part is that it doesn’t stop there. These referrals can also encourage other people to take the same action. If your referral program also rewards referrers, they are far more likely to promote your website to other people.

4. Give Rewards Based on Milestones 

Is giving rewards too expensive for your business?

There’s a way around this. Instead of giving a reward for every sign-up or purchase, you can give the reward based on several actions that your referrer has done.

This way your rewards won’t go in vain and you will be rewarding the one who generates the most profitable results.

Your referrer has to meet a certain requirement or milestone before he can be eligible to receive the reward. This system will limit the number of rewards that go out at a certain time helping you maintain your budget.

YouTubers are cashing on using this referral marketing strategy. However, what they call a giveaway, which is exactly what I'm talking about.

Let’s have a look:

Look at the shocking amount of engagement. No discount coupon could have garnered this much interest in the audience.

Many people giveaway valuable rewards in exchange for set tasks or milestones.

For example, you are expected to follow the account being promoted, share their content, and more on multiple social media channels.

But this can have its drawbacks.

While this may help you maintain your budget, you may find that some customers may ignore your referral program because it is too hard to get the reward.

This can only work if you already have a vast market for your products and services, and these people like your brand enough to promote it no matter what. Otherwise, they will not be so keen on promoting a site that will not reward them right away or with a big enough incentive as the reward.

This form of referral marketing can generate leads if you use it with top affiliate marketers or influencers. This is because these people have the capability to refer your site to lots of people at once. If your reward is attractive enough, marketers and influencers may be excited to be included in your leaderboard and win the prize.

5. Encourage Your Audience to Make At Least 3 Referrals

Did you know that you can control how many referrals your customers must do to earn the referral incentive?

Referral marketing forms are interesting because you can set the number of referrals through the number of blanks. The more blanks the form have, the more referrals your customers have to make to earn the reward.

But you don’t want to make the number too high that your customer loses motivation to promote you. The magic number for referrals is 3. This means that you have to ask each customer to refer at least 3 people to earn your reward.

This drive leads to your site by using the exponential power of referral marketing. Every person can refer at least 3 people to your site, and these 3 can then refer 3 more and so on. The more people participate in your referral program, the more leads you get.

6. You Can Ask Customers to write Reviews

Reviews are more than just for product feedback.

Reviews drive leads too. This is the power of social proof. As more people buy products from you, the more they can encourage other people to do the same.

And reviews are so powerful that 40% of consumers form an opinion by reading just one to three reviews. 

Reviews do more than just refer people to your website.

Reviews encourage people to buy.

So the result from reviews is more than just traffic. The result is in sales. Sales count more because this drives your business. Having a ton of traffic that doesn’t convert doesn’t mean anything. You need more sales and reviews can help you to get that.  

7. Leverage Influencer Marketing

Referral marketing can drive new leads to your site by allowing your customers to refer other people to your site.

But did you know that you can also ask influencers to do that too?

There’s always a high activity around brands like Under Armour and how they are paying millions to star athletes like Stephen Curry to endorse their brand. People see their favorite star, someone they look up to and naturally flock to the stores to buy their product.

But what about relatively smaller companies? These companies cannot afford A-list celebrities. But in this age of social media, nothing is elusive.

Social media websites like Instagram and more have given rise to hordes of social media influencers. And these influencers are no small deal either. They boast of a whopping number of followers and have a loyal medley of followers who are willing to buy the product they refer to.

The best part about these influencers is that they are relatable because they are normal low-key people. Naturally, if my favorite influencer is talking about a product, it would be instinctive for me to give the product a try at least.

Have a look at the number of followers some of these social media influencers enjoy:

So how would you approach these social media influencers?

First, you need to approach them if they like to try your product or service. Ask them where you can send it, or if they'll stop in for a service and that you will give it to them for free.

Then, ask the influencer about his or her authentic feedback about the product.

Ask if he or she liked the product or service. If they do, ask if they can join your referral program and you are willing to give them an exclusive discount code that is in their name. This way, their followers can also try the product but at a discount.

Usually, the influencer will say ‘yes’ if he or she liked your product. He or she will feel excited to share it with his or her followers as well.

8. Follow-up with your Referral request

One of the problems with referral marketing is that it is often done once. It is as if auto dealerships and service departments are too timid to ask for referrals. When really, all it takes is one message and it doesn’t hurt one bit if they say ‘no.’

Even if your customers have already referred people to you in the past, it doesn’t hurt to ask for referrals again.

The social circle of your customers may have changed after a few months so they may have some new friends that they can promote to. So don’t be afraid to ask.

9. Start Referrals with Your Employees

Starting a referral program with no existing customers? It can be difficult if you don’t include your employees.

Even if you only have 10 employees, asking them to join your program and refer people to your site will help you get a jumpstart on your referral program.

PRO TIP: You can also use referral programs for hiring people. Many companies do this. They have an incentive for new sign-ups, and they ask their employees to refer more people to the company. It is the same as referral marketing, but the target is new employees.

10. You Can Give Free or Greatly Discounted Subscriptions Instead

The type of products and services have evolved over time. We now live in a sharing or subscription-based economy. Instead of selling retail products, you may be selling services.

For this, you can give 1-month subscriptions as rewards. This allows your customer to enjoy your services while also trying it and getting accustomed to it. When this becomes a habit, you encourage them to subscribe to your service in the future.

How can this drive leads?

Offer a car wash as a monthly subscription or oil changes every 3 months.

Well, this doesn’t cost you much. Unlike a freebie or a discount code that have an impact on your sales and budget, free or greatly discounted subscriptions are not that difficult to give away.

Time to Get Creative…

As you can see, there are so many different ways to drive leads to your website. You just need to be more creative.

Remember to put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

Try to answer these questions:

What products or services will they like?

What rewards will they most likely sign up for?

What is their pain?

Why do they need your products?

The answer to these questions will determine your referral incentive and the type of referral program that you should launch to generate more leads.

A referral program can help you get more leads to your site. So if you don’t have a referral program on your website, now is the time to start one. It will give your customers the power to promote your site for you.

Which referral marketing strategy are you using to generate leads? Do you think that referral marketing is worth giving a try?

Customers make customers. 

Why do I say this? 

Your customers are one of the most influential marketing forces you have, but only if you use their influential powers effectively. 

This is where word of mouth marketing comes into play. 

Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is one of the most potent assets – much more than any other form of marketing, whether it is paid or organic. 

Take a look at the research infographic below to grasp the power of word of mouth marketing fully:

Which raises the obvious question of how hard it is to ask your customers to advocate for your dealership credibility on your behalf? 

Not much should be your response. 

That stated, it does require a solid plan along with an array of techniques. 

In this article, I'll show you some of the most useful word of mouth marketing techniques to grow your auto dealership and service business. 

1. Encourage User-Generated Content 

As the name suggests, user-generated content is the content about your brand that is created and shared by your existing customers.

How does it help you? 

As we saw in the above infographic how other people influence people, user-generated content will help your brand build trust and authority in the market. 

85 percent of consumers find visual user-generated content more influential than brand photos or videos.

Here are some more interesting user-generated content statistics:

Now that you are sure of its impact, how will you leverage this technique of word of mouth marketing? 

Let’s see how other brands are doing it.

For example, Crocs leverages user-generated content under the hashtag #comeasyouare grabbed eyeballs, and the campaign turned into a worldwide success. 

They encourage their customers to post their photos and videos on social media platforms wearing their products with the hashtag #comeasyouare. 

They also feature the images on their website and social media platforms. 

You don’t need a huge budget to carry this out.

Just follow through with these three simple steps:

1. Create a unique hashtag to identify the content created by your customers. 
2. Encourage your customers to share their photos, videos, and gifs on social media by offering rewards in the form of discount coupons and free gifts. 
3. Showcase the user-generated content on your website as well as your social media channels. 
4. Hugely popular brands may not need to use incentives to compel people to share the content. However, you have to incentivize this technique of word of mouth marketing.

2. Share Customer Testimonials And Reviews 

Customer testimonials and reviews assure your audience that your product is indeed worth spending money on. 

It also makes customers feel more comfortable and less cynical before closing the final deal. 

There’s a reason they call it social proof! 

There are so many ways to feature your testimonials and reviews.

You can share elaborate testimonials on your landing page like this:

If you want to take your word of mouth marketing even a step further, then you can share case studies and add the link on your landing page.

 3. Feature Customer Ratings On Your Website 

How many of you purchase something from Amazon after you see the product’s customer rating?

It's well documented that most people consider star ratings before making the final purchase.

Did you know that for every one-star increase in a Yelp rating means a 5 to 9% increase in revenue.

So, incorporate a star-rating system with actual customers reviews on your website’s landing page to encourage your audience to buy your product.

4. Offer An Incentive To Create A Referral Program

Nothing comes free in this world – not even customer referrals. 

To get referrals, you need to give your existing customers a reason to refer friends and family to you. It doesn’t have to anything too big, just something valuable to the receiver. 

Take Uber, for instance. They reward their customers with free rides if they refer their service to their friends. 

Also, notice that it is a two-way process. Uber is not only rewarding its existing customer but also their prospect. 

If statistics are anything to go by, 92% of respondents trusted referrals from people they knew.

This word of mouth marketing technique creates a referral chain. Say, for example, you will refer something to your friend, who in turn will refer to their friend, and so and so forth. 

Therefore, giving your customers appropriate rewards can skyrocket your word of mouth marketing which in turn will boost your business.

5. Leverage Influencers For Your Word Of Mouth Marketing

Do you know that 60% of consumers have been influenced by a social media post or a blog review before purchasing a product or service? 

Please note that people don’t get influenced by just any post – the post and reviews have to come from an influencer in that niche.

It’s okay, no worries. Today, people are steadily leveraging influencers, who are like celebrities in their circle of followers.

Take a look at these statistics that account for the effectiveness of influencers:

Word of mouth marketing from an influencer is extremely valuable.

However, identifying the right influencers is a challenge. You have to identify the relevant influencer who has some impact on your target audience.

6. Build A Social Community 

According to 72% of marketers, social media is helpful to develop loyal fans. 

Word of mouth marketing will only work if you develop a tight-knit community on social media. 

For starters, you need to assess where your target audience is. Do they primarily use Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook?

You should know the answer to this question. 

Once you identify where your target audience is, the next step is to build a social community. It can only be done if you engage your customers and prospects. 

Have a look at how Topshop keeps engaging their leads even after they turn into their customer:

Once you start interacting with your customers online, they will be more inclined to share your posts and products with their followers.

7. Provide The Best Customer Experience 

Word of mouth marketing is heavily dependant on customer experience. Even freebies and other rewards are secondary to the customer experience.

If you are elated after having an excellent experience with a brand, you are likely to share that experience with your social media friends.

For example, have a look at how this user shared her customer experience on her social media channel:

This is a two-way sword.

Your excellent customer service can welcome a positive post from your customer’s.

On the other hand, if you don’t provide them with excellent customer service, it can also welcome their public ire. This can backfire on you and your brand.

So, make sure that every single customer you have is happy with your customer service. Every organic word of mouth endorsement is a plus point for the growth of your business.

Conclusion

Bottom line, if customers feel you are not focusing on them, they'll focus their attention on other vendors/brand instead. 

The best part about word of mouth marketing techniques is that they are free of cost. So, even a simple startup can leverage these tactics.

Spend time on building a tight-knit community of your target audience, and everything else will fall into place.

What is the best word of mouth marketing techniques that you have used to grow your business?

I’ve written on this site before about how word of mouth has been one of the main drivers of growth at my own business and how I use word of mouth marketing for clients.

But while word of mouth sounds simple on the surface, I’ve been hearing a lot of questions lately about how you actually put it into practice.

What is it that makes consumers share the products they love with others?

And how can marketers encourage this particular type of viral sharing for their software products?

That’s why, today, I’m taking a look not just at what word of mouth actually is, but also at the specific strategies you can use to start taking advantage of it at your company.

What is Word of Mouth?

At its core, word of mouth is about personal recommendations. As humans, we’re hard-wired to seek approval from others before making decisions. For instance, we know that:

• 90% of consumers believe recommendations from friends,
• 70% believe other consumer opinions and
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• 62% go in search of reviews before making a purchase.
• Three-quarters of consumers don’t trust advertisements
• Word of mouth generates 2x more sales than paid ads, and consumers are 4x more likely to buy when recommended by a friend

Thanks to technology and new forms of social sharing, word of mouth recommendations occur through more channels than ever before. It isn’t just asking a friend for tips.

Now, it’s also searching online, asking questions on digital forums and reading reviews and testimonials.

As a result, there are several different channels through which word of mouth occurs that marketers need to be aware of, including:

• User-generated content (UGC) and hashtags, which help expose potential new users to your company
•  
• Reviews and testimonials, which offer the social proof consumers are looking for
• Product and service ratings, which provide seemingly objective evidence to consumers who are comparing different options
• Incentivized sharing, such as Dropbox’s viral promotion to offer extra space for every referred friend
• Formal referral program, which attempts to turn your existing customers into a new sales force for your company
• Influencer marketing, which adds elements of social proof and authority to your outreach.

Not all of these strategies will be appropriate for your software company since word of mouth isn’t a cookie-cutter strategy.

The most effective methods for generating referrals are going to look different if you’re operating an e-commerce store or sharing video, rather than running an auto dealership. But since most of my experience is in running marketing and CPG companies, that’s where I’m focusing my suggestions in this article.

It’s also worth noting that neither the list above nor the strategies I’ll cover next are comprehensive.

Word of mouth is fluid – just because I haven’t included a particular channel or tactic in this article doesn’t mean that it can’t be leveraged successfully (or isn’t already driving results) for your company.

What Makes Word of Mouth Work?

Although there are plenty of different types of word of mouth marketing out there, they aren’t all equally effective.

Take Dropbox, for example.

Although every software company wants to run out and replicate their incentivized sharing program, the reality is that Dropbox successfully capitalized on a new strategy at a specific moment in time. Viral-style referral programs aren’t as effective as they used to be, in part because so many copycats followed in their footsteps.

So what does work these days? Although the specific combination of word of mouth elements that’s appropriate for each company may vary, the strategies below are ones I’m still seeing work effectively today.

Offer Early Users a Great Deal

No one launches a new market entry product, be it a new car model or any product for that matter with a fully-realized or utilized product. So why not offer the early users who are willing to give you a try anyways a great deal?

With our e-commerce store, we offered our first users a lifetime deal at a great price, both because we knew our product wasn’t where we eventually wanted it to be, and because we knew we’d be relying on them for critical early-stage feedback.

Take your service department an what do you think will happen if you offer lapsed car buyer who are not getting service from your dealership a 25% off all oil changes from now to when they trade in their vehicles?

Doing this has the added advantage of driving word of mouth since those who took you up on the deal shared the value they received with others in a similar situation. 

You'd be surprised how many people never hear from their dealership after month 36 post-purchase.

You don’t have to do a lifetime deal, but do consider that treating your lapsed service clients well can lead to a lifetime of future referrals and sales.

Figure out how to get your first hundred or your first hundred people using your product to spark that fire, and then the system works by itself.

Create Something Epic

You can also think about “freemium” in terms of content and customer experience. Hubspot is a great example of a software company that has grown on the basis of high-value, virally-shared free content – to the tune of more than $500M in revenue in 2018.

Yes, Hubspot has the advantage of having nearly a decade of content creation behind it, but there are advantages to entering markets late as well.

Today, very few dealerships create content that is based on guerilla marketing or word of mouth marketing. 

Imagine if you did and turned this into a content machine that was shared by customers on social media channels throughout your community?

How many of their coworkers, peers, church members and social or gym groups would they share these interactions with?

A few dozen or hundred?

Any dealership can benefit significantly from a “last mover advantage.”

In an already-crowded space, you are able to see the gaps that exist.

You can look at customer reviews to see what was working and what wasn’t.

And you can draw on those lessons to build a customer experience that was so different from what was already out there that people can't help but talk about it.

“Epic” doesn’t have to be big, either. It just has to be valuable.

There are tons of different ways to offer a stellar UX in 2019, from investing in customer service to optimizing your communication channels and making your product or service as easy to purchase as possible.

Find the right combination for your dealership by asking yourself what value you can provide for free or for a reduced cost to the customer that consumers would not have otherwise. Then communicate this to them and ask for referrals.

Organic vs. Amplified Word of Mouth

Organic word of mouth is great.

Any new customer you capture for free, by referral, represents a big win for your company’s bottom line.

But free can be slow when you’re starting out, which is why paying to amplify your message can make sense.

In a Bigcommerce article, Matt Warren shares the example of Flash Tattoos, which created a partnership with Beyonce to wear the company’s products at music festivals and performances.

It's worth noting that the paid collaboration boosted the brand’s sales by 1,100% and led to coverage on sites like Buzzfeed, TIME and Marie Claire.

Start small with amplified word of mouth campaigns until you’re confident you’ve got something that’ll convert. You can always scale up later to create further buzz.

Ask for Word of Mouth Shares

This might sound too simple to actually be effective, but the data tells us that, although referrals are so important for word of mouth marketing, only about a third of businesses are actually asking for them.

For best results, time your ask for the right moment.

Don’t spam new customers with requests.

Instead, wait until you’ve hit an “aha” moment until you’ve had a positive interaction or until your users have successfully completed some other type of milestone to make your request – whether or not you’ve decided to incentivize your referral program.

Leveraging the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing doesn’t have to be something that just “happens” at random.

There are specific choices you can make – no matter where you are in your company’s growth – to encourage this viral sharing from one person to another.

It’s critical that you do.

Half of American consumers, if they had to rely on just one source of information, would choose word of mouth referrals, while 83% have personally made a word of mouth recommendation. The #1 reason they’ve chosen to do so? 71% cite “a great experience” as the main motivator.  

Having a high-quality product with an epic customer experience is only the starting point.

By implementing the tactics described above, you’ll create a marketing machine that feeds itself through word of mouth recommendations.

What other strategies are you using to drive word of mouth referrals? Leave me a note below sharing what’s working – or not working – for you.

I'm happy to offer incites to make any WOMM plan successful.

Emotional connection ignites word of mouth marketing

So how do you build an emotional connection with your target audience?

Today more than ever customers are fickle and smarter than many marketers.

In fact:

• 76% of consumers don't believe ads (Yankelovich)
• 92% of consumers say that word of mouth is the best source for product ideas to purchase (McKinsey)
• 15% of every conversation includes a branded product or service (Northwestern University)

Fame can help you sell a few things fast, but having people feel that they know you –establishing that emotional connection – is key to long-term business value as an advocate.

But a lesson here is that producing content alone, or having a goal to be a YouTube leading dealership won’t work unless you’re building trust and goodwill with the audience.

To build a business based on fame, it’s not enough for people to “know of you.”

They have to feel like they really know you in a meaningful and emotional way.

The fact is, as trust in brands declines, more consumers will seek out genuine recommendations from their friends and family when considering purchases of any size and scope, from what car to drive to where they choose to eat lunch.

According to a recent Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey,

“83% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products and services” (The Nielsen Company).

When stacked up against traditional broadcast, OOH, print, digital and social media, this makes WOM the most trusted way consumers receive information about brands.

If your company is not actively engaged in WOMM, then the stories people tell their friends and family will most likely be driven by their personal experience with your product as a consumer.

While this is not inherently negative (unless your product isn’t that good), you can be much more successful as a marketer if you’re putting the most important stories about your brand into advocates’ repertoire for the times when those conversations happen.

The importance of WOM is in how your stories are heard, understood, and then relayed hundreds of times over. The experiences and conversations that are impactful and translate well are those best had in person, with a trusted friend, and those only come from Word of Mouth.

Enter Guerrilla Marketing

This quirky marketing technique can take your brand from zero to hero in no time — however, you need to ensure that you understand its true definition and do it right or it will be a complete failure.

Guerrilla Marketing is a unique, intriguing way to surge your brand exposure and sales by generating impactful buzz that people can’t resist exploring.

The name interestingly derives from combative guerrilla warfare:

Guerrilla Marketing often means taking a ‘physical’ approach; modifying everyday environments where potential target audiences walk, talk, eat, work, breathe, etc., rather than solely utilizing the multitude of digital channels to which we’re so accustomed to and (over)rely on today.

It’s this perception of breaking the rules that makes Guerrilla Marketing far more exciting, attention giving and eye-catching than traditional marketing or standard digital marketing methods alone — yet, it’s also powerfully supplementary to both — and can also operate online.

Now your wondering how does this advertising strategy compare to traditional and digital advertising strategies?

What does it look like?

How does it drive the overall customer experience?

Brands who practice Guerrilla Marketing aim to make it so memorable; you will never forget the campaign.

Even after seeing or experiencing it only one time.

When Guerrilla Marketing takes place offline: Think of print or TV marketing ads on 1,000 steroids, and an immense dose of gamma radiation like The Hulk happened to absorb:

(Photo Source: Marketing Birds)

It’s that cool! And so relevant to stand out in our tech-saturated setting.

However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be big in the flesh.

Translating Guerrilla Marketing into appropriate business terminology would look like this:

Unconventional, creative, memorable, and exceedingly practical ‘quick fire’ brand exposure campaigns launched with the deliberate intention of surprising competitors while wowing target audiences in environments where they will be most receptive (typically launching offline, then spreading online in today’s connected world — although this process can be reversed to suit).

Guerrilla warfare exploits deep knowledge of landscapes, the enemy, and the element of surprise to create unexpected short-burst attacks on enemy soldiers.

Guerrilla Marketing

• It’s a hugely resourceful concept
• It must be unique to be successful
• It absolutely must work, first time
• It’s often deeply location-oriented. 

• It can be a stepping stone to virality
• It can instantly change brand perception
• It can be successful for brands of all sizes
• It’s fundamentally ‘surprise’ marketing at its core

Check out the Coca Cola ad that literally grabs you — promoting the brand’s ‘new grip’ bottle:

(Photo Source: Business2Community)

Popular Types of Guerrilla Marketing

• Word-of-Mouth (inventing strategic rumors or ‘secrets’)
• Hand-to-Hand (the physical, intimate sharing of products)
• Graffiti (though reverse graffiti is recommended, which makes use of dirty surfaces)
• Stealth (subtle product placements that people don’t consciously notice)
• Ambush (hijacking the exposure of big events or successful competitor marketing)
• Flash Mob (groups of people performing an unusual or seemingly random act, before dispersing)
• Experiential (immersive product and/or service experiences)

(Photo Source: Pinterest)

• Posters or Stickers (sometimes cryptic, often numerous in targeted locations)
• Projections (onto buildings etc. — which can be frowned upon, or even illegal)
• Wait Marketing (where target audiences are waiting for something, like a bus!)
• Treasure Hunts (also creates a sense of intrigue via the communication of clues)
• Grassroots (targeting brand enthusiasts who will share your message everywhere)
• Ambient (unexpected placements that encourage passersby to stop and think)

For instance, this attention-grabbing ‘broccoli tree’ promoted a Swiss chain of vegetarian restaurants:

(Photo Source: Think Guerrilla)

What Guerrilla Marketing Isn’t

• Merely ‘clever’ marketing (aside from #4 on this link, which is guerrilla-oriented)
• Viral marketing (a common confusion — although there are certainly some overlaps, due to our fascination of being digitally-connected)

“Guerrilla Marketing is an act of disguise. It’s an effort to advertise to people who don’t feel like consuming ads.” (Professor Michael Serazio via TakePart)

Here’s my brief example of Guerrilla Marketing that we did for a Car Dealership client:

“Right after the holidays, (Christmas and Hannakah) Car Dealer A caught Car Dealer B and its customers entirely off guard with its post-Sunday Church services display of genius.

As churchgoers left Sunday services to find a very special gift attached to their vehicles from Car Dealer A with a note attached that put a smile on the recipients face and a "pay it forward" message.  

Car Dealer A was tagged over 300 times in social media over the next 7 days. This included short live videos, and other mentions on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  The goodwill that was generated resulted in over two dozen in-person visits and appointments to Car Dear A dealership and the target audience raving about the overall experience.

We also did several on-site interviews with churchgoers, recording the interviews on video and posting them on social media and YouTube, tagging the church and the interviewees. These short videos were then shared across the church congregation by the church itself. 

A little goodwill "paying it forward" can go a long way.

(If you would like more details of this Guerilla campaign feel free to reach out directly and I'm more than happy to share the details.)

Let’s explore more visuals.

These examples are just too good for you to miss!

While we are still on the topic of vehicles — see how watch brand IWC promoted their products using public transport en route to the nearby airport (in proximity to their stores, of course):

(Photo Source: Quill & Pad)

REASON #1: It Can Be Affordable

You’ll be glad to know you can achieve the same desired effect as the brands shown above, even at a fraction of the cost (or no cost at all, if you wish to be super inventive).

“Guerrilla marketers do not rely on the brute force of an outsized marketing budget. Instead, they rely on the brute force of a vivid imagination.” (Jay Conrad Levinson, Author of Guerrilla Marketing)

Remember, Guerrilla Marketing is originally based on the concept of ‘the little guy’ beating bigger, more organized competition — and where you may lack in resources, you can win by displaying agility that many corporate brands never will — due to their characteristic red tape and cumbersome chains of approval.

Use this coveted freedom to your advantage!

And just to emphasize:

You can begin Guerrilla Marketing very soon, for absolutely ZERO cost.

You will struggle to find any other promotional technique that has such a massive impact in 2019 — while paying either nothing or next to nothing.

To prove it, take a peek at the following successful campaigns and be inspired.

Pinterest

Like many goliath brands today, Pinterest started small.

Notably: At the very beginning, it was partly the Guerrilla Marketing tactics of its CEO, Ben Silbermann, that really got the word out about this new visual sharing platform.

It’s an ideal story to illustrate the reverse way of working traditional guerrilla strategies (usually offline → online) because it primarily involves a basic, digital component.

How did Silbermann do it?

He simply visited his local Apple store, and set Pinterest as the homepage on every single computer on display — computers the public would be using.

Genius thinking or what!

Notice how this ‘online’ Guerrilla Marketing differs from online marketing we all know?

His hometown friends also helped spread the message about Pinterest, at the grand total cost of $0.

While there were undoubtedly a lot more factors that contributed to the growth of Pinterest, it’s undeniable that a current worth of $12Billion+ and ~200Million active monthly users are the fruits of efforts like Silbermann’s during the early days.

(Graph Source: TechCrunch)

Imagine if a similar idea was deployed at hundreds of stores across the world…

Yep. Mighty powerful. And FREE.

Mr. Silbermann has since earned the unofficial reputation of “the man who quietly grew a multi-billion dollar brand.”

King Kong 3D

I just couldn’t resist including some form of gorilla Guerrilla Marketing.

To promote the beastly King Kong 3D theme park attraction here in Florida, Universal Studios pulled off something quite spectacular with assistance from their agency.

This larger than life publicity stunt left enormous footprints in the sands of Santa Monica Beach, complete with a crushed lifeguard SUV:

(Photo (Source: WordStream)

Heck, it might cost several hundred bucks to purchase a vehicle just to be ruined, but I’m sure you’d have fun crushing it somehow…

*Footprints are usually free, as a bonus.

This campaign was effective in sparking intrigue and encouraging people to take photos while sharing their unique and unexpected experience across social networks.

On the ground, the brand’s message was apparently reinforced by strategically-positioned ambassadors, to ensure the target audience thoroughly investigated what was happening on the beach.

Multiple news outlets also sent helicopters to cover the story; which may have been initiated by the marketing agency’s team.

If that wasn’t already enough, a second stunt was simultaneously deployed at The Dodger stadium — which appeared to be demolished at one corner, resembling the on-foot exit of King Kong:

(Image Source: YouTube)

A smoking effect was added at this corner, pointing to a likely partnership deal between the stadium owners and Universal Studios (else I expect they would have been pretty damn annoyed!).

The distinctive theme park attraction has since been a hit with thrill seekers and top press outlets, worldwide.

While the latter partnership was probably quite expensive, you definitely don’t need to dive so deep into your pockets — and more importantly, you don’t need to be an established brand to win at Guerrilla Marketing.

As perfectly demonstrated, next…

REASON #2: You Can Beat Big Brands And All Competition

I mentioned earlier that traditional Guerrilla Marketing strategies usually begin offline, before spreading online.

Well, aside from Pinterest’s CEO’s off the cuff homepage switching, this is a classic example of highly-organized and rumor-driven ‘small guy’ online Guerrilla Marketing that is arguably the most lucrative of all time.

And do bear in mind: This took place just one year after Google launched, so the public internet was in its infancy.

You will be amazed, I guarantee it.

The Blair Witch Project

The story of The Blair Witch is nothing more than a fictional creation, yet the hit psychological horror movie (premiered in 1999) produced almost $250Million with a budget of only $60K — mainly due to the deliberately-disseminated illusion that The Blair Witch was 100% real!

To this day, such a colossal ROI is undeniably rare in the film industry.

Let’s put it into perspective:

ROCKY [1977]
Budget: $1.1 million
Box Office: $225 million
ROI: 205x

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT [1999]
Budget: $60k
Box Office: $248 million
ROI: 4133x

GET OUT [2017]
Budget: $4.5 million
Box Office: $254 million
ROI: 56x

What’s more? Filming took the crew just 8 days from start to finish.

Not a bad ROI if you ask me.

[Question: Name a 2019 digital marketing campaign with similar ROI figures? ** scratches head **]

But why did people from around the world incessantly believe it was all so real, to the point of actually going out to the woods and attempting to hunt the witch?

Here’s a ‘missing’ poster that was tactically posted to online forums, directing people to the website:

(Image Source: Pinterest)

This was all completely made up; the ‘missing’ people are actors in the film.

Printed posters (like these) were also distributed throughout local colleges…

The official IMDb page even listed all 3 actors as “missing, presumed dead” in the first year of its release, while hiring more actors to pose as investigative police officers for the website.

Disregarding the film production budget and focusing on a more standard business model — how much does it cost to set up a basic website of your own, recruit a small team of friends or family as actors, and post mysteriously to a number of popular forums / social networks?

I’m sure you can spare ~$50 in quest of defeating massive brands!

For such a relatively primitive time, this type of marketing was like nothing seen before.

“Producers paid the cast to go into hiding and avoid publicity for a year after the film’s release, to help perpetuate the illusion that they really had died.”
(Source: The Telegraph)

Simply. WOW.

USA Today notably declared The Blair Witch Project as the first film to ‘go viral’, despite having been produced before the existence of many technologies that facilitate such phenomena.

There you have it — the greatest definition of Goliath-whopping, evolutionary (online guerrilla → viral) marketing you are ever likely to find.

I bet the famous, multi-million $$$$$ film production brands were left shell-shocked.

REASON #3: You Will Be Remembered

It should by now go without saying that all Guerrilla Marketing is to be memorable — but I shall leave no manhole…

That’s right. These typically dirty, unattractive, man-made openings in the ground can be transformed into masterpieces of guerrilla art that will ensure eternal brand recall.

Before showing you how, here’s why this particular method is so effective at being visually etched into the memories of passersby:

• Manholes are everywhere

The lesson here?

If you can change people’s memory of an inanimate yet numerous object or thing, it’s going to be YOUR BRAND that comes to mind every other time they come across it, pretty much forever.

Are you excited? You should be.

Folgers Coffee

Check out how Folgers Coffee efficiently promoted their hot drinks in NY City during 2006, thanks to ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi:

(Photo Source: Gothamist)

You probably won’t forget it after seeing this photo.

Imagine witnessing this in real life?

[Admittedly, the aroma may have been just a little different to coffee, an aspect which probably deserved more planning — but you get the idea.]

Folgers isn’t the only brand to have caught on to this clever technique, either.

You must plan ahead, and obsessively weigh up the pros and cons of every guerrilla campaign.

Much of the time, success naturally attracts detractors.

Just be prepared for it!

You’ll be glad to hear that ‘being prepared’ can actually involve a great deal of fun, too.

Audi vs. BMW

I couldn’t possibly think of a better example of brand dynamism to show you.

This is the pinnacle of agile Guerrilla Marketing displayed by two automobile giants — brands that could otherwise appear to be quite bland if they didn’t bother raising the bar.

If it’s not the press or the public having digs, you can bet your guerrilla’s bananas it’ll be your competition.

In this case, Audi first ignited a hugely-entertaining feud by provoking BMW with a playful billboard:

(Photos Source: Pinterest)

Of course, BMW wasn’t going to just let this lie.

The brand responded by purchasing another billboard directly across the street with the word, “Checkmate.”

There were several other cheeky counters between them before Audi dared to say:

This pushed BMW to go one step further!

Such a memorable act of audacity…

BMW sadly concluded the public spat by moving its standard billboards to a different location, which ended this comical battle for turf.

However, it was all entirely worth the mutual endeavor — both brands received tons of recognition:

The final lesson here?

If you want to be remembered, get ready to adapt to anything that comes your way!

Guerrilla Marketing turns your brand into a magnet — it’s up to you to transform everything you attract into positive results.

Ready To Get Started: Your 10-Point Guerrilla Marketing Checklist

Always:

• Aim for brand loyalty and retention, not just spikes of exposure
• Be disruptive, but not ignorant to your marketplace and history
• Base your efforts on comprehensive research, psychology, and emotion
• Equip a winning arsenal of preparation, enthusiasm, creativity, and measurement
• Apply a combo of marketing methods, rather than disjointed Guerrilla Marketing

Ask yourself:

• Do you have an agile marketing and sales team?
• Do you know your customers on a deeply intimate level?
• Is it (overall) the right time to initiate Guerrilla Marketing?
• Does your brand (and its values) fit the nature of Guerrilla Marketing?
• Have you built ‘guerrilla’ into your marketing strategy, rather than adding it on top?

If you happen to crave even more inspiration, check out this big list of Guerrilla Marketing ideas.

Enjoy ‘going guerrilla,’ and leaving a memorable and incredible customer experience for your target audience!

(Photo Source: Scoop)

Leave a comment and tell me your take on Guerilla Marketing and creating inspiring content that drives the customer experience.

What’s good or bad, effective or boring? I’d love to hear your take on the place of Guerilla Marketing in the customer experience and content marketing.

Those of you who have read my posts have noticed that I don't post sales type content. This might be confusing, especially as a freelance content writer.

You're probably wondering how can you promote your business if you aren’t allowed to sell?

Oo how can Carol promote her content marketing services without selling these services?

Well, this rule has a good reason behind it, and believe it or not, it is one that will give your content a boost, allow me to show what I mean so that I can help you produce content that adds value.

On average, consumers are exposed to over 300 ads a day.  When they click on your content, the last thing they want to see is another ad.

People are busy and have a lot of content to choose from so cut to the chase in how your article is about to help them, tell them what they can expect clearly.

Being helpful offers a win-win alternative.

Valuable content costs a lot less than traditional advertising, but according to research, it reaps three times as many leads per dollar.

Consumers feel good when they read custom content, with 70% of consumers feel closer and trust companies that produce custom content.

As the Content Marketing Institute puts it:

Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty. And they do.

Being helpful vs. being pushy and selling

So, what does helpful content, rather than sales-focused content, look like?

Here are common differences between helpful and sales-orientated content, along with tips on how you can make yours more effective.

1. Give something valuable to the reader

One of the most important differences between a helpful article that will get you likes, shares and even customers, is that they give something back. This could be advice and tips, useful or new information, a solution to a problem or a free resource. These offerings will be relevant, valuable, and varied; in other words, not content that is disguised as an ad or a promotional video.

2. The article doesn’t use sales type language

In traditional ads, consumers can spot the sales copy instructing us to ‘try this’, ‘go there’, ‘wear that’ (‘before it's sold!’) Recent research has shown people are less likely to notice they are being sold a product or service when reading about them in an editorial. This is very good news for content marketers but can make separating ‘salesy’ from ‘helpful’ language a little tricky.

One simple way to do this is to focus on the reader, rather than you and your business.

References to a business’s company, products or achievements should be few and far between.

Avoid words and phrases like:

At XXX Dealership…

We will beat...

We guarantee…

Our dealership is…

Our dealership does...

Exclusive offer…

For a limited time only…

Hurry/act now today…

There is a time for this type of language, however, is it not in your content or articles.

Consumers, who are your readers are more likely to respond to language that is relatable, full of value, and has their best interests at heart.

That is what and how you will hold your audiences attention, build a relationship, drive trust and increase revenue.

3. The article isn’t filled with product/service links

This one is self-explanatory.

If an article contains lots of links to the dealership cars and service products, it is clearly sales-orientated.

Readers will notice this and will be less likely to trust your content as a result.

They’ll understand that the article, no matter how interesting it may be, is in fact geared towards one goal: taking their money.

This is why inserting links only when genuinely helpful, and 100% relevant, is what matters and what you should be doing.

Lead with content benefits your audience, and they will seek them out; littering your articles with links isn't necessary and actually costs you in both the short and long run.

4. The article has irritating UX

Don’t get me wrong – lead generation pages and sign-up forms are essential to most businesses, and when executed well, can be very effective.

Most consumers are used to them that one request won’t bother them. However, it’s another matter entirely when these features destroy the user experience.

Readers who click on your links have been attracted by the funny, or well-articulated title, and the prospect of finding something useful or entertaining on your site.

How will they feel if that click is followed by a capture form, another pop-up, and then a slide-out tab?

You might as well approached them on the street with a collection bucket.

A sign-up form in itself is unlikely to irritate readers, whereas the excessive use of pop-ups likely will.

If that happens, it won’t matter how helpful your content is – an irritated reader will click to close the article faster than you can say sold!

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these sales tactics; even native ads are commonplace today and effective when deployed correctly.

But nowhere in the rulebook does it call for the use of them all together in your content. nor should you.

This only serves to frustrate and ultimately scare-off people you could have nurtured into a long-term relationship that delivered incremental revenue.

Leave a comment and tell me your take on sales-driven content. What’s good or bad, effective or boring? I’d love to hear your take on the place of sales in content marketing.

Bet I got your attention.  Good, I mean to.

The days of blasting consumers with non-stop ads to sell and service vehicles are coming to an end.

Technology is changing how consumers purchase cars and competing on price alone opens the door for tech companies to literally take significant market share from dealers. 

And, dealers have ensured that it's not that hard for technology companies to do so.

From Carvana to now FairTheApp, consumers have options on how and where to purchase or service a car.

"We’ve literally built a new way for customers to drive the car they want for as long as they want, and this touches all layers of the mobility total addressable market—from retail to maintenance to insurance and beyond. For our customers, Fair is one-stop shopping for practically all of their mobility spend, and that’s a gigantic opportunity that our investors totally understand." ~ Scott Painter, Founder/CEO, FairTheApp

FairTheApp revolutionizes the global consumer automotive market through its mobile app that allows you to shop for cars and drive it for as long as you want with financing options embedded into the app. 

The cars come with a warranty, roadside assistance, routine maintenance, and you can even add in insurance with a few clicks. Need an SUV for the winter and convertible for the summer? Not a problem. 

Users scan their license to shop pre-owned cars with all-in monthly payments they can afford, sign for the one they want with their finger, pick up their keys and drive it for as long as they want—with no long-term debt or commitment, or even physical paperwork.

Fair raised $385 million from Softbank and according to Painter "We’ve literally built a new way for customers to drive the car they want for as long as they want, and this touches all layers of the mobility total addressable market—from retail to maintenance to insurance and beyond. For our customers, Fair is one-stop shopping for practically all of their mobility spend, and that’s a gigantic opportunity that our investors totally understand."

This raises the obvious question, how does a dealership compete against the likes of Carvana and now FairThe App?

It's not by bombarding consumers with more ads, 

As it is today:

Customer expectations are higher than ever and word of mouth travels fast!

And as the customer becomes even more empowered, it increases the importance of the customer service experience.

Customer experience is an area that needs constant nurturing and care and with a greater focus on customer experience strategy, companies will realize a positive impact on customer loyalty, higher retention, and increased revenues.

There are currently about 80 million millennials in the United States with a combined purchasing power of $200 billion.  Don’t underestimate millennials and their impact on your business potential.

If you’re offering products or services that are of interest to them, you’re going to lose market share and a competitive advantage unless you specifically target millennials in your marketing campaigns.

Think about it; they are your future (or current) customer base!

You need to know how to reach them. Also, the good news is that they tend to be very brand-loyal to quality products and to companies that engage with them. So if you snag one, they stick with you.

In this post, I reveal research on millennial marketing and information from my experience reaching them through client marketing efforts. Get ready to learn a lot about millennial marketing strategy.

Old-School Advertising is a Turn-Off, for Most of Them

According to a study conducting by Forbes and Elite Daily (a website that’s considered the voice of millennials), only 1% of millennials are moved by advertising.

In fact, one study shows that 84% of millennials “do not like advertising.” They consider traditional advertising to be insincere and view it exactly as it is: just an attempt to sell them something.

They’re also tech-savvy when it comes to avoiding advertisements.

They’ll DVR their favorite shows so that they can zip through the commercials. They’ll install software on their PCs that blocks pop-up ads. They’ll intentionally avoid even looking at banner ads.

In other words, traditional brand-building efforts won’t always work with millennials.

That’s why, as a starting point, you should brainstorm with your team members for “out of the box” marketing options for millennials.

So, let’s take a second to flush this idea out just a bit… Say you are a bank trying to reach millennials. Sure, you will have some level of success with SEO and SEM (I know this for sure because we have done it).

But also, why not doing something out the box like…

Example Idea 1: Host a free comedy show by <bank name>. The only fee to enter is to share a picture of you and your friends on social media…

Example Idea 2: Donate to a cause that is important to millennials. But don’t just donate money, donate something the cause needs. Film it in an emotionally moving way. For example, <bank name> plants free fruit trees in the poorest neighborhoods in San Diego. You make a video of people enjoying the fruit, the shade of the tree… Spend a few thousand dollars, and you will get tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of YouTube views from millennials, do something good for someone and yourself. Hey, you can even set up a custom channel for the campaign in Google Analytics and track the entire thing…

My point is, think out of the box!

You can view an example of a creative campaign we helped a client with here. This one did not target Millennials. This one was just done to be good people. Honestly, we just wanted to do something good for these women with hair loss and many of which were battling cancer. This video makes me emotional every time I watch it.

Millennials Expect You to Be Social on Social Media

According to the aforementioned Forbes/Elite Daily study, 62% of millennials claim that if a brand engages with them on social media, they’re more likely to become a customer. Light-bulb!.

The takeaway here is obvious: your social media marketing efforts need to be second-to-none if you want to reach a millennial crowd. Be sure that you’re not just posting updates about your brand on social media, but that you’re also engaging with your target audience. Millennials will reward you for that by opening up their wallets.

Incidentally, if you’re looking for an example of a brand that’s done well by engaging with customers on social media, check out the Taco Bell Twitter account.

• So what do I mean target them on social media? This is what I mean.
• Set up a community building ad strategy so you can get people to like your page
• Have a good size budget for promoted posts. Otherwise, Facebook is useless
• Spend a little money for a “real designer” to create custom images they will love
• Do something interactive once a week
  • Run a quiz with Woobox. Every time someone enters, you can get their email address. We are generating hundreds of emails a week for clients with this strategy
• Update your page 3 to 5 times a week
• Throw a product or service in where it makes sense
• Don’t be afraid to run real ads!
  • Display ads
  • PPC ads
  • Retargeting ads
  • Upload email lists and create lookalike audiences

Hit Facebook (and other social sites in a similar way) with a real marketing budget.

You have to make a solid effort to get anything out of it.

Don’t be afraid.

If you take the time to set up the correct targeting, tracking and make good creative, you will be profitable targeting millennials on Facebook and other social media sites.

Also, very important, here are the top social media websites for millennials. This is where you can targeting them.

When surveyed, millennials said they spend:

• 64% of their time on YouTube
• 51% of their time on Facebook
• 45% of their time on Instagram
• 42% on SnapChat
• 28% on Twitter
• 26% on Tumblr

Millennials Need Cross-Device Tracking

Millennials are citizens of cyberspace. According to Advertising Age, they spend 25 hours online every week.

Eighty-seven percent of them own between two and three tech devices.

That makes it all the more important to use Google Analytics cross-device reports.

If you have not heard of this report, it can track multiple interactions across difference devices and attribute them all to one conversion.

So if a millennial first come to your site on their phone from Facebook, then checks out your blog later on a tablet and finally converts on their desktop, you can make sure there is proper attribution to each marketing channel.

Authenticity, Not Content, Is King

As a digital marketer, you’ve no doubt heard the phrase “content is king” repeated so often it hurts. However, with millennials, content isn’t king. Authenticity is king.

Forty-three percent of millennials rank authenticity higher than content when they’re browsing their favorite news sites.

That means the formula for winning over a millennial is to first build a certain level of trust with your brand.

With that foundation in place, you can begin a marketing effort.

Now, this means that content is still king, as long as it is authentic, right?

The other day I was watching the Red Bull events.

They do things like hold a downhill mountain bike event or turn a lake into a wave pool!

It is so cool.

But what are they doing?

They are creating content!

Now, not the same type of content as this blog post, but content nonetheless which engages millennials and aligns them with the brand.

Millennials Appreciate Their Counselors

A whopping 84% of millennials rely on user-generated content to influence their purchasing decisions.

That breaks down to 59% who say that input from others influences them “some” and 25% who say that it influences them “a lot.”

Here’s what that means to you as a digital marketer: Millennials are looking for social proof.

They’ll scour cyberspace by typing your brand name into the Google search bar and see how other people enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) your product or service.

They’ll go on discussion forums and ask others if they’ve tried your brand. They’ll take the feedback they get seriously.

If you’ve ever needed a reason to offer pictured testimonies on your website, this is it.

Millennials will likely search for further evidence that you’re a great brand, but it’s a good starting point.

In general, reviews are critical now.

Try to get reviews for your produce and service that are actually from other millennials; they will want to see similar people enjoying your product.

Inbound Marketing Rocks

Millennials spend much of their time surfing around online, looking for content that’s informative and/or entertaining.

That’s why inbound marketing is a sure-fire winner when it comes to reeling in millennials.

Forty-four percent of millennials say that they’re more likely to trust experts, even if those experts are strangers. That’s a winning hand dealt with content marketers who already know about the importance of an authoritative voice on any subject.

Mac Cosmetics offers an outstanding example of inbound marketing with its YouTube page.

The company offers numerous videos showing viewers how to properly apply cosmetic products. There are videos on that channel with more than 100,000 views.

But also, think about this blog post I am writing right now.

If you are still reading it, then you have found value in what I am saying.

That makes you more likely to want to do business with me, right?

Our company gets hundreds of leads each month through our blog and YouTube videos.

Millennials Want to Feel Like They’re Your Only Customer

 This one was pretty interesting to me.

In spite of the way that we’re talking about them in this space, millennials don’t want to feel like they’re part of a collective.

They want you to market to them as though they’re your only customer.

Kind of annoying actually when you think about it…

To that end, consider customization options for your products or services that millennials can tweak to make them feel like what they purchase is theirs and theirs alone.

Appeal to their varying interests include some relationship building, and then go for a soft close without being pushy.

Grow your millennial customer base organically with a marketing message that says: “This was meant just for you.”

Also, keep in mind the following: Forty-two percent of millennials said that they’re interested in helping companies develop future products or services.

So if you’re not sure what millennials in your market are looking for, ask them.

Offer a collaboration effort in your research and development efforts to help millennials feel like they’re part of your team.

That partnership will generate good buzz about how your company is interested in making a difference.

As an action item here, consider this.

Reach out to your millennials and tell them that you would like them to be part of the elite customer product idea committee.

They ask them for feedback on your product.

You can even give them an incentive.

Millennials Like to Rent

You might be surprised to learn that millennials aren’t big on ownership.

According to one report, 35% of millennials would rather pay full price to access an item as opposed to owning it.

That’s a statistic that might surprise members of an older generation, but it’s relevant information for digital marketers.

Think about the share a car or share a bike services, millennials love them.

This is the time of the “sharing economy.”

Thanks to the advent of companies like AirBnB and Uber, millennials don’t view ownership the way that their parents do.

They’re more interested in using something when they need it as opposed to buying it.

It’s all about the experience.

Consider that mindset as you market to millennials.

Evaluate marketing alternatives that enable you to capitalize on some type of a “rental” or “sharing” option for your product or service and market that side of it to millennials.

Very interesting right? How does that relate to your product or service?

Be Funny

If you want to reach millennials, entertain them.

They like a good laugh as much as the older generation, but they seem to view it as a requirement from businesses that are marketing to them.

That means put lots of funny cat pictures everywhere on your website.

Just kidding! That joke was just part of my funny millennial marketing strategy.

Use your various social media accounts to promote your brand with a sense of humor.

You can deliver a funny one-liner on Twitter.

You can post a hilarious picture on Instagram or Pinterest with a caption that links the picture to your brand.

You can post a 6-second Instagram video that makes people laugh while advertising your latest promotion.

You’ll find that you not only reach millennials with that type of marketing, but they’ll also share your content with their followers and friends. It’s a great way to put millennials to work for you.

The takeaway is, you can’t be stuff corporate.

You need to be fun, youthful and funny. Oh so funny.

Wrapping It Up

If your market includes millennials, you’re going to have to break some of the rules that you’ve been following to reach them.

They’re an independent, tech-savvy bunch that’s not impressed with traditional marketing tactics.

Instead, offer them some creative promotional efforts and gently lead them to your brand with solid content marketing, engagements on social media, and plenty of social proof.

Once you’ve hooked them, they can easily become your customers for life.

Good luck with your millennial marketing strategy.

As a final takeaway

• Be funny
• Be creative
• Don’t make them own something
• Get reviews
• Ask for feedback and make them a part of your product or service
• Get aggressive on social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat)
• Get interactive
• Target and track all devices
• Be an expert on your subject and project that with content marketing
• And go get them right now, remember, they are loyal. So once they are with a competitive, it will be just that much harder.

Starting a business today is easier than in the past, with the advent and development of the Internet and other technological resources now readily available.

Growing and running a business is another story.

A business needs to be able to develop brand awareness and generate leads with a lean team and a limited budget.

This is where inbound marketing comes in.

So, how do you set up an inbound marketing playbook to drive qualified leads?

Below, I'll break down the steps to why and how to develop an Inbound Marketing Playbook.

So, What is An Inbound Marketing Playbook?

A playbook is used by football an basketball coaches and teams to create various strategies (or “plays”) designed for a particular situation teams deal with to win the game.

For business, a playbook is necessarily a compilation of different strategies, processes, and workflows that a company uses to achieve an objective.

A playbook spells out not just the framework and approach to the task at hand, but the specific roles and responsibilities of the different teammates or “players” involved.

Why It is Important to Have An Inbound Marketing Plan or Playbook

The days when static outbound marketing strategies can yield desirable results are long gone.

The business world today is fast moving, competitive, extremely intense and rapidly changing, especially when it comes to marketing to your target audience.

On top of that, today, 32% of marketers consider outbound marketing strategies like paid advertising overrated and a waste of time.

Source: Hubspot

Think about the role a coach plays, a coach is responsible for making a split-second decision to turn the game around with a few seconds left on the clock.

Business owners daily face situations that require them to make well-thought-out decisions, sometimes on the fly to keep their business in the game.

Startups face these situations daily; they are the underdog with a very small team and an even smaller budget to get their target audience to notice them, and eventually get them to become paying customers to generate revenue.

As competition intensifies, regardless of the industry you are in, you need to be more nimble and creative while growing your audience.

Creating an inbound marketing playbook for your company gives you a guide that defines the different strategies and processes not only to help you reach your target audience and guide them throughout the entire buyer’s journey.

A playbook gives you and the other members of your team in-depth information about your target market, your startup’s value proposition, who your competitors are, and the best practices you would like everyone to follow.

Simply put, your playbook not only tells you and your team what you are supposed to do but also how to do it.

Why Create An Inbound Marketing Playbook?

Let's start with defining define what inbound marketing is.

Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on empowering your customers by being engaging our audience with educational content, by being helpful and concentrating on their needs.

By putting your target audience first, you give them a reason to visit your website where you can now develop a relationship and nurture them to convert them into qualified leads, and then eventually into paying customers.

Inbound marketing is far more effective than traditional outbound marketing strategies. Aside from the fact that traditional outbound marketing strategies are far more expensive, they are often intrusive and interruptive.

So while they may seem to be beneficial for businesses because they can push their products and services in front of their customers, this type of approach does not necessarily give an excellent experience to their target audience.

Source: Slideshare

Creating an inbound marketing playbook will help get your company grows because you do not need a huge budget to get the word out about your service or products to achieve a potentially high ROI.

That is because the inbound marketing approach focuses on providing relevant and valuable content and interactions to your target customers. These pieces of content aim to reach out to your prospective customers throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey, and sales funnel so that you give them what they need when they need it.

Many large companies have successfully used inbound marketing to scale their businesses. Examples of these are NerdWallet, ADP, Cisco, Cox Media, Virgin Mobile, Toshiba, American Express, Shopify, HubSpot, and Mention. Here are inbound marketing case studies featuring companies who were able to scale through the use of inbound marketing.

Elements Of An Inbound Marketing Playbook

When creating your inbound marketing playbook, you need to make sure that it focuses on how your team will engage with your target audience in different situations and scenarios.

That way, your inbound marketing playbook will be highly effective in helping your company generate leads and revenue.

A well-designed inbound marketing playbook has seven distinct elements:

• customer analysis,
• buyer's journey,
• company offer,
• value proposition,
• competitive analysis,
• sales process
• methodology
• best practices

Let’s look at each of these inbound marketing playbook elements in detail.

Customer Analysis

The custom analysis section of your inbound marketing playbook contains detailed information about your target market as well as trends, key influencers, and buyers within your particular niche.

This section is also where you describe your buyer persona in detail. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. Some of the information to include are:

• Demographics (e.g., age, gender, educational attainment, marital status, employment role, income level)
• Behavior patterns
• Motivations
• Goals
• Pain points
• Critical issues they are trying to solve

One of the reasons why inbound marketing fails is that the buyer persona is not detailed enough for them to make sound decisions.

Your buyer persona is the central figure in all your inbound marketing strategies, so it is essential to take time to create this with as much detail as possible. The HubSpot buyer persona tool can help you create a particular buyer’s persona for your SaaS startup.

Here is an example of a buyer persona created using this tool.

Take note that you do not have to limit yourself to just one buyer persona.

It is common for businesses to have more than one buyer persona, especially if you offer a range of products or services. Just make sure that you give the same amount of attention and detail to each of your buyer personas.

Buyer's Journey

The buyer’s process, also known as the buyer’s journey, is essentially the stages of the decision making processes your buyer persona makes before, during, and after they purchase from your company.

This is entirely different from the marketing and sales funnel which will we discuss in more detail in the marketing process and methodology section.

There are three distinct stages that your buyer persona goes through in the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness Stage. Your buyer persona realizes that they have a problem, but they do not know what it is yet. They begin to do some research based on the signs and symptoms that they experience to figure out what is the problem.
• Consideration Stage. In this stage, your buyer persona has now discovered what is exactly the problem he or she is facing. So now, he or she begins to research to find what are the possible options available to solve this problem.
• Decision Stage. At this point, your buyer persona has come up with a list of the possible solutions to the problem he or she is facing. Now, your buyer persona is trying to decide which is the best option to choose.

Below is a graphic representation of a typical buyer’s journey of a SaaS customer:

Source: Hubspot

This is, of course, the ideal journey that your buyer persona will go through.

In reality, your buyer persona can go through the buyer’s journey differently.

For example, your buyer persona may go back and forth the consideration and decision stage several times before they finally go ahead to make a purchase.

In other cases, your buyer persona can skip the consideration stage altogether and move from the awareness stage to the decision stage.

You will need to take account of all of these possible scenarios when creating the buyer’s process for your inbound marketing playbook.

Company Offer

In this section of your inbound marketing playbook, you need to describe in detail the different products and services your startup is offering to your buyer persona as well as how they can address your buyer persona’s pain points and problems.

When you create this section of your inbound marketing playbook, don’t assume that your team members understand your products and services as well as you do.

Just like your buyer persona, you need to be as detailed as possible here.

That way, they are easily understood by your current team members but also those that you will be hiring as your company grows.

Value Proposition

The value proposition section is where you explain why you launched your startup and, more important, how your startup can make a difference in what could seem to be a saturated marketplace.

This is where you provide answers to the following questions:

• Why should your target customers buy your product or service?
• What value will they get when they choose to get this product or service from your startup, and not from someone else?

Many businesses tend to start their playbook with this section.

I suggest that you tackle this section only after you create your buyer persona and company offer.

Doing this will help make your inbound marketing playbook more streamlined, and you can more effectively align these with your value proposition.

Competitive Analysis

As you may have probably guessed, this section focuses on analyzing your competitors.

For this part to be useful in your inbound marketing playbook, you need to go beyond naming who are your competitors.

You also need to study the different inbound marketing strategies that they are using that prove to be the most successful. That way, you can incorporate these into your marketing process and methodology.

Common mistake companies make is that they focus their competitive analysis towards their direct competitors.

Companies who have been successful with their inbound marketing strategies are those that do a competitive analysis by studying the three different kinds of competitors:

Source: Marketing Sherpa

• Direct competitors. These are the companies that offer the same products and services that you do and have the same or similar value proposition.
• Indirect competitors. These are companies that provide the same products and services you do but have a different value proposition.
• Replacement competitors. These are companies that offer products and services that can serve as an alternative to your products and service.

Marketing process and methodology

This is the crux of your entire inbound marketing playbook because this is where you map in detail the different strategies that you will implement to promote your company.

To do this, you will first need to understand the sales funnel.

The sales funnel a model that describes the different stages of the journey a prospect goes through from being a visitor to a paying customer.

Unlike the buyer’s journey, the marketing funnel is designed from a marketer’s perspective. The diagram below shows the difference between the two.

Source: Hubspot

Although it is mainly called a sales funnel, marketing plays a crucial role here.

That is because the right marketing strategies implemented at the right stages of the sales funnel will fuel your prospects to make them go down through the funnel, converting them first into a lead and then into a customer.

It is for this reason that this section should be created with both your sales and marketing team.

The key to creating this section of your inbound marketing playbook is to get prospects to your website.

This, unfortunately, is easier said than done. 63% of marketers admit that their biggest challenge is to generate enough traffic and leads to convert into customers.

Source: Hubspot

Why is this the case?

The reason is that there are a lot of different strategies that you can do about this. However, the most effective is through content marketing.

88% of B2B marketers use content marketing as part of their inbound marketing strategy.

Blogging as an effective inbound marketing strategy

This was the case with Marco, a SaaS company that focuses on providing voice, data, video and print solutions.

Although they already have two blogs and a handful of other inbound marketing assets, Marco still struggled to generate new leads to convert into customers.

After thorough research on their current assets, the folks at Marco agreed that the best way to increase traffic to their website to generate leads is to improve their blog traffic, starting with doing a revamp on the topics that they wrote about on their blog.

That is because after reviewing the company’s buyer persona, they discovered that the issues that were being discussed in their blog were not those that their target customers wanted to read about.

Marco then created a brand new blog based on their buyer persona.

From there, they created a blogging editorial template to help them decide not only how many posts they will have per week but also the topics that will be covered in their blog posts.

The first month after the blog was launched, it received 88 visits.

A year later, this figure significantly rose to 2,249 blog visits.

That is an increase of 2,512.5%!

Now, I am not saying here that blogging should be the only inbound marketing strategy to include in your playbook. However, blogging is a very effective inbound marketing strategy for two reasons.

First, creating blog posts gives your website an additional page that could be indexed by search engines.

The more web pages your site has indexed, the higher the chances that your site shows up in search engine results pages (SERPs).

This, in turn, makes it easier for your target audience to find you.

Second, it gives you more opportunity to rank for a particular keyword.

This is the reason why I prefer creating long-form blog posts.

Long-form blog posts and other types of content allow you to use a particular keyword more frequently within a piece of content without compromising its quality.

At the same time, the in-depth information that you provide helps establish you as an authority in your niche.

Finding The Right Keywords

This was one of the reasons why Marco was not doing well with their inbound marketing strategy the first time around. Even if they got the right inbound marketing strategies in place, the content they were publishing was not effective simply because these are not what their target audience was looking for.

That said, it is important that before you dive into blogging or any inbound marketing strategy for that matter, that you first do some keyword research. That way, you can be sure that there is a demand for the blog post that you are about to write.

There are three primary tools that I use and recommend when doing your keyword research.

The first is SEMRush. What I like about this keyword research tool is that it gives you the stats on not only your chosen keyword and a list of related keywords but also a list of websites and even paid ads that are considered the top performers.

With this tool, you can then visit these websites and study the content so that you can replicate this for your SaaS inbound marketing strategy.

Another tool that I use is Google’s Keyword Planner.

Although it is not as exhaustive as SEMRush, it does provide the competition level and list of related keywords that are ranking the highest in Google, which is the number one search engine used today.

Speaking of Google search engine, the Google Suggest tool is another helpful tool to use when doing your keyword research. The keywords that come up when you type a particular keyword based on their performance, meaning that they are the top keywords that are also used by users that search using the keyword you have used.

Incorporate Social Media

Perhaps the biggest misconception many companies have when it comes to inbound marketing is that all they have to do is to create some content and wait for the people to start coming.

The truth is that you will need to incorporate into your inbound marketing methodology on how to distribute your content so that your target audience can find it.

For this, social media will be one of the avenues.

Here are some stats why social media is essential to any inbound marketing strategy:

• 83% of marketers use social media marketing as part of their inbound marketing strategy
• Content consumption on Facebook has increased by 57%, 25% on Twitter, and 21% on LinkedIn
• 76% of people look for interesting content on Facebook
• Pinterest users spend 50% more on products and services than those coming from other channels
• Twitter sends 16% of referrals to long-form articles and blog posts.

One of the best ways to use social media is to boost your posts or use paid social media to reach your target audience.

Best Practices

The last element in your inbound marketing playbook is a comprehensive list of tips, techniques and best practices observed within your company.

As your company scales, and you hire or replace an employee, having this in your inbound marketing playbook will make sure that everyone will be on the same page and you as the owner can be assured that the way things are handled remains consistent.

Conclusion

Creating an inbound marketing playbook requires much time, effort and resources.

Admittedly, it can be overwhelming, especially when you do not have someone on your team that can create quality and effective content. One way to overcome this is to hire an inbound marketing professional that can work with you not only to help you create your inbound marketing playbook but also help you implement these content marketing strategies.

Once you have completed your inbound marketing playbook, you will have an in-depth document containing all the techniques and strategies to help you and your team make those all-important decisions that help you generate leads, increase sales, and win the game.

Take these actions and quickly compound your returns.