10 Mar 2009
Locals learn radical marketing techniques
Some Whakatane and Opotiki businesses owners could be launching some new and very different marketing campaigns as a result of attending an unusual marketing workshop held in the town on March 2.
Brought to the area by Enterprise Training the two workshops were attended by 31 people, and promoted an unconventional but highly cost effiicient way of promoting your business.
Guerilla Marketing, invented by international marketing expert Jay Conrad Levinson and is a system of promoting yourself on a very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets.
Levinson describes it as, "a body of unconventional ways of pursuing conventional goals and a proven method of achieving profits with minimum money." The term has since entered popular vocabulary to also describe aggressive, unconventional marketing methods.
Specifically geared for the small business and entrepreneurs, Guerrilla Marketing is based on human psychology rather than guesswork. Instead of money, its primary investments are time, energy, and imagination, with the marketer concentrating on how many new business relationships they make each month.
The system aims to create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many products and services, and emphasises the need to aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
It also involves co-operating with other businesses and promotes the use of current technology as a tool to empower your business.
The three-hour workshop involved plenty of hands-on action, numerous examples and a step-by-step planning guide.
It was facilitated by Warwick McCormack from Wellington and funded by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise.
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