Guerrilla Marketing and Theatre Pt.1

This is the first part of two entries discussing how to apply Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing to building a theatre company.

In the early 1980′s, Jay Conrad Levinson introduced his unique guerrilla style of marketing. Levinson, who had created advertisements for magnanimous corporations such as Sears, Visa, and United Airlines, was aware of how to employ big-company marketing techniques. However, he was also aware of the upstart entrepreneur who had neither the personnel or resources to compete with the titans of corporate America. But with this new concept of marketing, Levinson revealed that small business could be sustained without having to worry about competing with the Sears and Roebucks of the world.

In its primordial definition, marketing is everything you do to promote your business, from the moment you conceive it to the point where customers patronize your business on a regular basis. Traditionally, big businesses rely on their “namesake” to promote their product, and rightfully so; to the consumer, familiarity means dependable. Although young entrepreneurs don’t have this advantage, Guerrilla Marketing introduces a plethora of opportunities that corporations won’t deem advantageous.

When setting up a marketing plan, it is wise to determine your advertising reach. A large corporation markets on a larger scale because they are trying to influence people on a regional or a national scope, making television and Internet commercials necessary to employ. On the other hand, small businesses only need a smaller scale of marketing, reaching out to citizens in a city, town, or even a neighborhood. However, there are niches in these cities and neighborhoods where big business can not fit in, but small business can.

There are significant differences between guerrilla marketing and traditional marketing:

1) Traditional marketing practice is based on experience and then judgement, which involves guesswork.

Wrong guesses are too expensive for guerrilla marketing, which abides by the laws of human behavior. Certainties of purchase patterns is what guerrilla marketers should base their strategy on.

2) Traditional marketing practice encourages you to grow your business linearly by adding new customers.

Guerrilla marketing encourages small business to grow geometrically by aiming for more transactions with existing customers, excelling in follow-up, and offering great service.

3) Traditional marketing practice urges you to count your receipts at the end of the month to see how many sales you’ve made.

Relationships is what guerrilla marketers should concentrate on. Relationships is what leads to more sales.

In the next entry, I’ll discuss how to apply innovative marketing technique to building a theatre company.