Guerrilla Marketing: A Cheaper Alternative

So you've spent an enormous amount on advertising in the media and got very little response -- or maybe you were scared enough by the prices that you never put the ads there to begin with. You're annoyed at how expensive it is to get even the simplest and smallest ad in front of anyone, and how useless the whole thing seems to be.

Keywords:

Home Business

Article Body:

So you've spent an enormous amount on advertising in the media and got very little response -- or maybe you were scared enough by the prices that you never put the ads there to begin with. You're annoyed at how expensive it is to get even the simplest and smallest ad in front of anyone, and how useless the whole thing seems to be.

That's because media advertising, in the main, isn't designed to cater to home businesses. No, if you want to get ahead as a home business, you're going to have to do the advertising yourself.

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guerrilla marketing is a way of advertising when you have an almost non-existent budget. Instead of thinking of your business as a smaller version of a big one, you have to realise the situation you're in, and behave accordingly to maximise your profits while minimising your marketing costs. Essentially, you're going to try to do anything to get publicity.

Telemarketing.

Don't worry, I'm not talking about telemarketing of the nasty call centre variety here. It's B2B (business-to-business) telemarketing you want to be doing -- basically, phoning up local businesses and making yourself known. You'll be surprised at just how effective this can be, since businesses tend to appreciate the effort you've made to contact them and offer your services far more than a customer does if a business phones them at home.

Direct Mail.

It shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of a mailing list that covers your whole area -- ask your local post office if you're unsure, as they'll often be able to help with bulk mail campaigns. Alternatively, if you don't even want to pay for delivery, you could hire a few local teenagers to go round putting your letters in people's mailboxes. This will work best if you keep your message to one small page or even just a business card, so that people will keep it if they're interested and call you in their own time.

Outdoor Leafleting.

Another effective guerrilla marketing technique, at least for some kinds of business, is to hang around outside giving out leaflets to passers-by. This gives you an opportunity to 'meet and greet' people, and lets you do some free targeted advertising by choosing your location carefully. If you do odd jobs in people's houses, for example, you could stand outside the DIY store, handing out leaflets that say 'Why Do It Yourself? I'll assemble and install everything you buy today for only $50!' If you custom build and sell your own computers, you could stand outside a big-box computer store with this leaflet: 'Get your computer tailor-made, for half the price of [big store]'. You get the idea.

Free Gifts.

You'd be surprised just how effective it can be to stand around handing out free gifts. If you do something that relates to children, then hand out balloons to them in the mall. You'll make some kids' days, and your name and perhaps website address will be written there on the balloon for all to see. Free pens are a very effective thing to give away if you provide a more serious business service -- people are always short of pens, so they'll keep your pen in their bag and be reminded of your business each time they use it. Even better, the cost of getting thousands of balloons or pens printed with whatever you want is almost nil.

Attack the Competitor.

Nasty as it might sound, hardcore guerrilla marketers regard their competitor as their sworn enemy, and will do anything to bring them down so that they can replace them in the marketplace. A little disturbingly, this can be quite simple to do -- fake a few letters complaining about a business to a local newspaper, and you might find that they follow through and do a feature on it without even checking the story out.

In the end, with guerrilla marketing, there are endless ideas -- it's all about being inventive, and having the guts (and the patience) to try them out. When you get your first customer without buying a single media ad, it'll all be worth it.

Cheaper is Not Always Better

I work for a large insurance firm in the northwest, in an office with over 500 other employees. Management recently decided to replace our existing phone system as the old system was no longer meeting our needs. I and my co-workers were under the impression that they were going to update the system, as in "make an improvement", and that we would have late model phones with technological advancements galore. Boy, were we in for a surprise.

Keywords:

Telephone, telephones, phone, phones, telephone systems, telephone system

Article Body:

I work for a large insurance firm in the northwest, in an office with over 500 other employees. Management recently decided to replace our existing phone system as the old system was no longer meeting our needs. I and my co-workers were under the impression that they were going to update the system, as in "make an improvement", and that we would have late model phones with technological advancements galore. Boy, were we in for a surprise.

One day a few weeks ago, we all came in to find new phones on our desks. These were not the state-of-the-art communication devices we had in mind. Instead of the sleek, sophisticated, caller IDing, multi-line handling, LCD displaying wonders of the modern age we all dreamed of, there was a simple phone with a keypad on the receiver...not unlike what you might have had at home 15 years ago. In addition to the new phone, there was a sheet which explained in graphically painful detail exactly which series of buttons one would have to push in order to make this thing function properly. We had to now enter a digit to put someone on hold, enter a three digit code to transfer someone (one digit, dial tone, two digits) and enter a ridiculously long series of numbers to access our voicemail.

Needless to say, we were in shock. I knew it wouldn't take long before the roars of complaining would drown out the usual office din. Sure enough, by lunchtime our office manager came in to tell everyone that we were simply going to "try it out for a while" and that the company had saved thousands by choosing this option. I and the other employees were fairly certain that we had already lost thousands in reduced productivity that morning alone. Oh, well...it's their company, we just bring in the money for them.

For the next few days, we tried to get used to saying "hold, please, while I transfer you", removing the receiver from our faces and trying not to curse as we made a lame-duck attempt at pressing keys, listening and pressing more keys. It was a nightmare. We were getting pretty fed up with it, but just assumed that this was what we would have to deal with. Then, out of the blue, we came in one day to find real phones with real features at our desks. No more looking at the receiver while we frantically tried to key in numbers fast enough not to drop the call. No more ten digit voicemail "pins". No more of having no idea who was calling or where the call came from. Ahhhh, relief at last.

Later the same day, we heard a rumor circulating around the office that the VP of operations had returned from a two week trip to New York. His words, upon seeing one of the phones management had originally purchased on his desk were, "get rid of them". All it took were those four words from a higher-up to set things right. Unbelievable.

Gas Ain't Gitin' No Cheaper

Remote helpdesk looks at the rising costs of crude oil and what that means to you. It effects online computer repair as well as the price at the pump. As oil costs soar past $100.00 a barrel expect outsourced it services to go up.

Keywords:

Tennessee,mountain man,oil price,dacomputerman,fuel costs,computerman,computer repair,helpdesk,outsourced helpdesk,remote helpdesk,cheap gas

Article Body:

The Tennessee Mountain Man watches in horror as crude oil prices keep slipping in and out of record highs on it's way to over $100.00 a barrel. Irrespective of where the crude oil prices go the political powers want you and I to pay a minimum of $5.00 a gallon for regular grade unleaded fuel, and they will not stop until they accomplish their goals.

They really want us walking and/or riding non-powered bikes (for our own health don't you understand) while they cruise around in their SUV's and private air planes powered by monstrous twin jet engines lest they loose speaking fees.

Don't they know or care that fuel costs translate directly to customer costs for almost every consumable in the world? The more it cost you to get to dacomputerman shop or the computer man to get to you, the higher the cost of computer repair period!

When online computer repair trucks used to run all week on $10.00 worth of gasoline and now remote computer helpdesk 1 must spend over $10.00 per day on fuel; customers and computer man's techs both are spending waaaay too much just to get from one point to another before any computer repair or data recovery is even started.

Of course, there are things that help keep fuel cost down such as keeping your automobile properly tuned and your tires properly inflated while driving responsibly. But, alas, they only help so much.

Granted (for now at least) fuel cost less in the U.S. than some other corners of the world, but when computer man first spent two bits for a gallon of gas on top of Sand Mountain in Jackson County, Alabama, today's greedy bastards just burn his #@*&!

Sorry but the Tennessee Mountain Man is just an old college educated idiot who can't help but believe that we could be doing a lot better. In the internet age when remote computer repair is available and outsourced it services are 50 percent more efficient than an in house helpdesk physicists must be able to do better...a lot better. We have engineers that have improved everything else, but fuel efficiency eludes them! P-L-E-A-S-E !!!!!

Here are a few options, da computerman has found. I am going to save the best for last so don't bug out on me now.

1. Automobiles are built more cheaply with less costly parts than ever before. Then they are sold at outrageous profit margins because they are so efficient.?!

Tennessee Computer Man has not looked forward to the new car models arriving in the showroom since 1968, about ten years before losing interest in the Cumberland Valley Shows arriving at the county fairgrounds.

2. There are semi-electric cars and hybrid SUVs that keep us coming back for unfulfilled promises.

I don't know about anyone else, but for da computerman the thought of having to buy a car rates right up there with the thought of going to the dentist.

3. Rip offs by unscrupulous businessmen has brought us pills and powders which do little if anything to help with fuel cost, but they sure can lighten a wallet over and over again..

4. There is the MLM 4-E Corporation, Ethos Fuel Re-formulator 3-in-1 Product which claims:

Save fuel & oil

Reduce engine wear

Reduce emissions

With Ethos Fuel Re-formulator you will Save fuel, Save Oil, and Save on Wear and Tear to your engine! Make it run smoother, cleaner and with more power with our custom ester blend that is completely non-toxic. Cost: of course, you can order it as low as $100.00 a gallon....makes gasoline sound cheap to ye old computerman's remote helpdesk!

5. The Motley Fool says there is only way to reduce costs, and we refuse to take it.

NOTE: Did you know that you can convert your car in minutes to a water-running car? You can do it yourself, and you can do it for under $100.00!

But that is like the folk who are always seeking instant riches on the internet. Some people promise to sell you the formula and they make good money talking around it when they could just give it away. Why? It requires work!

It cannot be done in two hours a day let alone the half hour they promote and people are simply too lazy to perform the steps required to achieve their goals.

Instant oat meal, instant grits, instant coffee, and instant everything else has left a generation too spoiled to succeed.

For instance what if I told you, "you can have your Blog indexed on the major internet search engines within two days, but you have to do some things"?

Or, what if I told you, "your car will run primarily on water, but you have to make some changes which most anyone can do him or herself with parts available at wally world"?

Both statements are true by the way.

6. What if we weaned ourselves and our vehicles from foreign oil and still traveled cheaper...much cheaper...when and how and where and in what we pleased? Impossible? Not at all!!! Stop burning gas and start burning water.

Don't pull the plug, at least check it out.

How much are you paying for gas? What if you could cut that in at least half with a one time cost of about $100.00USD?

How much would that save you each week? How long would it take you to recover that $100.00 investment?

Would that help you with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Holidays and their intrinsic expenses which are now at your door?