Guerrilla marketing techniques are creative, low-cost ways of promoting a product, service or idea. Rather than running a traditional and expensive TV, newspaper and magazine ad campaign, guerrilla marketers achieve their goals by investing time and energy rather than large amounts of money. This makes guerrilla marketing techniques ideally suited to nonprofit organizations that often have large pools of volunteers but small marketing budgets. Guerrilla marketing techniques draw on the time and energy these volunteers are willing to invest to promote their goals.
Word of Mouth
In addition to volunteers who are dedicated to the cause of their nonprofit, such organizations often have large membership rolls. With easy access to a large group of people ready to talk about their nonprofit organization, it makes sense to prioritize a word-of-mouth campaign. Organizers must develop a strategic plan to set goals, define the message and track results. They can then distribute details of the message to their followers, with instructions spread the word. Members and volunteers are encouraged to talk about the message with their friends, and make a concentrated effort to reach a maximum number of people within a defined time frame. At the end of the period, organizers can evaluate the results and extend or wind down the campaign.
Personal Letters
Personal or personalized letters are a low-cost and effective way to reach people. Volunteers and members of nonprofit organizations often cover the cost of mailing such letters to their contacts, further reducing the cost to the organization. Campaign leaders must prepare sample letters so that campaign participants can either just add the names of their friends, or can personalize portions as they see fit. These letters describe the problem the nonprofit is facing, the proposed solution and the request for the specific response expected from the recipient. The organizers must insist that the main elements of the message remain unchanged and consistent and ask that all letters be sent out by a reasonable deadline.
Direct Mail
A quicker and more accurate way of reaching specific targets is with direct mail. Most nonprofits compile extensive mailing lists through their fund-raising and advocacy efforts. It is relatively inexpensive to distribute material to this list through direct mail. Organizers can expand their reach by adding purchased mailing lists or targeting all households in specific neighborhoods. Mailings should include an introductory letter, a flier making the request for recipient action in a catchy way, and an easy way to respond.
News Conferences
A relatively unreliable but inexpensive and possibly far-reaching way to promote a campaign is to give a news conference. The news conference must announce an initiative that is new, and that is important enough to be newsworthy. If organizers can get regional media to turn out and run stories on the event, the nonprofit will benefit greatly from the publicity. Subsequent actions will be much more successful, as many recipients of material will already have heard about the campaign.
