Sometimes you have to forgo traditional advertising and sales promotion methods and connect with customers in different ways. Because of the internet, social media and other options, you do not have to market the way companies did in the past. Today, you as an affiliate marketer can utilize guerrilla marketing to reach new-targeted markets.



What is guerrilla marketing? Guerrilla marketing is non-traditional system of promotions whereby marketers rely on time, energy and creativity instead of high-budget methods to sell their goods and services. The key is to get as much return as possible on your efforts while not spending a lot of money to do so. Guerrilla marketing always involves a time and energy investment however; that's where the creativity, and yes, even the fun comes in.

In the past, if you had a product to sell, you put ads in newspapers, made up flyers and hung a sign in your shop window announcing it. Today, with internet affiliate marketing a big thing, you must market to niches differently. They are not always coming to a bricks and mortar store; they're coming to you in other words. You have to go to where the market is and let them know you're in business.

Consequently, guerrilla marketing is doing whatever you have to do to get your name known. Of course, all is done legally and decently. Guerrilla marketing may be as simple as standing on a street corner where you know your target market is with a propeller beanie-cap on and a Day-Glo shirt handing out product information or samples.

Guerrilla marketing may be viral-type marketing where you send out links to your affiliate product site through chat forums and e-mails. You may write articles for wide distribution with links back to your site. If you write articles with lots of useful content, you gain the trust of people seeking information. They'll spread the word about you themselves. This is efficient marketing of the guerrilla kind.

Guerrilla marketing may mean giving lectures on your area of expertise at trade show seminars or corporate luncheons. Of course, at these events have brochures and other information to hand out to listeners at the end of your talk. Giving talks, if you are so inclined, allows you to give valuable information to attendees without giving them a sales pitch. You just set up more information about you and your products on a display table that others visit after your seminar.

If you are an affiliate marketer of a more introverted nature and public speaking is not your thing, try writing a newsletter. Target this specialty newsletter to a specific niche in unique ways. Print up business cards that have a link to your website and distribute them where your target niche is found. They will go to your website, at their leisure, and opt-in to your newsletter when they arrive on your landing page. They control the process and do not feel that you gave them the hard sell. They chose to pick up your business card and utilize the link provided. They chose to opt-in to the newsletter. Just make sure you get these business cards to the right target market. If you market computer software, form an association with a computer repair service and leave your cards in their shop.

Guerrilla marketing techniques mean being unconventional so as to create interest for your affiliate product. Traditional advertising does not surprise consumers as much as it did in the past. While some traditional advertising methods still arouse interest, many do not. Guerrilla marketing may mean modifying traditional methods.

Seek new ways to reach your target market. Stand on that corner marketing your health supplements to that gym across the street in your beanie, showing testimonials to them via your laptop. Just make sure you have extras batteries for your propeller.