Interview With Jay Conrad Levinson – The Father Of Guerrilla Marketing

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Armand Morin had his first weekly Tuesday-night speaker interview with one of his hand-picked top marketers, who are teaching at the Big Seminar.

Fittingly it was with the Father of Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson himself.

Jay has been to Armand Morin’s Big Seminar twice before, as a participant. What he learned there changed his own life for the better, by getting him properly outfitted with internet savvy and winning tools and weapons to help him stay abreast and maintain the highest quality lifestyle for himself and his family.

Here is my take on the interview.

Guerrilla Marketing For The Internet
Internet Marketing is the perfect Guerrilla Marketing environment. Unconventional guerrilla tactics combined with high customer valuing strategies are key to gaining conventional goals and sustaining your success online.

It boils down to positioning yourself to be different and then practicing those differences with a strong focus and high quality mindset. Innovative ideas are born and played out within a highly competitive environment. Entrepreneurs either don’t have the money or just refuse to go head-to-head with the other players, like traditional big business.

Instead, they change the game itself. Jay originally developed his guerrilla principles, teaching the ‘Berkley Kids’ of the 1970’s. These kids broke so many conventional wisdoms and went on the create the internet technology we enjoy today.

20 Major Differences Between Traditional and Guerrilla Marketing
In the interview, Jay compared 20 major differences between traditional and guerrilla marketing. If you understand these differences and embrace the guerrilla lifestyle, you de-mystify and simplify marketing once and for all.  Most importantly, you will re-position and re-brand yourselves for success.

Here is my summary of these 20 major differences.

1. Guerrilla marketers live in the moment. Instead of investing large sums of money, they invest their time, energy, imagination and information. They remove the smoke and mirrors of complex marketing and simplify it.
2. Traditional marketing is geared to big business with big budgets. Guerrilla marketers find 500 ways to make money with no money.
3. Traditional marketers measure their success with sales, inventory and  turnover rate. Guerrilla marketers measure their success only by profits.
4. Traditional marketers learn about their markets by experience, judging and guesswork. Guerrilla marketers rely heavily on understanding the psychology of human behavior.
5. Traditional marketers grow their markets and then diversify. Guerrilla marketers maintain a strong focus and add excellence and expertise to their products and services and don’t go in over their heads.
6. Traditional marketers grow linearly, seeking to increase the number of customers. Guerrilla marketers grow geometrically in several directions at the same time and increase the size and value of their transactions via more products and referrals.
7. 68% of traditionally lost business is due to ignoring the customer after the purchase. Guerrilla marketers continually invest time, energy, imagination and information in maintaining satisfied customers for the long term.
8. Traditional marketers focus on trying to obliterate the competition. Guerrilla marketers look for joint, complimentary and cooperative ventures with the other players in their market.
9. Traditional marketers focus on external ‘eye’ recognition via logos and product identity. Guerrilla marketers focus on the ideas and symbols, or ‘memes’ behind their visual identity presentation in a way that internalizes meaning, has universal appeal and alters customer behavior.
10. Traditional marketing focuses on ‘me’ marketing, while guerrilla marketers focus on ‘you’ marketing in thought, words (i.e copy) and deeds.
11. Traditional marketing looks at the monetary lifetime value of the customer. Guerrilla marketing is about giving, making the customer happier, and helping them succeed in their goals.
12. Traditional marketers believe that advertising works, or PR works or website design works as separate pieces. Guerrilla marketers say that is nonsense. The only thing that works is when everything works together in combination.
13. Traditional marketers measure the number of sales per month. Guerilla marketers focus on establishing relationships and measure the number and quality of customer interest.
14. Traditional marketers are techno-phobic. Guerilla marketers are techno-cozy and are open to available technology.
15. Traditional marketers broadcast and waste over 90% of their budgets. Guerrilla marketers nanocast, reaching the most targeted niches with high returns.
16. Traditional marketing is unintentional. Guerrilla marketing is intentional in taking care of all the details with and around the product experience.
17. Traditional marketers believe marketing makes the sale. Guerrilla marketers know that marketing only gets customer consent to talk to them (permission marketing), to opt in to get more information and then pays careful attention, giving them their time, energy, innovations and information.
18. Traditional marketing is a one-way monologue in writing, reading, talking and listening. Guerrilla marketing initiates dialogue and interaction.
19. Traditional marketers engage with a handful of marketing weapons (like TV, radio, newspapers, PR, internet). Guerrilla marketers use 200 different marketing weapons, of which more than 100 are free. And they can put them on autopilot.
20. Traditional marketers sell people what they want. Guerrilla marketers research carefully and give customers what they truly need to succeed and gain their trust over the long term.

The Point Of No Return
Jay concluded by saying: once a guerrilla, you can never go back. Make all your marketing pull in the same direction.

This amazing information hopefully has captured the essence of this high-energy, ever-giving and wonderful Guerrilla Marketing Master!

May Success Be With You!

Aditi

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Tagged as: Armand Morin, Big Seminar, Guerrilla Marketing, interview, Jay Conrad Levinson, Web Marketing