Interesting Street Marketing Tactics That Will Benefit Your Online Biz

The days of old-school ads, of TV spots and radio jingles are long gone. Sure, they can help you out a little, but today, it’s all about social media and the internet. Especially when your target is millennials and lower. However, this doesn’t mean that everything you do has to be online – you just want it to end up there. You want your marketing idea to go viral – and one of the best ways you can do this is by utilizing guerrilla marketing.

Guerrilla marketing is all about exposure, about getting your brand and your products out there. It relies on word of mouth, both online and IRL. It relies on stunts, tricks, originality, but, above all, creativity. Read below to get some ideas on how to get yourself out there.

Street art and decoration

The beauty of guerrilla marketing is the creativity involved, and the fact that you are not locked in some stuffy room in front of a screen all day. No, you can, and should, go out and work on your brand. One of the best ways is via street art, stickers, and decorations. Now, before we begin, remember that you need to look up all your county and city laws, so you won’t get into trouble.

One idea is getting your logo all over town. You can use stickers, or you can actually spray paint it. Just remember to keep it legal, and to not paint over somebody else’s art. Think long and hard about your online business’s target audience. Figure out where these people hang out, what kind of bars they like to go too. Then, place your company’s logo, along with the website and social media links, around there. This may just pique somebody’s curiosity.

You can also figure out interesting banners, or even wall art. You can get a professionally printed fence scrim done. Just try to keep it original. While the stickers and art can be found all around town, you probably can’t (and shouldn’t) get more than one fence scrim. So keep the ad memorable and original. Get people’s curiosity going.

Give out free stuff

There is nothing better than free stuff. It’s an excellent way to reach the hearts and minds of the public – i.e. give them free merch and food. So with that in mind, there are a couple of things you can do.

First, you can give out free samples. Let’s say your online business centers around food. Then hand out free cupcakes, with your logo on the wrappers. Even if you don’t work with food, free snacks are a great way to “bribe” your potential customers towards checking out your company.

Or, you can take a hint from bands, see what they do well. They’re all about guerrilla marketing, getting badges, and printing T-shirts to get their name out there. So you can hand out free t-shirts, or sell them for cheap. The T-shirts should have your company’s info and logo on them. And if you’re worried about your bottom line, remember to keep them as cheap as possible. Breakeven as far as materials and printing go, but that’s about it.

Geo-Fencing and scavenger hunts

Geo-fencing is all about utilizing your smartphone’s GPS setting. You essentially “fence off” an area with just for your company. You can also use this to set up a scavenger hunt of sorts. So, here’s what this would look like in practice, just to give you an idea.

Set up a scavenger hunt where the reward is people getting lots of free merch. Create clues, patterns, tasks, and every location that houses a part of the scavenger hunt’s list should be geo-fenced. You don’t even have to actually have an item there, it’s enough to take a picture and have it sent to you. Every location should maybe have a clue to the next one. The first person to reach all of these places wins. You can even have part of the scavenger hunt revolve around special filters and specific angles if you really want to spice things up.

Props and flash mobs

Of course, getting it all good online is important. You got your website, your SEO Basics down, your social media set up, but yet again, guerrilla marketing revolves around real life. So one of the things you can do is set up something that people can interact with. The very physical touch and presence can really make your company seem more, well, real. So setting up a vending machine in the park can be cool. Or maybe a play that you can set up.

An excellent example regarding props is when discovery left a lot of surfboards with shark bites on them around Australian beaches. This was all for marketing their famous “Shark Week” special. So be creative, see if you can figure out something like that. Maybe figure out an even or a flash mob. If you run a board game and role-playing shop, you can get a lot of your friends in costume play-fighting in the streets. Maybe even create a battle in the park by using a flash mob.

If you really want to get out there and stand out, you need to be creative and original. That’s why guerrilla marketing is important and useful. It’s just the perfect thing that can generate buzz around your brand. And if you do it correctly and get lucky, a stunt or event you do can go viral.