In my earlier article, ‘Why Small is Beautiful’ I gave some examples of how small, inferior and sometimes even obscure players can beat the big guns in business and other areas. But this obviously takes time. It would be naïve to think that you can beat a giant multi-partner legal firm by tomorrow if you are just a sole proprietor in your first week of business. However, there is one crucial aspect of your business where you can beat the big guns much faster when you use Guerrilla Marketing. This is because in Guerrilla Marketing, what you are shooting for is not winning more clients or generating more revenue or being more competitively priced than the big guns; it is being more profitable than them. Profitability is having as much positive bottom line as possible. Whether you call it profit, ROI, net income, gains or any other name, they all spell profitability and that’s what you are after. And this is the crucial aspect where you can beat the big guns, even in your very first months of starting your business.
So how do you employ Guerrilla Marketing as a small player?
Every marketing strategy you employ has to be effective and produce results at a fraction of the cost it takes the major players. Often, your strategies have to be personalized. As such, you would likely shy away from certain marketing strategies like a series of related Websites, blogs, forums, press releases, online classified ads or even social online media like videos and podcast. These are in the realm of large legal firms with deep pockets. You may have yourself one humble Website advertising your legal services and an accompanying blog. And you complement that with some offline advertising (where permissible for lawyers) like ads in the print media.
As a Guerrilla Marketer, you would also look into how kill two birds with one stone in your advertising. For instance, your business card can not only contain your name, credentials and other contact information but also your areas of legal expertise or specializations. Thus your calling card doubles up as a form of advertisement also. Have you come across potential clients who discard calling cards? I’m sure you have. Perhaps they discard calling cards of the same kind (one lawyer is enough, why should I want to contact two?) or they just have too many calling cards and want to be more selective. As a Guerrilla Marketer, you should think of ways to make that potential client keep yours and discard the rest. Well, you could print a calendar or a list of emergency phone numbers or public holidays at the back of your card – something of use and value besides your contact information and services offered. That will incentivize the recipient to keep your card (in fact, he would keep it in a handy place so that he can always refer to it whenever he needs to). And people appreciate such gestures. This saves them time and space and your card saves them time while taking up little space. Thus your calling card can be a marketing weapon.
As a Guerrilla Marketer, you may not need to target many clients. Often, the large legal firms take a shot gun approach in their advertising and marketing, targeting the general public. But as a small player, you need only one or two major clients and that would be enough for a positive bottom line. So instead of a massive blitz of advertising, you may just focus on simple brochures offering your services to major clients or corporate clients. If applicable, even posting signs on bulletin boards can bring in all the clients you may need.
While large firms may advertise and direct their potential clients to a directory to contact one of their branches, the Guerrilla Marketer would not do that if he were a small player. Your advertisements cannot direct people to where other competitors’ contacts are also found. You have to be more personal and direct your potential client to your very own point of contact like your Website. Better still, give your potential clients a reason to visit your Website or make a call to your office or whatever action you want them to take. How? Give a freebie. Everybody thinks about ‘What’s in it for Me?’ and even more, people think about ‘What’s in it for Me that’s Free?’
These are some simple ways the small can win big in the bottom line, where it really counts. But we’re not done yet. In our next article, we will deal with the one quality that small guys have that KO’s the big guns every time.
