The term guerrilla marketing was first coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 national best seller of the same name. The concept is so popular, Levinson has built his whole career around it, writing exclusively on this subject for the past 30 years. For good reason; Guerrilla Marketing is considered to be the best known marketing brand in history, was named one of the 100 best business books ever written, selling over 21 million copies. Levinson’s ideas have influenced marketing so much that his books have been translated in 62 languages and are required reading in MBA programs worldwide (I can attest to this).
Needless to say, in 2012, it has become a critical part of the advertising lexicon. While the method has clearly never gone out of fashion, with the explosion of social media, the spotlight has been on it again. With that in mind, I recently revisited my dusty copy looking for inspiration. What did I find? It turns out PTs might be some of the best candidates to become guerrilla marketers I can think of.
Guerrilla Meets The Tortoise and the Hare
Let’s start with guerrilla marketing lesson number one, “Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. Every bit of contact.” This means your company name, website, branding, clinic location, voicemail message, staff, length of sessions, follow-up, growth plans, and so on. If you’re not a clinic owner, you’re not quite off the hook. Don’t forget you are a brand in and of yourself. Your personal brand is much like a company and what the world sees whether it be online networking or looking for a new job.
On top of keeping all these elements in mind, Levision further stresses that “marketing is a process, not an event.” In the tradition of the childhood fable, slow and steady wins the race. A true guerrilla marketer, he says, knows that marketing has a beginning and a middle, but never an end.
