Guerrilla marketing means maximum impact for minimum expense, often on a Do-It-Yourself basis. And while this sort of thing has always been a top priority for small business marketing, in today’s tough economy, low-cost and innovative guerrilla marketing strategies have the potential to be more important than ever.

This article focuses on custom stickers, one of the cheapest and most versatile marketing materials out there, and one that is often overlooked in traditional marketing campaigns.

Let’s start with the basics:

1) Understand your customers

At first, this may seem like common sense in any marketing strategy, but common sense is often not that common. If it were, more small business owners would understand that a simple logo tag, as great as it may be, probably won’t go viral, except among people who are already voraciously loyal to your cause.

However, a sticker that people really identify with, whether it’s because of the humor, the artwork, or some other element, has the potential to go viral, for one very important reason: it says as much about your customers as it does about your business. business. .

A great example of this is a pizza place in my area called Bob’s Pizza. Their logo, appropriately enough, is their name, in a flourish-type font next to a drawing of a slice of pizza. The owner of this store (Bob) could have easily made a custom decal out of this; instead, he chose to do something different.

As the owner of an affordable downtown pizzeria, Bob understands that his target market in this area is primarily families and students. He therefore not only provides crayons and paper for young artists and late-night doodlers, but he also posts these masterpieces on the walls of his shop. One of these works of art turned out to be of a seven-year-old boy; he was a happy, blurry person with a slice of pizza, accompanied by the words, in a childish scribble, “I like Bob’s pizza.”

This is the image Bob chose to make into an eye-catching die-cut sticker, an image that seemed to strike a chord with both families and students, who appreciated the style and humor. I have seen this sticker everywhere imaginable. I have also noticed a lot of people at Bob’s Pizza.

The moral of the story is: create a sticker that shows you understand your customers, and they will advertise your business everywhere, at virtually no cost to you.

2) Be useful

Almost everyone knows the old trick of putting a tip calculator chart on the back of your business card, to encourage people to keep their cards in their wallets.

However, depending on your business, there may be a better way to “stay” in your customers’ lives, and in a way that helps establish authority in your area of ​​expertise. By printing a personalized label with useful information related to your business, designed for semi-permanent mounting in important and everyday places, you can keep your name and number in front of your old and potential customers for an almost indefinite period of time.

Repair computers for a living? Design a quick reference troubleshooting label for common computer problems, designed to mount on a computer monitor or laptop. yoga studio? Create a daily “mindfulness meditation” designed to be mounted on the dashboard of a car. Heating and cooling business? Print a sticker designed for thermostats with energy saving tips.

The trick here is to be innovative, helpful, and stick around long enough that when people need your services, you’re the one they call.

3) Be loud

If you really want to create some buzz in your area, you can put the “bouncer” in guerilla marketing with over-the-top, in-your-face marketing that doesn’t look like marketing.

Case in point – a website called SprayGraphic. This online community of artists wanted to create something of interest in different parts of the US. First, they recruited creative artists to feature their graphic design work on their website. They then sent eye-catching posters and custom stickers to these artists to help promote their work.

The result? Intriguing posters began appearing in coffee shops and community boards across the country, complete with their trademark funny mustache, nose and glasses logo, explaining who they were, what they did and why people should unite. Then a series of die-cut stickers with his logo began appearing everywhere, accompanied by his URL. You can be sure that this simple and affordable guerrilla marketing tactic created a huge amount of traffic for this site, almost overnight.

The trick with using custom stickers in this way is not to give away too much and use them to create a sort of mystery, which your customers will be forced to solve.