Let People Know About What You Do: A Review of The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Guerrilla Marketing
Book Review
Letting People Know About What You Do
The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Guerrilla Marketing: Get creative … and get the word out about your product or service, Susan Drake and Colleen Wells, (Alpha, 2008, $18.95)
Whatever your business, if people don’t know about what you do, you’re not likely to be very successful. That’s why marketing is essential, no matter what business you’re in—and especially for real estate investors. People need to know that you’re the go-to person when they need a property or have one to sell, and they only way they can know is if you’re telling them.
With The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guerilla Marketing, Susan Drake and Colleen Wells have written a classic Idiot’s Guide—easy to read, entertaining, informative, and best of all, useful.
The authors begin by explaining that guerilla marketing is a phrase coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book, Guerrilla Marketing, to describe unconventional and inexpensive marketing methods geared toward small businesses. In the more than two decades since, the term has come to mean unconventional marketing methods of all types and sizes.
After a solid explanation of the basics—what is marketing and why is it necessary—the authors explain some traditional marketing techniques. You may be tempted to skip these chapters, but don’t. They provide the foundation for the rest of the book, which covers marketing in today’s fast-paced, internet-based, digital world populated by people who, when all is said and done, really just want their needs met.
Throughout the book, Drake and Wells explain strategies, offer real life examples of how large and small companies have actually used them, and develop some hypothetical situations illustrating how the reader might apply the same techniques. You can use their creative process to figure out how these same techniques can be applied to a real estate investing operation.
Perhaps the most interesting and valuable section of this book is Part 3, “To the Internet and Beyond!” Drake and Wells explain podcasts, blogs, Bluetooth messaging, social networking, message boards, search engine optimization, and more. They close with some practical how-to tips and questions that will guide you to figuring out what strategies will best work for your particular goals.
You’ll also learn some behind-the-scenes facts about marketing and publicity stunts that will make for great cocktail party chitchat. For example, did you know that there’s a restaurant in Lodi, California that offers a 50 percent discount to bald people on Wednesdays?
If you’re smart enough to be in real estate investing, you’re certainly not a “complete idiot”—but you’ll find plenty in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guerilla Marketing to make it a worthwhile read.
Reviewed by Jacquelyn Lynn, author of The Entrepreneur’s Almanac.
