Aaron Brazell has put together a post Guerrilla Marketing Techniques that Anyone Can Do which have some less common tactics to get word out about your blog.
I doubt any of them will bring in a deluge of traffic – however sometimes it’s the small ways of building traffic that add up to make a blog popular.
What small and less common techniques do you use to build traffic to your blog?
An Example of a Guerrilla Marketing Tactic
I met a blogger recently who had a blog with a very local focus. His Guerrilla Marketing Tactic was to do a deal with three internet cafes in his area to make his blog the home page on all of the computers. In return for this he gave them some free advertising on his blog. The same blogger made a similar deal with the local library who also made his blog the home page of their public internet computers. This worked particularly well for him as his blog was on his local area.
Great idea! Limited potential but everything counts. My girlfriend hands out business cards of my women’s fitness site to women who come into her book shop looking for fitness stuff. I am amazed at how many of them get involved in the site.
RT
Wow that’s a good idea. I’ve given thought to putting a decal along the bottom of my back windshield with my web address… as I drive 100 miles round trip to work everyday.
It’s silly I know but when I’m in any consumer electronics shop, especially my favorite Apple shop, I fire up all the browsers and point them to my url. Most recently was in a Harvey Norman and I did see a little traffic in my stats.
The good old viral email signature works well for me. It’s a very simple but effective tool.
One of the tactics is print my website address on my name card.
My name card is print with my photograph for easy remember who am I.
Well that is a great idea. I wonder now if any of our cafe’s would even consider something like that?
The idea you posted here was excellent! Another example of thinking outside of the box. I would love to implement that where I live.
Good Day,
I looking for a web host to start my blog but searching for a reliable web host is a tedious task.
Based on this website ranking on “make money online”, I assumed that you need a dedicated server.
I do not need dedicated server at the start and whether I need one in future depends on the traffic attracted.
Since almost every web hosting company got an economical shared web hosting plan, can I know which web hosting company you used?
Thanks.
Regards,
Jimmy
I don’t think the example used in this article is a particularly good example of ‘Guerilla Marketing’ – rather it’s just a good marketing idea.
Guerilla marketing examples I like include Richard Branson flying a Virgin Atlantic balloon over British Airways’s London Eye when they were having trouble lifting it into position. The Virgin balloon carried a slogan stating ‘BA can’t get it up’.
Another good example can be seen in this BBC article.
– Martin Reed
That’s actually pretty evil genius. I’m going to shoot an email to my local library and give it a shot.
One Man. One Year. $100,000 online. How’s he doing it?
http://www.oneyeargoal.com
While I rarely disagree with the things you say Daren, infact I admire a lot of things you say and i think the example was good marketing it was not exactly guerilla marketing i nmy eyes.
Thanks Community Spark for the links
That’s a good idea except they are no more Internet Cafe’s where I come from but a lot of local coffee shops provide wireless and do provide place to put business cards and flyers. I normally put my business cards in these places but the site in my link is more educational and may be a better gateway for potential readers.
I’d be worried if the blog has adsense on it. Is Google familiar with the fact that there will be multiple users from the same IP clicking on ads? I would contact Google first if I was to do that with a site featuring adsense.
So Guerrillas are not actually Marketing? This posts topic is misleading!
Anyway, I never thought about marketing my blog before, but my big brother came up with perfect locations for mine, Coalinga State and Delmont Private Hospital. He thinks they’ll be crazy about my blog!
I tried this tactic at my local library a couple of weeks ago, and they politely asked me to leave. lol
http://alltalksports.wordpress.com/
I place my blog url as the signature for all my emails. Then, my offline marketing tool is I print out a bunch of cheap business cards with my blog web address on them and a short description of my blog. Then, where ever I go, I just drop a card: bookstores, coffee shops, libraries, etc. (my blog is literary focused).
The key to marketing is just to be creative. The readers are there, you just have to find them (I know, easier said than done!).
Thanks for the great post!!!
Hmmadee… That’s interesting, but it doesn’t seem like stuff like that could work for just anyone, namely myself.
We attended a wedding recently where bride and groom had their respective urls printed on the invitations as well as on the thankyou cards. It had the potential of being really tacky, I thought it was cute and well done.
Awesome idea! This has got me thinking of some unique ideas.
Excellent idea to go along with the local paper. Loving the ideas that come out of this place. Being new to the blogging scene, this site has given such an informative view on blogging. My next form of advertising is going to be my magnetic ad sheet for the car.
White background, black letters: http://www.stillbloggin.com
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I think that every little bit helps!
With each kind of different niche/theme that a blog has comes the opportunity for the blog’s author to find different ways of promoting their blogs!
So many people think that their blogs don’t have any adsense potential but they are so wrong. As long as your blog has some sort of niche/theme there are so many possibilities for it.
You don’t necessarily have to “pimp” your blog just because it has adsense on it. Use adsense to enhance your blog.
I just made a new blog for a client and I told him to advertise his blog everywhere that he can – including adding his blog’s address on all of his business literature and business cards!
You never know where your next site visitor is going to come from!
I’m a fan of guerilla marketing, but only when it can be done ethically. Much of guerilla marketing seems to require a certain sneakiness or playing loosely with the truth.
In french, we have a proverb: “Little brooks make big river”
So, all tactics are welcome :-)
Wow, I like the idea with the Internet cafe. Genius stuff.
I could be (hypothetically) the person who (allegedly) places our blog’s business cards into business books at any book store i happen to be browsing in………allegedly :-)
I dont know if it has worked yet, nobody has actually told me they heard of the site through finding it in a book they read.
I ask everyone who participates in the forum how they found us, but as for the blog subscribers and the forum lurkers, who knows?
As our site involves business tips, i also leave a card secretly on the counter of any business who gives me crap service, i figure they need it :-)
Dude I love your blog, this is the first blog I’ve seen where every post is worth $
Great tips for the local blog advertising
Now THIS is an awesome post. These tactics have inspired me to do some original marketing of my own. Cheers mate!
Great post. Record companies are experts at Guerrilla Marketing.. They use “street teams” to promote up coming releases with everything from bumper stickers, freebies, graffiti.. you name it!
Why not websites too?
ive been talking with a lot of local small bussiness owner that have computer with internet access. I think one important factor is whether or not your blog is the type of blog for such advertising. It must apply to the people that actually frequent those places, otherwise its uselss.
In my industry (maritime/shipping) people always forward emails with photos of the latest maritime disaster, newest ship, coast guard rescue… these are always a pain because you get an email with 15 attachments that need to be opened and since ships have strict bandwidth restrictions I always get a lot of bouncebacks when I forward them on to my friends.
So this time when I got the email I combined all the photos in photoshop and forwarded it on with my logo attached. Here’s the final product (click on the photo to expand): http://tinyurl.com/yotkl7
I like running across ideas that think outside the box. Offline can be very effectively used to promote an online business. Most of the time, we think only about cyberspace. Thanks for the ideas!
I didn’t know Gorillas could market my blog…. I should hire one.
That’s some damn good advice about the internet cafe tactic – especially for more localised blogs. Sorry, but I gotta steal that idea. :-)
I’ve dabbled a bit with the idea also. Hasn’t been the greatest generator of traffic (well, so far) but it’s been fun trying some offline promotion!
http://www.disassociated.com/2007/08/16/inline/
Great ideas that shouldn’t be overlooked.
That’s thinking outside the box and creativity is key.
I think that it’s a great idea for local businesses if you can get people to agree to it.
Another great idea. I guess one could also use a google adsense search bar on their blog so they could be creating another income stream as well(since you would be a hompage for these cafes)
Wonderful idea! Great concept.