Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 58

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By Eddy G

Innovative, creative, low-cost
marketing tips you can use

Many consider a mailer not delivered by mail—placed on the hood of a car or on a doorknob of a
house—to be guerrilla marketing. This is like comparing a paint-by-number portrait to the Mona Lisa.
True guerrilla marketing is much more bold, creative, and, most important, surprising. In fact, all successful examples of this type of marketing feature unexpected placement, timing, or messaging.
Apples on trees in the middle of winter, a carton of undamaged eggs on a baggage claim carousel,
a crushed car in the middle of a valet parking lot—you must understand what is expected in a situation
and then do the opposite.
It’s not a marketing medium for those who prefer to play it safe. And it’s not something you can do just
halfway. If you do, your guerrilla marketing will be little more than a direct mail postcard without postage.
So if you’re ready to take on guerrilla marketing, let your creativity run wild and don’t be afraid to
break some rules. And remember: Have fun, too!
—Melinda Caughill, partner, strategic marketing, Third Person, Inc.

W

hen things get quiet at Carla Fryar’s Great Clips
salons in Northfield and New Prague, Minn.,
she tells her employees to hit the road—dressed
as the brand’s mascot, Sudz, a life-sized blue shampoo bottle.
“Rather than sending home an employee when it’s quiet,
we go out on a street corner and hold a sign, sometimes for
15 minutes, sometimes for 3 hours, depending on what we

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue III, 2012

want to get across,” she says. Participants include the managers, Fryar, her husband, or the employees or their children.
Fryar, a Great Clips franchisee since 1992, has two salons
now, down from the 10 she once operated with different partners. “We do a lot of local things that would not necessarily
in most peoples’ minds be considered advertising,” she says.
Some examples of her outside-the-box thinking: