MEETING YOUR CUSTOMERS WHERE THEY ARE 3 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics to Grow Your Business
Getting fired is a horrible experience. Losing a job is hard on an employee, and terminating an employee can create a whole mess of grief for a company. In a 2018 article for Harvard Business Review, Investopedia CEO David Siegel laid out his strategy to avoid the troubles of termination by offering a more considerate approach to firing: transparent separation. In a transparent separation, when underperforming employees are informed that their tenure with the company is coming to an end, they are given a time frame to look for a new job before their last day. Employees are asked to keep the arrangement confidential and are expected to maintain job performance. Siegel states that employees who abuse the goodwill of transparent separation should be let go immediately. Transparent separation is a wild departure from the traditional termination playbook, but Siegel insists that the strategy offers some incredible benefits, such as the following: • Departing employees avoid the struggle of trying to find a new job while unemployed. • There’s reduced legal risk that the company might be sued by an angry employee. • Managers are not cast in an adversarial role for abrupt firings. • The company has time to find a suitable replacement, resulting in a smoother transition. • Remaining employees feel more comfortable when they don’t have to worry about “disappearing” overnight. Even with all these positives, Siegel notes that transparent separation may not be the best course of action for every employee termination. For example, if the soon-to-be-ex- employee is a manager whose toxic behavior is harming the work environment, they need to be shown the door immediately. Siegel claims that in two-thirds of cases, transparent separations offered the best outcome both for the company and the former employee. Is Transparent Separation Right for Your Company? TIME TO SAY GOODBYE There are potential drawbacks to transparent separation. Opponents to this strategy note the potential damage a disgruntled employee can cause after being told they are losing their job. Some employees may even prefer to collect severance and leave so they can fully focus on the job search. Is transparent separation the answer to all your termination woes? The jury’s still out; there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to any business problem. What works great for one company might not be best for another. But if you think the pros outweigh the cons, transparent separation might be worth considering the next time your company has to say goodbye.
Guerrilla marketing strategies, with their low-cost methods and innovative approaches to advertising, can be the key to growing both large and small businesses. Here are three examples of guerrilla advertising that, with enough creativity and boldness, you can use to maximize business growth.
LEAVE NO SURFACE UNTOUCHED AND NO MEDIUM UNUSED.
Ambient marketing is one of the more common guerrilla marketing strategies, and it is a great way to raise local awareness for your brand. It involves advertising in unusual spaces with unusual methods. A recent example of this is how Taco Bell announced their presence in London in 2018. They created the illusion that Big Ben was ringing by mixing its sound with Taco Bell’s signature bell sound. They played it on speakers attached to rickshaws, which were driven around the city. While this is certainly a more elaborate example, ambient marketing can be as easy as using more unconventional surfaces, like sidewalks and drinking glasses, to market your product — so long as it is creative enough to make a potential customer take notice. ENGAGE INTERNET USERS WHERE THEY ARE. The marketing strategy that used to be known as “word- of-mouth,” “network marketing,” or “creating a buzz,” is now known as “viral marketing” on the internet. This is not a new concept in and of itself, but it can be made even more effective with some creativity. Major fast-food chain Wendy’s utilizes this strategy with their Twitter account. Their account takes on a personality, as opposed to just being a place to make announcements, which works well in their quest to get away from the cynical idea of the soulless, profit-mongering corporation. Having an online presence that engages people where they are, instead of making posts and waiting for potential customers to happen upon them, can help your business stand out online. FORM REAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS. This tactic, sometimes known as a grassroots movement, has many different facets. However, the goal is to ultimately win a customer’s business by engaging with them on a more personal level. This approach often involves using the internet to ask supporters of your business to repost or retweet material from your social media pages. You can also encourage your employees to engage with real people in places where your target demographic likes to spend their time. The goal is to foster genuine relationships with customers that make them feel cared for by your company and eager to keep coming back.
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