There is hardly any way a modern communication campaign can be unique and instantly noticeable without blending creativity, innovation and powerful imposed conception. In this case, direct marketing and guerrilla marketing are two aggressive techniques that when combined can be explosive and significant in the creation of a good and successful campaign. Thus, in this detailed and informative article, we will focus on the advantages of direct marketing combined with guerrilla marketing, give real-life examples of such campaigns, and reveal the strategies that anybody interested in this type of advertising should be aware of.

Understanding Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a way of targeting the potential consumers directly with the products, usually through a message that is specially tailored. It is immediate in that the main purpose is to elicit a specific action such as a sale, an inquiry, or a subscription. Common direct marketing channels include

•           Direct Mail: Literature which is usually physically distributed to consumers as possibly through post cards, brochures, and calendars.

•           Email Marketing: Marketing messages that are launched to contacts that have agreed and expressly asked to be included.

•           Telemarketing: This involves contacting of clients in order to inform them about certain products or services.

•           SMS Marketing: Messages which have commercial content and are transmitted to mobile terminals.

Understanding Guerrilla Marketing

Consequently, guerrilla marketing is a very active form of marketing, whose main distinguishing features include high creativity and apparent randomness of the message distribution to the target audience. Sometimes it involves the strategies that are cheap to implement and yet very effective; these are the strategies that use shock to get the attention of the audience. Key characteristics of guerrilla marketing include: Some of the attributes of guerrilla marketing are:

•           Creativity: Imaginativeness and innovation of goods that have the potential to attract the attention of people.

•           Interactivity: Designing or developing the mode of learning that requires the use of ones body or the audience’s body.

•           Surprise Element: Voluble, remarkable, and often creative ones which are easily memorized.

•           Low Budget: Strategy methods that assist in making a greater impact for an undertone of capital expenditure.

The Synergy of Combining Direct and Guerrilla Marketing

Consequently, it allows coming to the conclusion that the direct and guerrilla marketing are perfect strategies for creating a powerful and memorable campaign with the advertiser’s advantages of both. Here are some key benefits of this hybrid strategy: 

•           Personalization and Engagement: In contrast to the direct marketing, the guerrilla marketing idea though gives good experiences to the target public. Together they can effect up on the relation with the audience. Additionally, this shows that.

•           Increased Reach: Direct marketing is personal it targets an’ identified public while Guerrilla marketing is sociable and viral.

•           Cost-Effectiveness: Because of the low cost of the guerrilla marketing strategies the overall campaign including the direct marketing will be cheaper.

•           Memorability: Other characteristics of guerrilla marketing are shocking, surprising and these increases the chances of positive response to the later goals of direct marketing.

Examples of Combining Direct Marketing with Guerrilla Marketing

1. Interactive Direct Mail Campaigns

It is also important to note that Direct Marketing can be done in conjunction with Guerrilla Marketing; one splendid technique is using interactive direct mail pieces. For instance, a company could offer mails or packing that pop up with an interesting message that the recipient has to interact with. That is not only grabs the viewers’ attention but also produces a positive experience which further helps the interaction with the brand

Case Study: Coca Cola is the ‘Happiness Machine’ Campaign

The advertising campaign known as the “Happiness Machine” entailed the use of vending machines in places that one would least expect and these machines dispensed free products and at times tiny surprises. As a supplement to this guerrilla marketing technique, the company used direct mail messages to select consumers, urging them to get to these machines. Therefore, while personalized invitations made people aware about the vending machine experiences in an organized manner, the actual experience generated word-of-mouth traffic to the campaign locations.

2. Augmented Reality (AR) Campaigns

Thus, augmented reality can be utilized as the connection between direct marketing and guerrilla marketing. It is thus possible that through mailings pieces where the company will have placed AR codes, the recipient audience will be motivated enough to scan the code on the screen of their mobile devices and be presented with other forms of interactive and engaging experiences

Case Study: IKEA’s AR Catalog

IKEA adopted the AR to their printed catalogs where the customer scanned with their smartphone and get a preview of how furniture looks in the house. This direct marketing technique was additionally accompanied by guerrilla marketing strategies including installation of posters containing information on how to use the viewer in public areas in order to create an exciting and interactive experience in addition to the catalog.

3. Pop-Up Events and Experiences

This also implies that where people least expect pop-up events to happen a lot of attention could be drawn. One way to utilize direct marketing is through invitations to the event and linking it with guerrilla marketing by sending out invites or promotional materials.

Case Study: Outdoor refreshing event of tourist of the globetrotter.

A retailer of outdoor gears called, Globetrotter, arranged a promotional activity whereby they built a indoors’ pool just for the purpose of the event for the clients to test the waterproofing of their apparels. They used the Direct Mail technique to give their targeted group of consumers a chance to be involved in the novelty. Thus, inviting people to the evening and the show that was obviously impressive, the company succeeded in its official and commercial aims.

Best Abs on the Application of Direct and Guerrilla Marketing

To successfully combine direct marketing with guerrilla marketing strategies, consider the following tips: 

Here are several recommendations for making the use of direct marketing relatively complement the guerrilla marketing concepts:

1.         Know you’re Audience: It is essential that you understand these two to enable you come up with suitable and exciting campaigns.

2.         Be Creative: Innovative and create new ideas that are unique and should be capable of gaining the attention and interest of people.

3.         Leverage Technology: Direct marketing is usually defined as the mass customization of an organization’s message and guerrilla marketing is a technique that blends in with the rest of the marketing promoted by different organizations and companies; therefore, almost all organizations should seek to combine or incorporate both techniques with the help of technology: with the help of AR or QR codes, for instance.

4.         Measure Success: It is most important that you determine the impact of the campaigns with the levels of responses, participation and ROI and then make level headed decisions about the campaigns.

5.         Integrate Channels: This means that there is need to blend the two marketing strategies especially the direct marketing as well as the guerrilla marketing so that there is consistency in the message that is taken to the customers.

Conclusion

Therefore, introducing direct marketing in connection with guerrilla strategies creates complex and efficient marketing strategies for target audiences. Thus, combining the efficiency of direct marketing with the new image and the unconventionality of guerrilla marketing are higher results and lower costs and effectiveness. Hence, it would be pertinent to seize the opportunity and amalgamate these two strategies to fine-tune all the individual steps of marketing and deliver significantly better results.