Customer Reviews

Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days

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I've read several guerrilla marketing books because I found Jay Conrad Levinson's "Guerrilla Marketing - 3rd Edition" to be so significant in the marketing success of Novacon Internet Services and several other organizations that I have been associated with. Other marketing and sales books and seminars have been useful to a great extent, but I really resonate with guerrilla marketing techniqes for our company, one of the largest independant ISPs in Chicago. I use my guerrilla marketing library of books for reference and problem solving. A great resource for ideas and real-world insights.

Now comes "Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days" with a unique twist. Your whole marketing plan laid out in 30 days, and a process that accomodates even the most time-challenged manager. The book distills proven marketing techniques that are found in dozens of other guerrilla marketing books and lays out an effective action plan that can be implemented quickly, leading to client acquisition and improved profits. The chapters are clearly written, easy to understand and the techniques should be easy for all small & medium sized businesses to execute. Guerrilla marketing is all about inspiration, perspiration, a battle plan and an expenditure of little or no money on weapons (guerrilla marketing techniques).

Chapter 1 - The Guerrilla Marketing Mindset begins by showing the reader how to approach business development as a guerrilla. Everything you say and do as a person or organization can affect your brand, revenues and profits. Levinson and Lautenslager encourage readers to ask themselves the same question every day; "How am I building awareness with my prospects and clients through our marketing?" Everyone, especially people with multiple responsibilites in an organization, should ask that question daily and work to improve their efforts. Keep your eye on the prize. Sales solves alot of other problems!

The message is clear. While "Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days" leads you though the develoment and execution of your marketing plan in 30 days (or 35, or even 40), The guerrilla mindset is a permanent benefit that you can benefit from for years to come. "Just Do It" every day, no doubt, is what Al Lautenslager preaches to his customers as a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach.

What follows are chapters on goal-setting, competitive research, targeting and positioning your SMB. By Day 7, the reader is developing their 7-Sentence Marketing Plan, a unique component and exercise that Levinson has promoted since his first guerrilla marketing book. Going through that exercise while reading his first book was exilerating, but it has also been a great way to concisely communicate our overall plan to my staff and strategic partners.

Specific chapters cover an array of guerrilla marketing weapons, including advertising, business networking, strategic alliances and fusion marketing, direct selling, telemarketing, promotional literature, direct mail, broadcast ads, public relations techniques and online marketing. By Day 21, the reader is developing a focused, well thought-out Marketing Calendar that may ultimately include other guerrilla marketing opportunities like trade shows and newsletters. This book has brought new ideas and techniques to the table and reminded me of things that need to be moved up to the front burner. (For "continuing education" on all of the techniques laid out in this book, there are dozens of other books in the guerrilla marketing series that can be consulted.)

As you wrap up the 30 day exercise, you'll have chosen the weapons you'll take into battle and finalize your plan and budget. Chapter 29 focuses on developing new revenue streams and expansion. The final chapter focuses on the New Plan - what a new guerrilla should focus on in the NEXT 30 days.

"Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days" is a terriffic primer on getting organized and motivated to take control of your business development with an effective, easy to implement plan. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. "Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days" will help plan to thrive in '05 and beyond!

Since we're already using guerrilla marketing at Novacon, we're going to use this book to re-evaluate our master plan for the new year. I've decided to order extra copies for our staff and am recommending "Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days" by Levinson & Lautenslager to others in my personal and professional networks. I think it's just great!

-- Kurt Scholle, Managing Partner
Novacon Holdings LLC
www.novacon.net

There are several challenges to reaching an audience in the world of marketing, advertising, and public relations. A marketing plan has to meet the needs of the business. Budgeting must be done with finesse and pinpoint accuracy. Above all, the message has to reach an organization's target audience. In "Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days," authors Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager provide the instructions on just how to achieve the aforementioned goals and then some.

"Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days" is packed with an enormous amount of information, including how to create a marketing plan, what to do when planning a direct mail campaign, and when to use PR instead of traditional marketing. The book is a comprehensive guide to almost everything that marketing encompasses. For example, the authors give expert advice and a dose of reality in regards to creating a marketing plan with the following:

"`Build it and they will come' is not an effective marketing plan or strategy. A successful plan boils down to two essentials:

1. Knowing the market inside and out, including what customers want and expect.

2. Knowing the way to satisfy customers by knowing competitors, barriers to entry, costs, outside influences, budgets, knowledge, etc."

Though the book is filled with useful information, it does have a few problems. For one thing, the writing is sort of plain and reads more like a college textbook than a "guerilla" marketing guide. Secondly, it leaves out a lot of some of the latest trends in marketing such as when to use pop-up ads, weblogs, and viral marketing. And finally, lots of the material seems to be outdated and at least five years late.

This book would make an ideal book for a college student in Marketing 101. It gives a thorough strategic and tactical marketing foundation for anyone looking to explore the topic. But those who are a bit more experienced in the marketing world may find the information in this guide a little too old school.

Al Lautenslager really knows his stuff, and also has consulted widely in compiling this jointly authored work with Jay Conrad Levinson - the father of Guerrilla Marketing.
This Book provides the reader with information on a full working armoury of marketing weapons in only 30 days.
The marketing weapons discussed are also referenced to other Guerrilla Marketing books in this very successful series, so that the reader can explore further if they want to.
But, the information in this book alone should easily help the ambitious business owner to build or multiply their Sales Turnover.
That gives the reader a potentially huge return for the small investment in the price of this book.
I rate it as a "must have" in any serious business person's library.

I've read a couple of Levinson's books but this may be the last. This book was flawed in so many important ways that I would not recommend it for anyone with more than a cursory understanding of marketing.

As a couple of other reviewers pointed out. Levinson is trying to take complex marketing principles and transform them into bullets and coy little catchphrase. In the process he looses the complexity and richness of the topic, reducing the principles to a "taste great, less filling" tagline. While this might be successful if he is selling beer where "taste great less filling" is enough information for us to make a decision about what beer we are going to drink it is too superficial for framing our marking efforts.

Second, the writing is so awful it's uncomfortable. Poorly constructed sentences, incorrect word choices, and mixed and sometimes inappropriate metaphors abound. For example, on page 30 we are to believe that marketing is a bit like being a duck hunter were we blast our target (our customers) with a shot gun but on page 31 were the "big ducks" that flap our wings presumable being shot at by others if we are to follow his metaphor?. This doesn't make sense.

Third, the structure of the book--30 days to guerrilla marketing--is artificial and not very helpful. A thematic arrangement (like in his other books and most other marketing books) might have been more useful.

Now, on the other hand I did find helpful the basic messages of the book--that marketing is an ongoing process, not something you doing once or twice, that marketing is about knowing who you are and who your competitors are, and so forth. Unfortunately the messengers gets in the way of the message in far too many cases.

For my money, Levinson's other books are a better value as is The Portable MBA in Marketing.

This book really did give me a starting point with my marketing. I wasn't sure where to start, which books to read or what marketing weapons to use. I know there are a lot to use, but this book sorted out which ones would be perfect for my organizing business, Hire Order. I wish I would have had this book when I started up. The action plans at the end of each day were exactly what I needed to guide me through. It's nice to see a book come out like this that is as useful and that I actually see results from. I would recommend this book to any business including one and two person practices.

Jeannie Triezenberg
Hire Order, Inc.
www.hireorder.com

This book tells it all in a slightly different way that is interesting but it is basically the same thing that Zig Ziglar or Napoleon Hill told us years ago.

Got the cd and loved it. got a lot of good info and am working on getting the word out about my short form feature "A Patriot Act". I would put this book or cd on the top of my list of marketing tools.

Best-selling marketing author Jay Conrad Levinson and award-winning marketing/PR consultant Al Lautenslager combine their talents in Guerrilla Marketing In 30 Days, a condensed quick-learning guide that compacts Levinson's acclaimed "Guerrilla Marketing" series into a single, potent instructional tool. Organized into 30 lessons, complete with summaries and sample activities, Guerrilla Marketing In 30 Days presents difficult skills, useful tools, and proven strategies explained step-by-step. An absolute must-have for anyone who needs to learn the marketing trade or sharpen their skills quickly, from professional marketers for large companies to small business owners who need to step up and get the word out ASAP. Highly recommended.

Four years ago, I invited Al Lautenslager to speak to students in the New Venture Creation course I teach to MBA students at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. I've invited him back every year since.

Many new entrepreneurs start businesses that have no hope of succeeding, because they offer a product or service they like and are comfortable providing, rather than one the market wants. Many new businesses that pass this first test never reach their potential, because they don't differentiate themselves from the competition or communicate their product's benefits to the customer.

Nobody understands the importance of marketing, for new businesses, small businesses, all businesses, better than Al. And I have never met anyone who uses the tools of marketing more effectively in his own businesses.

I wondered if Al and Jay could do for readers, what Al does for my students. They have!

If you are an entrepreneur, business owner or manager whose organization can benefit from better marketing--and that's most of them--start reading and using, Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days. It tells you what you need to know and and gives you a plan to put it into action.

Jim Vahle
Aspen Consulting Group
www.aspenconsultinggroup.com

Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days is one of the strongest of the many Guerrilla Marketing books. The reasons are many, but they come down to two.

One is the synergy that occurs when you combine the perspectives of the "Father" of Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson, and combine it with the fresh insights and perspectives of Al Lautenslager, a high-visibility entrepreneur with numerous successes to his name.

The second reason for the strength of this volume is the structure it provides. Previous Guerrilla Marketing books contained inspirational and useful, informaiton, but left it for readers to create a plan and act upon the information. Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days, however, breaks marketing success into a series of simple to read and simple to do action steps.

At the end of 30 days, readers not only know what to do and when, but they are primed to continue Guerrilla Marketing for the rest of their business life.