Customer Reviews

Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet

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I feel as if this book is mistitled. While it is about "green" as a trend in business and how to use that trend to help your business, it really isn't just about that.

Instead it ties up several trends of growing influence in the business world, namely social responsibility, corporate charity, working conditions, and environmentalism, to show hows businesses that act in these ways (or say they do) do better as businesses than ones who do not.

In a business handbook, the fact that these statistics and trends aren't questioned isn't important. Nor is the fact that using "ethics" to cover all this stuff is somewhat stretching the meaning of the word. It isn't even particularly relevant that they seem to be accepting what people say and not what they do.

What is important, it that this book is a good summary of many ideas current in sales and marketing. Each chapter talks about a particular aspect, such as relationship marketing, describes it and gives you ideas and action items for you to apply it to your own business.

That's good and there is much food for thought here. But if you are looking for the clear cut,do this, ideas of many of the earlier Guerilla Marketing books here, you won't find them. With this book you will need to look inside yourself and your business to find your own answers.

The collaborative work of Jay Conrad Levinson and Shel Horowitz, "Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet" is a 236-page compendium of insightful commentary and sound advice for the entrepreneur and small business owner on marketing strategies in these difficult and volatile economic times. With 'real world practicality', readers will learn how to significantly reduce their marketing costs and while increasing their profit margins by employing environmentally sound and ethically founded policies and practices; convert their vendors, customers, and competitors into a kind of auxiliary sales resource; successfully persuading business acquaintances to become joint-venture partners; utilizing social media, traditional media, and their own imagination to reduce advertising costs while employing alternative marketing practices. Simply stated, "Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green" is the distilled and effective wisdom of two of the most successful yet frugal entrepreneurs who have combined their many years of experience and expertise in a single volume that should be considered mandatory reading by anyone charged with the responsibility of insuring a healthy financial bottom line for their business while adhering to environmentally and ethically sound principles and practices. "Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green" is a strongly recommended addition to personal, professional, corporate, academic, and community library Business Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Every year I've done at least one non-profit campaign as part of pro bono, but had not considered the impact of using marketing to advance green initiatives as they were presented in this book.

Packed with practical examples on how ethical marketing can go past the corporate walls to make real impact (and make money.) Rather than just talking about how green your company is (in manufacturing process, recycling, or use of materials), your marketing can impact lasting social change.

Shel may not have known then when he sent over a review copy, but I'm a big supporter of alternative energies, primarily bio-fuel, and regional organic farming. His lobster story (pg. 163) may be a good idea for small biofuel producers, even organic micro-farms by letting customer own a piece of the result.

I can see myself revisiting case studies presented, especially since book notes include links to referenced guerrilla marketing ideas. Don't want to make you think this is a tree-hugger book, it includes practical marketing you can use in your business. But ...

Even if you were "green" before it was cool, you can appreciate this approach for profits and planet. Book goes a long way towards growing a business and being sustainable. Highly recommended.

Do you want your ideal prospects seeking you out, willingly listening to your sales presentation, and talking themselves into doing business with you? Or would you rather keep shouting into the noisy bedlam that today's world of 'conventional' marketing has become?

Shel Horowitz has teamed up with Jay Conrad Levinson to create a masterpiece. "Guerilla Marketing Goes Green" is a guidebook on ethical marketing, from two experts with the highest standards and values in the industry. I was fortunate to review an early copy of the manuscript, and believe it will be of immense value to business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers.

To many business owners, values, trust, morals, integrity and ethics are little more than buzz words. Shel and Jay show how they can become cornerstones holding up your business - and ensuring survival in tough times.

The Golden Rule was never better illustrated than in this exquisite guide on value and ethics in business today. And learning about the 'Magic Triangle' of quality, integrity and honesty will completely revamp and revolutionize the way you think about business success!

Today, value addition involves tapping into a global trend towards embracing 'green' practices that preserve natural resources. Discover how to marry 'green' to 'marketing' in this interesting, insightful and intensely thought provoking book.

In the end, this is not merely a book about business tactics, but one that's about mindset change and adopting a philosophy of abundance, generosity and compassion towards your audience - creating a business that fulfills needs and adds value.

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian
[...]

At a time when there seems to be an endless flow of news media information about environmental disasters, clean energy, and failed communication efforts, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green answers the call. This special book provides the framework for conducting ethical marketing campaigns, while helping you understand what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. It is a timely and ingenious book that can and will help in all areas of your marketing communication spectrum. Every C-Level office should have a copy on the office bookshelf and practitioners should keep it on their desks as a reference. What could be better than being green while making some greenbacks?

In Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green the authors get you to think of your business in a simple but profitable way. The chapters are written in manner that lets you actually do something to move you in the direction of getting your business out there. They end the chapters with Lessons and Actions that keep you focused and motivated.
Gina Rizzo
[...]

If you want to improve your bottom line, then "Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green" is the book for you. The authors have done an excellent job of providing the necessary information to take your sales to the next level. Don't sit and wait for the green explosion to happen. Read this book and take in all the valuable ideas that this book has to offer. Great job Jay and Shel.

Michael Monji, author

Sometimes Green Business owners have trouble fitting their message into the noisy world of online marketing. Your goal is to share your product or service with the world in a compelling way that creates a sense of urgency, without all the unnecessary hype (that often makes Green innovators uncomfortable).

As Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green so cleverly states, "Old style, in-your-face marketing simply doesn't work in this new wired world. If you bore, insult or annoy people, they leave. Thus, your marketing can't be intrusive; it has to blend into the culture. And when it does, it can be extremely powerful."

This book gives you, as a Green Marketer, permission to be yourself. Authenticity works - it's proven time and time again.

I was very happy to find Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (GMGG). The Guerrilla series has built a very solid brand in my world, so when I stumbled upon the book in my local bookstore, I jumped on it quickly.

GMGG is an excellent addition to the Guerrilla family of books. Every guerrilla book I have read has provided me with new and interesting insights and GMGG was no exception. I have reviewed other guerrilla books in the past and I have said that each of the books has its own pep to it; the books are somewhat inspiring, motivational and always educational. There is just a friendly writing quality to the guerrilla books that makes me want to keep reading. That feeling of "let me finish this section and then go to bed" would often fail me as I would read for another 20 to 30 minutes on many nights.

If you decided to look at a copy of GMGG and wanted to strictly avoid the marketing instruction, you could do so, and you could instead learn a great deal about social responsibility, why that responsibility matters and you can even learn where to begin to take responsibility for yourself. What I'm saying is that this book isn't entirely about marketing ie., how to sell sell sell. It's about combining good, solid principles and business ethics to create a positive outcome to the world and to our communities.

Reading the guerrilla books is the easy part. I always feel like I've been given a fiery motivational speech after reading these books and then I need to spend a lot of time looking up resources and doing my own work to see how I can apply the guerrilla concepts to my business and to the businesses/people I consult. If you've liked the guerrilla books in the past, then step up and read Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, this is not a re-hash of previously covered material, but a fresh look at some new ideas and some new principles to develop those ideas.

One final note to put some people at ease: The title contains the word "Green". This book is not a left-wing diatribe against capitalism. There are certainly some liberal ideas, and there are a few times I could see images in my head of that crazy "butterfly" woman out in California living in a tree that she didn't want to see cut down. But, there were also some good ideas from the other perspective. Take my word for it, go into the book with an open mind, you'll be better for it, in fact, we'll all be better for it. Enjoy.

Topics such as the advantages of doing the right thing, quality, integrity, and honesty, marketing versus adversarial sales ... what a welcome resource in any economy! Especially in the age of social media where authenticity and transparency count, this is a very important book!