Guerrilla marketing is a term coined from the law of the jungle, which states that “for small trees to survive, they must climb onto big ones in order to access sunlight”, which they need to survive. As a salesperson in Uganda’s competitive environment, you are the small plant. Uganda’s business environment is the jungle.
How do you survive?
In order for you to cope up with the tight stiff competition, you need income, and only marketing and sales will bring revenue. You must come up with strategies that are cheap but effective. Since you are just starting out as a salesperson in finance or insurance sector or professional services, your marketing budget is usually limited. You need to therefore optimise on the resources you have — time, energy and imagination. These are the most important marketing strategies for your success. Instead of investing money, invest time, energy and imagination in your marketing process. Traditional marketing people don’t have the time, energy and imagination. And that is how you will beat them.
How should you invest your time?
As a salesperson, you must take time to research about your prospects. Many marketers will say this is normal. Okey! But how do you make your research. In the first place, do understand your products? Customers buy the product because the salespersons knows the product’s benefits very well. Many salespersons are selling but do not understand the products. Once you understand your products fully, then you can go ahead and find out who is ideal customer. Most sales people spend a lot of money to reduce sales because they know the product’s features NOT benefits. No client is interested in features. They need the result. Instead of saying, this modem is 4G LTE. Say, this product’s internet connection speeds are ten times faster than the average modems! As an entreprenuer, 4G LTE modem will save you time and improve your internet browsing experience as you will find the things you need on the internet faster. In the long-term, you gain.
For example, if I am selling education insurance policy, I am asking who my target customer is and what benefits are they looking for in a product. If my ideal customer is a newly married couple who have one or more children, I automatically know they need a house help whom they can trust — the key word here is trust. So, how do you market your business to show prospects that your housemaids are trustable? Then go ahead to profile them. E.g. they are earning not less than Ugx.1m as a family. Stay in rented apartment or own a house. Aged from 22 years and can afford leisure without stressing their finances. That helps know where to find them, how much they can pay to get your products and the best advertising medium.
Once you understand the lifestyle and clear definition of your ideal customer, you are now asking; “what is their pain?” What is their worry? What would make them interested in buying the product from me? You will realize that when somebody is still young and earning, money, they do not think about the future. They are not certain of how to finance their homes in the future.
Their biggest worry could be financial stress and are not appreciating insurance or it could be too much work and they need a house help with home chores since both are working class. If you are selling insurance, ask:
Out of the insurance policies, what policy can they buy with much ease? You want to sell them the most easiest to buy product. This gives the first contact of sale. By selling a simple product, it becomes easy to sell subsequent products. Even better, when you understand their biggest pain, what can you give them for free? This is because you want to make sure that your target market is happy. If a couple is expecting their first born, you can give them a book on parenting.
Traditional people in marketing departments of most organizations do not invest time and imagination. They just put adverts in the national newspapers or TV. Most of the time the adverts are not effective. Unfortunately, no one bothers to evaluate the return on investment on each investment.
To be continued.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2014. All rights reserved.
