Guerrilla Marketing

by Jay Conrad Levinson

The first Guerrilla Marketing book was published by Houghton Mifflin in l984. Today there are 58 volumes in 62 languages, and more than 21 million copies have been sold worldwide. The book is required reading in many MBA programs throughout the world. The author taught the topic at the University of California, Berkeley Extension Division. He lectures on it worldwide.

In the words of the Father of Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson, this describes guerrilla marketing:

"I'm referring to the soul and essence of guerrilla marketing which remain as always -- achieving conventional goals, such as profits and joy, with unconventional methods, such as investing energy instead of money.

"Guerrilla Marketing started out a single volume and has since acted biblically by being fruitful and multiplying into a library of 35 books and counting, an Association, a lush website, an abundance of video and audio versions, an email newsletter, a consulting organization, an internationally-syndicated column for newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, and presentations in enough countries for us to consider forming our own Guerrilla United Nations.

The need for guerrilla marketing can be seen in the light of three facts:

1. Because of big business downsizing, decentralization, relaxation of government regulations, affordable technology, and a revolution in consciousness, people around the world are gravitating to small business in record numbers.
2. Small business failures are also establishing record numbers and one of the main reasons for the failures is a failure to understand marketing.
3. Guerrilla marketing has been proven in action to work for small businesses around the world. It works because it's simple to understand, easy to implement and outrageously inexpensive.

Guerrilla marketing is needed because it gives small businesses a delightfully unfair advantage: certainty in an uncertain world, economy in a high-priced world, simplicity in a complicated world, marketing awareness in a clueless world."