Three terrible but common pieces of writing advice:

1. If you like it cut it out.
2. Know what you are going to say before you say it.
3. That’s been said before.

More guerrilla writing advice:

To write you have to set up a routine, to promise yourself that you will write. Just state in a loud voice that you will write so many pages a day, or write for so many hours a day. Keep the number of pages or hours within reason, and don't be upset if a day slips by. Start again; pick up the routine. Don't look for results. Just write, easily, quietly.

Even more stellar guerrilla writing advice:

Imagine yourself at your kitchen table, in your pajamas. Imagine one person you'd allow to see you that way, and write in the voice you'd use to that friend. Write about what makes you different.

The three stupidest things author Paul Matsuda done as a writer.

1. Believed there was an aesthetic genre hierarchy: Poetry, Literary fiction, Essay of literary criticism, Drama, Popular fiction. Screenwriting, Essay of personal experience, Journalism. At age 77 he realized he is a storyteller who must tell the stories life has given me. The genre must come from the story to be told, not the literary ambition of the writer.

2. Not finished drafts of books that could have been published because of lack of faith or deadline.

3. Took seriously the criticism or destructive praise of those who wanted him to write their poems, stories or books not his own.

The three smartest things author Paul Matsuda has done as a writer.

1. Tried to follow the advice of Horace -- nulla dies sine linea – and counted words.

2.. Assigned specific tasks to his subconscious which kept writing during the 22 and1/2 hours he was away from the writing desk.

3. Established deadlines, then met them by breaking long projects into brief, achievable daily tasks.

Guerrilla writing advice from author Paul Matsuda:

I believe that the so-called "writing block" is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance....one should lower his standards until there is no felt threshold to go over in writing. It's easy to write. You just shouldn't have standards that inhibit you from writing…..I can imagine a person beginning to feel he's not able to write up to that standard he imagines the world has set for him. But to me that's surrealistic. The only standard I can rationally have is the standard I'm meeting right now...You should be more willing to forgive yourself. It doesn't make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you've done it.

Create long-term relationships: Continuously mail information to your prospect. Send them press releases, new product information, articles about your company and products, and trade show activities. Feed them bite size pieces of information so that when they're ready to buy, they prefer your company.

Shop your own store; call your own office. Order from yourself online. Did you feel welcome, comfortable, and understood?

Gear your marketing to people already in the market, and know what they really buy other than instant gratification.

Fresh from college, I decided that I had to own a business suit. This brought up several questions:
1. Where should I get it?
2. How much should I pay for it?
3. What should I look for in a suit?

Coincidentally, I came across an ad in the newspaper headlined: “How much should a man spend on a suit?”

I read every word in that ad—and brought from the store without even visiting other stores!

Your prospects operate in a similar fashion. Marketing didn’t create my need for a suit—an upcoming job interview did! But, marketing predisposed me to look for information about buying suits—information that the ad provided.

Ask yourself: Do your marketing communications offer the information that prospects ready to buy are looking for?

Your own customer list is the best in the world—but only if it bulges with information about each customer.

Media mega-budgets cannot substitute for the information your customer list should contain. The more you know about your customers, the easier it will be for you to identify others with similar problems. The larger and more detailed your customer list, the less you have to invest in media advertising.

It costs six times more to acquire a new customer than it does to resell a past customer! The money saved when you resell past customers goes directly to your bottom line.

Convert the information in your customer list to action steps you can take to make each customer feel appreciated and special. Each customer is unique. Success comes from showing them you understand their unique needs and want to satisfy them.

It is easier to sell a solution to a problem than to sell a positive benefit.

Almost all companies are beset with problems of one sort or another. Your job, as a Guerrilla Marketer, is to spot those problems.

One of the ways you can do this is through networking. Networking is not about tooting your own horn, but about asking questions and listening to the answers. Listen attentively and keep your marketing radar attuned to the presence of problems, problems which your products or services can solve.

Don’t focus on accentuating a positive. Instead, stress the negative that your product or service can eliminate—and explain exactly how it will eliminate the negative.

Pick one problem that you solve particularly well, then find prospects with this problem and present them with your solution.

E-mail downloads got you down? One of the problems associated with the proliferation of e-mail is the way your file of downloads quickly grows.

It's not the "serious" downloads that cause the problem, it's the proliferation of snapshots from friends, e-mail postcards, downloads
associated with jokes, etc., that mount up.

Roger C. Parker’s solution is to create a "disposable" folder located within my e-mail download folder. Anything that he's unlikely to refer to again gets placed in my "disposable" folder. Once a month he cleans it out and starts fresh.

The result is fewer files cluttering up his hard drive, and less time spent looking for the truly important downloads.

E-book design frustrations
More and more Guerrillas are preparing their own e-books, both for sale as a revenue source and for free downloading to promote and prove their competence and expertise.

These e-books are often distributed as Adobe Acrobat .PDF files. Acrobat compresses files for faster downloading and preserves document formatting. Typeface designs are embedded in the document, so even if the reader does not have the typeface installed on their computer the typeface will appear on their screen and when printed.

According to Roger C. Parker, www.gmarketingdesign.com, many e-books fail to take full advantage of Adobe Acrobat’s capabilities.

1) Common typefaces. Acrobat permits publishers to “brand” their e-books by using type more creatively than the typical Arial/Times New Roman combination or Verdana (which looks good on screen, but may present problems when printed). Yet, few documents are published using tried and proven typeface options like Garamond, Minion, or Palatino.
2) Line spacing. Text is easier to read when the white space between lines creates a “rail” which guides the reader’s eyes from word to word, or (more precisely) word-group to word group. Single line spacing is not enough. Double-line spacing is too much.
3) Page numbers. Most frustrating of all, many e-books, White Papers, or “special reports” appear without page numbers. When printed, this can present a major problem if the pages are dropped. It can take a long time to organize the pages of a 30 page e-book in the proper order if page numbers have not been added.

Take-way. Review the PDF documents you provide from your web site. Make sure that page numbers are always included (but, omitted from the first page!) and that you pay as much attention to design niceties as you would preparing a newsletter for a printer.

Today's computers and printers make it easy to create pressure-sensitive labels--but how many Guerrillas use labels as effectively as they could?

Super Guerrilla Roger C. Parker, tells us: “This afternoon I visited a Mercedes-Benz dealership where the salesman created labels for the back of his business card that contained the hours he worked plus his direct cellphone number.

“Car salesman rarely work the same hours each day. By providing this valuable information on the back of his business card, and inviting prospects to call his cell phone to schedule an appointment, the salesman is guaranteeing that he won't miss out on a sale from a returning customer.

“The same salesman also uses pressure-sensitive tags to add his ‘compliments of’ information to each of the brochures he hands out.

“For just pennies a prospect, this enterprising salesman is proving once again that Guerrilla Marketing is based on creativity, not big advertising budgets.”

Print on Demand Marketing
Did you go into debt to print a fancy color brochure when you first started in business?

Weren’t you surprised at how quickly it went out of date? Do you still have boxes of brochures in your basement with your old address or phone number, or lacking your web site address?

Each month, print on demand marketing gains strength, according to Roger C. Parker who wrote about this in a recent Guerrilla Marketing & Design newsletter, www.GmarketingDesign.com. Print on demand eliminates inventory, up-front costs, and offers flexibility. You only print as many as you need, right now, for an important face-to-face meeting or attending a networking event.

Remember: conventional, ink-based printing is an excellent example of economies of scale. The most expensive brochure or newsletter is the first one off the printing press. Costs per brochure or newsletter decline as quantities increase.

There are no economies of scale with print on demand marketing, however. For the most part, each brochure or newsletter costs the same, regardless whether you print 10, 100, or 1,000.

Take away. Check your local classified ads or Yellow Pages to find out who offers low-volume print-on-demand publishing in your area.

Profiting from Scenarios
Information architects make extensive use of scenarios. So do Guerrilla Marketers. Scenarios help you serve your market better by helping you see them as individuals, instead of an undifferentiated mass.

Scenarios are fictional one-page documents that create meaningful stories that reveal a lot about your clients and prospects. A scenario details:

Who is visiting your web site.

Why they’re visiting your web site.

Their location in the buying cycle they’re in—i.e. just looking, ready to buy, already bought, etc.

What specific information they’re after.

What other web sites they’ve visited.

Who the visitor is representative of.

By giving them a name, a work situation, and specific needs, scenarios help you focus on individuals, not market generalizations.

Taking the time to prepare three or four scenarios for each of your marketing documents before you begin writing forces you to focus your of your market’s needs (i.e. buyer benefits) instead of product or service features (which usually mean more to you than to your prospects.)

Take-away. Take the time to prepare three or four scenarios describing visitors to your web site. Then, review your web site. Does the existing web site completely satisfy your visitor’s information needs?

The ability to accurately define your precise market or markets dramatically affects your profitability.

No one can be everything to everybody. Success comes from identifying who your customers are, what their problems are, and why they buy from you.

Use customer questionnaires to focus your efforts on your most profitable customers and prospects. First, find out what your most profitable customers want and like. Then, communicate your strengths to an ever-expanding universe of prospects, using the Guerrilla Marketing tools that attracted your original customers.

Change is inevitable. Repeat your customer questionnaire every two to three years.

Start a club: Part of the attraction of the price-clubs is that people like to feel as if they belong. Guerrillas turn this to their advantage by issuing their own membership cards. Preferred customers can qualify for discounts on supplies like printer toner, ribbons and diskettes. Actively ask for (and reward) referrals. Repeat your marketing message again and again and again. Make sure it clearly says, "We want you back."

Give away a premium: The best premiums are those that help your visitor get their job done faster or better. They have a high perceived value, and cost you very little to reproduce. Information premiums have the highest perceived value and the lowest relative reproduction cost. Examples are reprints of articles, special reports, audio and video tapes, computer software, and books. Such premiums self-select your prime prospects, because they are of little use to the general public.

Market, market and market again! Coca-Cola is by far the most widely recognized brand name in the world, and one of the world's largest advertisers, investing tens of millions of dollars annually in marketing. Even if you've got a better mousetrap, the world will not beat a path to your door. Every business must market itself constantly, aggressively, or fail.

Be who you are: Guerrillas strive to communicate their identity, not their image. Image implies something contrived or counterfeit. Your identity is who you really are. Customers recognize and appreciate the truth. Put your picture on your business card, and your address on your stationery. How else will they know where to send the check?

Looking for an easy newsletter topic?
Lists make it easy to identify web site and newsletter content. Lists, according to Guerrilla Roger C. Parker who offers a Content Generator from www.gmarketingdesign.com, helps you overcome the stress of an empty screen.

If you are in need of an immediate topic for a newsletter or web site registration incentive, Roger suggests you write one along the lines of: “The 10 Biggest Mistakes that (YOUR MARKET) Makes.”

Start by simplify identifying 10 keywords that describe frequently-encountered mistakes. In the case of authors, for example, it could be a failure to create a book marketing plan as well as a table of contents. In the case of trade show exhibitors, it could be the failure to promote a “draw”—like exhibit hospitality—and a failure to follow-up with visitors after the trade show. In the case of an oral surgeon, it could be a failure to call patients at home after a difficult extraction and ask how they’re feeling.

Take-away. What mistakes do you observe your market making over and over again? Make a list of those mistakes, and describe them. You don’t have to write a lot. Just two or three paragraphs about each point may be enough to double the size of your e-mail mailing list or establish a dialog with an important prospect.

The more know-how you have about the overall marketing process, the more profits you will earn. Great marketing involves both insight into marketing know how and intuition into what tools are likely to succeed in a given situation. Both are needed.

With insight and marketing know-how, you may not be able to create great marketing, but you will be able to know the difference between great and gruesome marketing. Knowing the difference, with dealing with freelancers, advertising and the media will have a potent impact on your profit and loss statement.

Guerrillas know that most of their competitors don't take the time to learn. In an area with 100 businesses invited to a marketing seminar, fewer than 25 are likely to attend. Be one of those that attends, however, and you'll gain a significant advantage.

Besides books like the Guerrilla Marketing series, subscribe to publications like Ad Age, Ad Week, and know how to adapt distant successes to your area. And when in doubt, submit questions to the Guerrilla Marketing Association forum!

The vast majority of newsletters and brochures are printed on both sides of a folded-over 11 by 17 piece of paper. A single fold creates four 8 1/2 by 11-inch selling areas.

At low cost, you can multiply the impact of this format by adding a single fold on the left-hand page, approximately 2 and 1/2 inches from the left-hand edge.

This additional fold adds three discrete selling areas to your publication. You can emphasize these additional selling areas by using reverses and screens which contrast with the remainder of
your brochure or newsletter.

Use the additional areas to highlight testimonials, ordering instructions, or to list short features—like products which complement the featured item or letters to the editor.

As your new product gains acceptance, include testimonials and case studies from early adopters, and emphasize your market segment’s switch to your new offering. Strive to build a reputation of “new” but “safe” for your product. Momentum established by a successful product introduction can last for years.

Visually capturing the essence of your product advances the momentum that leads to the sale.

Great advertising captures and projects the essence of a product or service in terms that your market can relate to on an emotional level. After all, prospects buy emotionally, then justify intellectually--i.e. with facts.

Ask a photographer which camera "feels" best, and they'll probably respond "Leica rangefinder cameras, like the M7 or MP." They'll then describe how "good" the camera feels in their hands.

Few contemporary advertising campaigns capture the essence of a product as successfully as the current Leica campaign does. Called "hands," each of the full page ads shows a Leica camera in the hands--just the hands--of a famous photographer.

A single line of text expresses the photographer's feelings, i.e., "An extension of my eyes and hands." The hands and camera jump out of a solid black background.

Memorable and compelling. And surprisingly effectively. At a time when digital technology is dominating the photo scene, the "honesty" and "warmth" of the all-mechanical Leica film cameras are capturing among their best sales ever.

Photography Magazines illustrate the power of niche marketing.
Guerrillas have long appreciated the advantages of specialization. Recent trends in photography magazines reinforce the importance of niche marketing.

As popular, "broadness" magazines become slimmer and slimmer, and subscription costs drop to artificially low values, titles that target market niches within photography are growing in number, size, circulation, and costs.

The best example are the several publications, like B&W, targeting those who love black and white photography. Paradoxically, the more color digital photography grows, the more readers there are for black and white, only, publications.

B&W, for example, is just three years old, but is increasing in size, production value, and costs. They serve a dedicated, intense market. The fact that their back issues are becoming harder and harder to get shows the loyalty a specialty niche can develop among their readers.
The costs of issues of B&W or Lenswork approaches that of paperback books, and yet their circulation keeps growing.

Question. How can YOU differentiate yourself by specializing in a niche, instead of trying to be all things to all people?

Why "Giving" is such a Successful Guerrilla Marketing Tool?

One of the most important Guerrilla Marketing tenets is that "givers receive." Here's a recent case study.

A recent caller on the Guerrilla Marketing Association Wednesday night calls mentioned that he was doing a book on Guerrilla Marketing for Artists, Craftspeople, and Photographers. The author was seeking case studies.

That night, I referred several of my photographer friends to him. A few days later, I received a courtesy copy of one of the photographer's comments to the author. These comments included the remarkable statement that his One-Page Newsletter had permitted him to cut $5,000 a year from his advertising budget while improving the quality of his responses. (He was getting qualified prospects, instead of price shoppers.)

If I hadn't "given," by introducing the two individuals to each other, I would never had known about one of the best case studies yet. I have since adopted that case study as the core of my marketing program.

Market for the Present, Not the Future

Market to get a sale today, rather than "establish a presence" or "develop an image."

The biggest difference between Guerrilla Marketers who survive, and the great number of small business startups who fail, is that Guerrilla Marketers are always striving to make a sale. Tomorrow your business will take care of you, if you take care of getting sales today.

To get sales today, include a call to action in every ad, and test every detail of your offer: appeal, headline, price, and media, etc., and keep records of which variables generate the best sales.

Questions lead to answers, answers lead to customer rapport; customer rapport leads to profits.

“Rapport” can be defined as a “harmonious or sympathetic relationship” which creates feelings of partnership and friendship between you and your customers. The more rapport they feel with you, the less likely your customers to go elsewhere.
One of the easiest ways to gain rapport is to ask your customers questions like:
• What are the three best things about our company?
• What are the three worst things about our company?
• If you could create an ideal company in our industry, how would it differ from ours?
• Which three U.S. companies do you respect the most?
Sending questionnaires like these, with an anonymous, postage-paid return envelopes, make it easy for your customers to tell you the truth they wouldn’t want to tell you in person.

Consistently display your reverence for your customers by trying to help them with consistent follow-up.

Customer reverence is necessary because it costs five times as much to sell to a new customer as an existing customer.
You can express customer reverence by thanking customers for their purchase, offering them incentives to repurchase at regular intervals, questionnaires, birthday cards, and keeping them informed with catalogs and newsletters.

Nearly 70% of business lost in America is not due to high prices or poor service, but because of apathy after the sale. Don’t let this happen to you.