How to measure the success of a guerrilla campaign?

Creating a good and solid guerrilla action is one thing, but measuring its success in order to know whether the action is profitable, is another thing. Any successful marketer or entrepreneur should have a dashboard which shows measures of guerrilla marketing success. Businesses should take into account response rates, conversion rates, referrals or recommendations, retention rates and many more. However, I will come back on those in a later blog post that will be dedicated to digital tools marketers can use to evaluate marketing campaigns. 

In this post I would like to focus on more useful guerrilla marketing metrics. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, guerrilla marketing is based on five principles. As young entrepreneur, you might not immediately want to start using expensive and complicated online tools. Moreover, without these tools, you still can get a lot of information by consulting the available data correctly. First of all, never forget the five basic characteristics of your guerrilla campaign. You always have to check out whether your actions are unexpected, unconventional, remarkable, original and unforgettable. Second, it also might be interesting to find out how many times your advertising or video has been viewed or shared on the internet. Third, for your own interest, try to keep an eye on the budget you spend on the campaign.

To make things even more clear, I have created a template which is applicable in every single situation in order to have a quick overview of the guerrilla campaign. I highly recommend to do the same thing prior to the launching of your campaign to prevent any substantive errors. Once the have a positive outcome, campaign success will be more likely. The bar chart underneath is a possible template guerrilla marketers can use.

template bar chart guerrilla marketing campaign

Interpretation of the bar chart

Cheap

Guerrilla marketing was initially all about trying to reach the same audience using a small or even no budget.That is why this kind of marketing is sometimes called "no budget marketing". It is always a hard job to figure out the exact amount of money you will spend on an average guerrilla communication campaign, but in this case we will only have a more detailed look at the on site costs. The on site budget includes all expenses related to the campaign that are not related to (1) the sophisticated online tools for measuring and tracking conversation rates, share rates or (2) the amount of time spent by online conversation managers in order to enhance the buzz. In this case we just roughly want to know how much it costs to create billboards, special campaign equipment, etc. In one of my next post I will give a more detailed explanation about the off site costs.

Unexpected

Figuring out a rather subjective characteristic like expectations is not an easy task. However, it does not ask that much effort to run a pretest of your developed guerrilla actions. You can already get useful information just by asking some people outside your business their meaning. In addition, guerrilla campaigns are mostly cheap and do not require much effort in order to adapt them. Because of this reason, you can run a pretest and if necessary adjust your message. Eventually, every human being should not have many difficulties when it comes to distinguish expected from unexpected events.

Original and unconventional

Let us put those two together because originality is a direct result of unconventionality and vice versa. Being original or unconventional requires huge efforts because it can be hard to find something which may distinguish you from others. Measuring those characteristics is fairly easier since you can compare the guerrilla actions with others. Out-of-the-box communication or a totally different marketing approach may already be enough to be seen as original.

Active

All of the above mentioned characteristics are equally important but if you really want to boost your guerrilla strategy, you should at least make sure there is interaction between your brand and potential customers. They all should be a part of the action. Here are two examples that show you exactly what "brand activation" looks like: 

Buzz

Marketing buzz or simply buzz is the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service which amplifies or alters the original marketing message. This emotion, energy, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service can be positive or negative. Buzz can be generated by intentional marketing activities by the brand owner or it can be the result of an independent event that enters public awareness through social or traditional media. Marketing buzz originally referred to oral communication but in the age of Web 2.0, social media such as Facebook and Twitter are now the dominant communication channels for marketing buzz.

Long lasting

Many guerrilla marketing actions are limited in time. Especially those where interaction is the most important aspect. Despite this limitation, guerrilla strategies are designed on a small scale in order to generate spontaneously an independent chain reaction among people. High quality campaigns are more likely to be shared by the audience and the more they share, the longer the life cycle of the message. Once the message become viral, it will be supported by satisfied "fans" until the hype goes over. In some particular situations the online buzz can be revitalized when traditional media picks up the success of your campaigns and decides to dedicate attention to it. After all, getting free publicity is the aim of guerrilla marketers.