Guerilla Marketing - Promoting And Selling You By Any Means Necessary

I haven't really started promoting our million dollar project yet and won't until July 1, the official launch date. The first two project websites will be up and our support resources will be in place.

As a prelude to the project launch I've been reviewing websites and blogs, and I keep running across this term "Web 2.0", which I've heard is supposed to describe the second wave of the Web and web usage in the 21st century. Hell, I guess I'm still getting acclimated to the first wave (I hear blogging, social network software, wikis, IM, and forums are part of the interactive nature of this second web wave and I'm familiar with all those forms of web expression).

What I know is true is that developing an interactive communicative relationship with the people whom you want to converse with, do business with, or partner with is critical to the development and expansion of any large scale project you are planning to launch. That's why I've been reviewing websites and blogs, to gain insight into how websites are developed, maintained and promoted today and the changing nature of interactive communications.

I consider myself a first adopter technocrat (I bought my first web server software package in 1994 before I even knew the difference between a URL and an IP address). So I had no problem with the interactive nature of web communications is the way we converse in the 21st century; if you're in business today your clients or potential customers, employees, partner and/or investors expect to be able to reach you through your website, e-mail, blog, discussion forum, e-mail newsletter, SMS text messaging, cell phone, IM (instant messaging), or combinations of all these now widely used forms of communications.

The all-encompassing nature of web communications today supports the concept of guerilla marketing, meaning the use of marketing strategies that operate outside the TV-newspaper-radio-billboard spectrum we commonly associate with mass marketing. But if you check the web's activities today, large companies have adopted the so-called guerilla marketing strategies because they in-fact generate better per-dollar-invested results than the traditional mass-marketing buys. People today expect one-on-one communication whether they are dealing with a billion dollar company or a one-person startup and when they look at your website, they can't tell just from looking at your site whether you have a billion dollars or one dollar in the bank.

What they want to know is: Where's your blog? What's your IM screen name? What's your e-mail address? Can I text message you? I asked you a question about your product or service, how come I can't find the answer on your site? Or I e-mailed you yesterday, why haven't I heard back by e-mail? I want to buy your product now; where's your online payment gateway? All these questions result from how the web has blown interactive communications wide open, changed the game, and ironically leveled the playing field while placing greater resp[onsibilities on us to get our messages out and stay in touch/stay connected. Promoting and selling you by any means necessary isn't a strategy any more, it's a necessity if you want to be in the game at all.