Are you confused about the difference between Guerilla Marketing and Traditional Marketing?  Join the crowd; many people think that term guerilla marketing was invented by a “smart man” wanting to sell another idea.  All the marketing could be reduced to the theory of supply and demand.  Marketers sell what people want, what could be more basic to understand?  First we must understand that…
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;MARKETING IS NOT SELLING 
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Marketing is NOT SALES.  Many Trinbagonian equate selling with marketing and therefore perpetuate the myth that marketing is selling.  The fact is that selling is a very small element in the overall process that is known as marketing.  So lets answer the question:
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WHAT IS MARKETING?
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Marketing is everything you do to promote your business, from the moment you conceive of it to the point at which customers buy your product or service and begin to patronize your business on a regular basis. The key words to remember are everything and regular basis.

Every single decision that brings the product to the market that determines how ownership is transferred to the customer/client during and after the transfer is marketing.  On a regular basis meaning that it reoccurs over and over.  Marketing processes, in presentation, sales, referral and follow-up are all systematized and happen on a “regular basis”.
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THE COMPLEXITIES OF MARKETING
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Marketing includes; the naming of your business, the determinant of whether you will be selling a product or service, the method of manufacture or servicing, the colors, size, and shape of your product, the packaging, the location of your business, the advertising, the public relations, the sales training, the sales presentation, the telephone inquiries, the problem solving, the growth plan, the referral plan and the follow-up .As you can see, marketing is a very complex process.

Traditionally, marketing is a theoretical subject taught in many business schools.  Professors who are learned in theory and very little experience taught there charges who went out and started implementing these theories.  Ironically, it was felt that marketing was solely for businesses equipped with unlimited resources.   Then the father of guerilla marketing Jay Conrad Levinson, advanced his practical experience in his book, Guerilla Marketing.

The following excerpts from Jay Levenison's book Guerilla Marketing, describes the difference between traditional marketing and guerilla marketing. He identified 12 distinct differences that proves that Guerilla Marketing is essential to small businesses, .

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1. LOW OR NO BUDGET
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Traditional marketing practice requires that you invest money in the marketing process. The theory of guerrilla marketing is that your primary investment is your time, energy and your imagination. Very valuable assets if used creatively.
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2. BIG VS SMALL BUSINESS
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Traditional marketing practice is geared to big business, recommending tactics associated with huge corporations and their traditionally large budgets. Guerilla marketing is geared to small business. Every word of every sentence on every page or every guerrilla marketing book is directed tat the small business owner with a big dream but not a big bank account.

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3. PROFIT VS SALES
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Traditional marketing practice measures how well it’s doing by sales. Guerilla marketing is based on the reality that anybody can find a way to drum up high sales, fast turnover, strong response rates, and heavy store traffic are meaningless if you are not generating consistent profits. The primary measuring stick for a guerrilla is profits.

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4. CERTAINTIES VS GUESSWORK
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Traditional Marketing practice is based on experience and judgment, which
involves guesswork. Wrong guesses are too expensive for guerrillas, so guerrilla marketing is based on certainties e can assume regarding purchase patterns and guerrilla focuses on these certainties.

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5. LASER FOCUS
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Traditional Marketing practices suggest that you increase your business’s
production rates and then diversify by offering allied products and services.
Guerrilla marketing suggests that you veer away from diversification and look at your focus. You job is to create a standard of excellence with an acute focus, and excellence falls by the wayside when diversification includes it.

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6. MORE CUSTOMERS OR MORE PROFIT
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Traditional marketing practice encourages you to grow your business linearly by adding new customers. Guerilla marketing never scoffs at new customers and makes a concerted effort to add them continually, but encourages you to grow your business geometrically. Guerrilla marketers must aim for more transactions with existing customers, larger transactions, and referral transactions by using the immense power of customer follow-up and outrageously good services.
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7. AN ENLIGHTENED DIFFERENCE
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Traditional marketing practice asks that you look around for opportunities
to obliterate the competition. Guerilla marketing asks you to forget competition temporarily and to scout opportunities to cooperate with other businesses and support one another in a mutual quest for profits.
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8. HOW TO MARKET?
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Traditional marketing practice would have you believe that advertising works or that direct mail works or that a web site works. The guerrilla marketing theory proves that that is nonsense. The days of single weapon marketing are behind us. Marketing combinations are what work. If you combine advertising with direct mail and a web site, each one will help each other to work better.

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9. RELATIONSHIPS
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Traditional marketing practice urges you to count your receipts at the end off the month to see how many sales you've made each month. Guerilla Marketing suggests that you concentrate on how many relationships you've made each month.  Each relationship can lead to a plethora of receipts and sales.
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10. TECHNOLOGY
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Traditional marketing practice doesn't encourage the use of technology because the technology of yesterday was too complicated, too expensive and too limited. Guerilla marketing urges you to embrace the technology of today because it is simple to use, inexpensive to purchase and limitless in its ability to empower your business on the marketing front.
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11. MARKETING ARSENAL
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Traditional marketing practice identifies a handful of weapons that promote your business, all of which are relatively costly. Guerilla marketing identifies at least 100 weapons you can use to boost your profits and half of them are free.
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12. POWER IS IN ITS SIMPLICITY
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Traditional marketing practice intimidates many small business owners because it is enshrouded by mystique and complexity. Guerilla marketing removes the mystique and exposes marketing for exactly what it is, putting you in control.  The ideas are simple to implement and their effects are all measurable.  Guerilla marketing is similar to David’s sling, used wisely it can help to beat Goliath corporations and gain a significant share of the market.
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CONCULUSION
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The term guerilla marketing is militaristic; it conjures up images of armies and rag tag soldiers with home made weapons of every kind.  These images are appropriate in developing a conceptual understanding of the business world.  Business is like war but more enjoyable, the casualties are our ideas that either survive because of our creative marketing or die because of bad decisions. 

Traditional Marketing provided the framework from which guerilla marketing was born but like an old grandfather it must now make way to more effective marketing strategies.  Guerilla marketing was created for small businesses in an environment where larger businesses dominate.

Before the idea of guerilla marketing was conceived large businesses/corporations dominated the market place with unlimited resources, manpower, financial capital and locations.  Guerilla Marketing is not taught in our colleges and universities and it is probably the best thing that ever happened. Guerilla marketing is a working man’s tool. Guerilla tactics can be implemented quickly, efficiently and with massive results.  Every small business owner should strive to become a Guerilla marketer.  

If you are not yet a subscriber become one by going to Caribbean Guerilla Marketing Concepts site.