One of the concepts I took away from the book was the concept of micro and macro marketing, or what Levison calls, "minimedia" and "maximedia".
The above is the first paragraph of chapter 9, "Truths About Minimedia Marketing."By necessity, guerrillas excel in minimedia marketing. Traditional marketers rarely resort to such marketing methods as canvassing, writing personal letters, sending postcards, marketing by telephone, distributing circulars, running ads in movie theaters, posting signs on bulletin boards, running classified ads, using signs other than billboards, putting the yellow pages to work, and making business cards do double duty. Fortunately, because the titans don't practice minimedia marketing, you'll come across very little competition in these arenas - except from fellow guerrillas. And be warned, there are more guerrillas daily, and your close attention to the media will alert you to their presence - as well as educate you by their examples. Be prepared to respond; giant companies aren't as fast on their feet as you. You can respond more quickly.
Now for the first paragraph from chapter 10, "Guerrilla-Style Maximedia Marketing."
Minimedia is the realm of small businesses, and for what Levison calls, "guerrillas." Maximedia is a ripe market for everyone, including small business owners, but it has it's own sets of challenges and often is more difficult to track the return on investment, or whatever buzzword you may want to track. Smaller, more targeted marketing is easier to initiate, track, and maintain, which is often a perfect fit for smaller businesses.Maximedia marketing refers to the mass-market media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, billboards, and direct mail. The Internet is also part of maximedia marketing, such an important part that it is pivotal to almost every chapter in this book. Mistakes cost dearly in the area of maximedia marketing. The competition may be able to outspend you dramatically. But don't think of maximedia marketing as expensive. That is not the case. Expensive marketing is marketing that does not work. If you spend $10 on one local radio station to run one radio commercial but nobody hears it or acts on it, you have engaged in expensive marketing. But if you shell out $10,000 to run one week's worth of advertising on a large metropolitan area radio station and you realize a profit of $20,000 in that week, you've engaged in inexpensive marketing. Cost has nothing to do with it. Effectiveness does.
There is a television series called, The Prophet, in which Marcus Lemonis uses his money to buy majority ownership of various struggling small businesses and he brings them out of sinking. In the show, Marcus mentions a concept of his which he calls the "3 P's." The three P's are "People," "Processes," and "Product." The idea behind the 3 P's is that a business owner or manager can focus on these 3 P's to better operate their business. One of my takeaways from The Prophet and Marcus' 3 P's is that a business is really not in a position to do heavy marketing if any of the 3 P's are broken. Also, once the 3 P's of a business are running well, marketing may take care of itself to a large extent. This is to say, make sure you business is ready to handle any growth your marketing efforts may introduce, and that you will be able to maintain your level of quality and efficacy as you grow.