Grassroots Marketing Guide: Strategy, Tactics and Benefits (2024)
The grassroots marketing strategy has been around for a very long time! Are you taking advantage of it for your business model?
We’re going to dive into what’s behind a grassroots marketing campaign. We feel that grassroots marketing is much more than just a marketing campaign. It’s a great business tactic that helps you grow exponentially.
Grassroots marketing has an impact on your growth. Fine-tune your target market, implement your tactics with high effort and continue to be genuine to your brand. Sound easy? We’re going to review a grassroots strategy, tactics, and tips for success!
What is a Grassroots Marketing Strategy?
You may have heard the term grassroots marketing. Do you really know the meaning behind it?
According to Chron, Grassroots marketing, sometimes known as guerilla marketing, starts from the ground up. Instead of casting a wide net out to everyone, target your efforts to a small group. They can spread your message to a trusted audience.
At Bramework, we love grassroots marketing! We know a thing or two about starting from the ground up – we built our business on it. That would be the business of blogging. We help agencies write blogs faster, smarter and help to optimize their reach daily. We know a thing or two about blogs and our mission is to help bloggers everywhere make their content better.
Let’s dig into more about the wonderful grassroots strategy to see how it can help your business grow.
Starting from the ground up is grassroots marketing at its core. Check out this guide on strategy, tips and benefits by @bramework and increase your brand awareness – STAT! #grassroots #contentmarketingstrategy Share on X
The Benefits of Grassroots Marketing
Marketing by word of mouth has been around for ages. Its effectiveness is based on how the message is delivered and how fast it gets there. Due of the wonderful world wide web, messages become viral very fast. This boosts the effectiveness of the marketing technique.
A huge benefit of grassroots marketing is that it uses social media tools that already exist to keep your costs down. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all free! Along with hundreds of other social networking tools that you will use to hit the ground running. No pun intended.
Grassroots marketing costs less than conventional marketing efforts. It can produce big results. Every penny counts when you’re starting out your marketing strategy. By using the power of partnerships, you can save money and build trust at the same time.
Another benefit of taking a grassroots approach is that it builds brand awareness. This tactic builds trust and helps you to scale based on reputation.
The best part is that it reaches a highly targeted audience if that’s what you’re looking for! It’s always nice to have a voice in your targeted niche. If you haven’t niched down yet, it can help as you kick start your grassroots strategy.
Blogging is a crucial part of a successful grassroots marketing campaign. Keep writing!
Strategy for Success in Grassroots Marketing
Here’s where it gets fun! Grassroots marketing often uses non-traditional methods. It requires a unique mindset! You will need to think outside the box and step out of your comfort zone to be successful with a grassroots campaign.
Here are some strategies to kick off your very own grassroots marketing campaign:
1. Be everywhere your audience is
To be everywhere means that you’ll be on your audience’s social platforms, in their social groups and be active in the events they attend. This can be a full-time job if you do it right.
2. Blog on current trending topics
Blog consistently and in real-time. Take some extra time to find out what your target audience is reading and be relative.
3. Make friends with public relations
Don’t be afraid to get on the public relations wave and try a press release. Partner with people that can help if you don’t know how. Also, everyone loves a good launch party.
4. Tune into social conversations
This means that you can take part in chats, lists and convos on social networks – Twitter and Facebook are great for these.
5. Be alright with ads
Budget for a small Facebook or Google Ad for a short period (ain’t no shame in a little promotion). Try a small 30-day ad to see if you can drive engagement or get people talking and sharing.
6. Build events
Create a webinar, workshop or tutorial either virtually or in person. If you just build them and they will come.
7. Never underestimate the power of a handwritten card
Yes, snail mail thank you cards with handwritten notes – remember those? Try sending those notes out to the world, see what comes back to you!
8. Crowdfund to raise money
If you are so bold, it may be time to get your fundraising hat on and wash some cars! Indiegogo put together the essential guide to crowdfunding for you.
9. Support a good cause
Pick a charity, any charity, and donate. Showing your support to charities (even in the smallest way) can open doors to new opportunities. Plus, you get to feature them on your website!
10. Pitch a viral video series
As you know, video is on the rise. If you can create a tutorial video series and get in with the YouTube crowd, you will generate a lot of buzz. Consult the experts on how to make your video go viral for marketing purposes.
11. Share your personal story on your blog
Everyone loves an origin story. Add a blog about your journey, your shortcomings, and your wins.
12. Embrace social groups
There is power in the groups on social media. It creates intimate relationships and bridges the gap for lasting partnerships. LinkedIn and Facebook have groupings galore!
13. Give away swag
If you can make, purchase or gather freebies to give away – people love swag. A small order of coozies, mouse pads or mugs can mean social shares and fun partnerships.
14. Write guest posts
You don’t have to just stick to your blog for content, get out there and offer to write on other sites. It’s important to create blogging guidelines and follow their rules – but if you do guest posting right, you can build great relationships.
15. Make friends with influencers
If you are getting social and following good marketing tactics, you will be making friends with some influencers. Try to get some shares from powerful people.
16. Partner with local, national and international brands
Start offering services and swaps with your community. This will come in the form of offering great content, events and more.
Do you notice something that is at the core of most of these strategies? It’s your blog! Content is a core component of grassroots marketing. There are so many benefits of blogging.
Now that you know that the blog is the core of your grassroots campaign, it’s time to find some time for content. Finding the time to learn the best way to blog is what we did for you at Bramework. The team created our unique blog writing tool to save you time and energy. Write your blog in minutes, not weeks!
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Examples of Successful Grassroots Strategies
There are some epic examples of successful grassroots marketing strategies out there! It’s amazing when you read about a bootstrap company making it big from one simple action. It’s these examples that give us hope for the future!
Check out these two great stories about grassroots marketing success:
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat For Humanity is a nonprofit housing organization has a mission to keep people housed. They feel everyone should have a safe, decent and affordable place to live.
Goal: To raise awareness of its purpose – humanity! They truly just wanted to get their message out there about what they do and how they can help.
Social Channels: YouTube, Facebook Google+ and Twitter.
Strategy: They launched the “Use Your Voice” video featuring an animated boy “Theo” which was great! It caught on like wildfire – you should check it out. Also, affiliates added their own URL at the end of the video to lead people to their local website.
Impact: “Use Your Voice” became the most-watched video of theirs in 2014, and was even dubbed in several different languages across the world. The video brought Habitat for Humanity into feeds all over the globe where they could spread their message organically.
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Organic Trade Association
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is helping consumers understand the organic food trade! They help companies involved in the organic food industry in North America. Members include farmers, processors, certifiers, importers and exporters, and retailers.
Goal: To get more fans of organic! To debunk myths about organic food being bad, including that it’s too expensive and that it doesn’t matter where your food comes from.
Social Channels: All! Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn
Strategy: Hashtags! Using the hashtag #OrganicFestival, the OTA spent 10 days blasting various social media channels with research-based facts about organic food.
Impact: They estimate reach of over 15 million social media engaged followers and made 207.5 million impressions online. More than 24,000 people shared the post organically and it went officially viral. That’s a win.
A grassroots story that is rooted in passion will have a positive impact. Go big!
What Costs are Involved in Grassroots Marketing?
Like any marketing campaign, there are costs to getting a grassroots strategy off the ground. Nothing is free in this world!
Make sure to budget for things like:
- email marketing software
- social media automation tools
- printed items
- staffing
- ads
- public relation services
- brand ambassadors
- sponsorships
- charitable donations
Lastly, there is no set dollar amount that you will need for budgeting. It is important to factor in these tools. Whichever you feel is the most important to your campaign, be sure to put that at the top of the cost list. These costs can range from a few hundred dollars monthly to thousands unless you get creative with free options.
How to Target your Efforts
Grassroots campaigns are extremely affective for highly targeted audiences!
The good news is, that with a successful grassroots strategy in place you can become a trusted authority with your audience. So, how do you target your marketing efforts? By fine-tuning your reach first!
Once you’ve defined your audience, find out where your target consumes their content. Research where they hang out, what they share, and who they engage with. This is your path to becoming a part of their world.
A few examples of targeting your grassroots efforts are as follows:
- Participate in local events
- Run specific discounts
- Give freebies away to a certain social channel
- Write blogs around a highly targeted niche
- Create custom advertisements
- Generate emails based on your audiences likes
These are just a few ways you can start to target your efforts in a positive way! Keep in mind, there are a lot of ways you can target your efforts wit your blog as well! Be sure to check out this article on how to build links and partnerships as well.
Bramework Wrap Up: Grassroots Marketing Strategy
Building something from the ground up can be overwhelming! With a solid grassroots marketing strategy you can turn the stress of it all into a fun experience.
We learned that blogging is a huge part of this strategy! Your blog is the cornerstone of a successful grassroots campaign and it should be done right. The blogging builder at Bramework was designed to help you create content faster and well, better. With our keyword analyzer, you will be able to create blogs (that have a huge impact) in minutes, not weeks.
We are dedicated to helping your content become the lead magnet your business deserves. Blogging doesn’t have to be a chore, it should be a solid part of your marketing strategy!
Did you learn something about grassroots marketing today? Share your thoughts, feedback or experiences with us!
Image credit: unsplash.com, bramework.com
(Original article date: December 28, 2021; Updated: October 12, 2022)
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