Hard To Get By Marketing to today's discriminating customers takes a little ingenuity.

Once upon a time, customers were just plain customers. But thesedays, there's a different breed. Today's customers arewiser, expect superb service, are more sophisticated about makingpurchases, demand higher quality, are less forgiving of mistakes,are often under pressure, and are frequently in a hurry.

Because today's customers are guerrilla consumers, the bestway to satisfy them is with guerrilla marketing. That meansmeeting-and then exceeding-customer expectations.

There are a number of technologies out there to empower yourmarketing and bring you closer to your customers. But you will beempowered most when you recognize the huge change in consumers. Theugly truth is they don't trust you as much as they used to.What makes these people so skeptical?

One answer is the amount of advertising they're exposed to.Advertisers in the United States spend twice as much money onadvertising than in any other nation, making consumers twice asadept at disregarding it. Another answer is that, having beenexposed to it for so many years, people are better educated aboutmarketing. Their marketing radar enables them to identify anincoming message as a marketing one, so they can selectively ignoreit.

Jay Conrad Levinson is author of the internationallyacclaimed Guerrilla Marketing series of books and co-founderof Guerrilla Marketing International. For information on theGuerrilla Marketing Newsletter and other products and services,write to P.O. Box 1336, Mill Valley, CA 94942; call (800) 748-6444;or visit the Web site at http://www.gmarketing.com

Fighting Back

How do guerrillas combat such smarts? They use common sense andthe following tactics:

• Generate word-of-mouth. It's still the most power-packedmethod of marketing because people trust their friends. You'llgenerate word-of-mouth when you follow up, when you let customersknow how important it is to you, when you institute a strongreferral plan by tapping current customers for the names ofprospective customers.

• Influence people who can influence other people. That'sexactly what Nike is doing when it gives free shoes to athletes andcoaches.

• Go for share of mind over share of market. The intensity of aconsumer's relationship with a product reflects the realstrength of the brand-such as the Harley-Davidson customers whotattoo the brand's logo on their bodies and become walkingbillboards.

• Expand your advertising efforts with direct marketing andpublic relations campaigns. These give you the opportunity to putforth personalized and believable messages. Guerrillas never assumethat advertising can do the whole job.

• Broaden your marketing strategy with brochures and newsletters.These make good door-openers, serve as potent follow-up weapons,and allow you to intensify your customer relationships. Andthey're no longer expensive to produce.

• Capitalize on one of the most lethal marketing weapons inhistory: the Internet. That means using targeted e-mail, becomingactive in forums, participating in chat groups, hosting onlineconferences, publishing online articles, and maintaining acontent-rich, fascinating Web site. These days, guerrilla customersare learning to shop online.

If you market the old-fashioned way, you're never going toattract guerrilla customers, and there are too many of them toignore. To be wise in the way of reaping profits, aim yourmarketing at today's buyers-the wise and wary ones.