I just ran across this post by Paul Allen “the lesser” and had to share it.  Paul runs an internet business incubator called Provo Labs and has founded a number of successful companies including Ancestry.com.

In this post, Paul talks about the long tail cumulative effect of guerilla marketing tactics.  He explains that building website traffic and repeat customers take time to pay off, and you need to be patient and persistent as you market and grow a fledgling business.  (He’s using an internet company as his example, but these concepts are true for any business.)

Paul gives us a great example of a company that invests in building online traffic through link-building, participating in community forums, and other legitimate tactics.  For a while it looks like these efforts are useless with a negative ROI.  But they take time to produce traffic and customers, and the economics really change if you evaluate your results over the long term.

His recommendation:  “Market [your] company’s products at every opportunity, in every possible channel, using every possible tactic.”

If business is slowing, don’t panic, spend tons of money and sideline your guerilla initiatives — you’ll lose their long-term cumulative effect.  “You can still be profitable when you are spending money to get every visitor to your web site, but not nearly as profitable as when you use a nice combination of paid marketing, guerilla and viral.”

Read Paul’s full post here.