Guerilla marketing is one those buzz phrases you hear every so often—mainly when it goes really, really wrong. But Guerilla marketing, which by definition means running a series of "promotions on very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets" (seriously, there's a book), can be useful for start-ups and small businesses—if you know what you're doing.

Enter Pete Grillo, the founder of iterasi, a year-old hosted storage service start-up in Portland, Oregon. He's come up with "Five Guerilla Tactics for Good Marketing'" which techie-geek blog GigaOm ran today. Here's [the edited version of] his list:

-Host a non-conformist event. "Host a massive tailgate outside the venue in an Airstream draped in your logo. Or an off-site BBQ at SXSW (I know a company that did this.)" We like this idea...but it ain't exactly cheap.

-Not all schwag is equal. "T-shirts are a cheap, but surprisingly powerful tool. Everyone needs them." So long as they look good, that is.

-Ask for a discount. "It is not a sign of weakness to say: 'Look, we are and under-capitalized startup but we'd like to attend your event to showcase our new release.'"

-Enter contests. It's a quick way to get publicity.

-Blog. Blog. Twitter. Flickr. "Monitor sites that cover you, but only add comments where you add value. Respond quickly when you do respond. Ignore trolls."

Obviously not all these tactics will work for every start-up. But then guerilla marketing isn't for every small business. What's great about these strategies though is that they're very low cost, which means they're at least an option for most start-ups.

What do you think of Grillo's list?