Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Bad Marketing, 101

I found a very good distillation of bad marketing, from Melinda, via way of Shelley in her critique of BlogHer:

At another point, I was sitting in the audience waiting for a presentation to start, when a woman came up and knelt down by my side. She seemed friendly and I thought perhaps she'd seen my presentation on Day One, and wanted to chat about it. Or maybe she was familiar with my BlogHer posts…

I realized with a sinking feeling, as she handed me her card and a book, that she was making a one-to-one sales pitch. I politely accepted her "gifts", sensing she'd then move on to the next customer, and she did.

I came to BlogHer to meet other bloggers, not get tricked into a conversation that then turned into a sales pitch.
(emphasis mine)

Bad marketing is rude marketing. The abuse of trust demonstrated in the incident above, is exactly what drives people to generalize and hate all marketing. We need to stamp it out!

When it's done right, its all about condensing your message into a small gift, the gift of condensed truth. The lower the bullshit content, the more valuable for all. It saves time and effort for everyone.

Bad marketing is about trying to substitute bullshit for substance.

well.. that's the wandering for now

--Mike--

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