The worst lecturer I ever encountered still has some value, in that he serves as a great example for marketers of what not to do.

This lecturer (let’s call him Mr. Smith) would walk into the room, never make eye contact with his audience, go to the front, face his whiteboard, and start writing and talking.

Fifty minutes later, Mr. Smith would turn around and walk out of the room.

Mr. Smith’s audience could be gone, or asleep, or dead (or in one memorable case, all three) – he wouldn’t know, or apparently care. His view was that he was paid to deliver a message, and doggone it, acceptance of that message was secondary.

Too many marketers follow Mr. Smith’s example. They broadcast their message, and declare victory if it was well executed and achieved a decent response rate. Sometimes the “response” part is optional.

But like a good lecturer, good marketing should be participative and interactive. Good marketing should cause three things to happen:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(A)    Your target set should do what your marketing tells them to do. (“Call now!”)<!--[endif]-->

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(    People should pass on your marketing to other target folks. (“Did you hear about this?!”)<!--[endif]-->

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(C)    Your target folks should give you feedback. (“This was the greatest offer, because it allowed me to get my boss involved!” “Wow, you finally gave us the ROI study we needed to get our CFO approval” “Dude, your commercial was so cool our whole class was singing it!”)<!--[endif]-->

As an example of good participative marketing, see Google’s “Beta Email Program”.

Context: Google gave out free email accounts… but only via invitation. If you had an account, you could issue a limited number of invitations. Google email was spread only by people talking up the product to each other.

Result:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(A)     The target group of techies did what Google wanted (“Sign up!”)<!--[endif]-->

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(     The marketing was passed on (“Limited! Exclusive! Free! Only I can invite you to join this secret club!”)<!--[endif]-->

<!--[if !supportLists]-->(C)     Google got feedback on the product and the marketing process (people passing on the invites wanted their “club” to remain the coolest, so that their membership meant something… so they were very responsive when Google asked for great ideas on improving the service and the marketing of the service, phrased as “the right way to let the right other people know about us”).<!--[endif]-->