{"id":334,"date":"2008-05-15T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/responsiblemarketing.com\/blog\/?p=334"},"modified":"2025-07-24T13:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:50:11","slug":"friends-dont-let-friends-do-drive-by-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsourcemarketing.com\/blog\/friends-dont-let-friends-do-drive-by-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends don’t let friends do drive-by marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I occasionally receive little sandwich baggies containing a folded-up flyer and a few rocks thrown it tossed in my driveway and front walkway. Do you get these, too? It’s not really a flyer; it’s more like a scrap of paper. The rocks are obviously there to make throwing out the window of a moving car easier.<\/p>\n

How fitting.<\/p>\n

At Outsource Marketing<\/a>, we have a phrase we use that describes tactical, poorly thought-out marketing: Drive-by marketing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Drive-by marketing isn’t strategic. It’s what happens when an irresponsible marketer jumps to tactics before they’ve done any research, strategy or planning.<\/p>\n

It happens when a short-term thinker wants to “get the word out” quickly or drive leads with little or no consideration for the customer’s wants, needs, wishes or preferences. It’s often ego-driven, and never about the customer.<\/p>\n

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a drive-by shooting<\/em>:<\/p>\n

A drive-by shooting (or drive-by for short) is a personal attack carried out by an individual or individuals from a moving or momentarily stopped vehicle. The objective is to overwhelm the target by a sudden, massive amount of firepower without attention to accuracy. It often results in the shooting of innocent bystanders or a certain target.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s my definition of drive-by marketing<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Drive-by marketing is a personal attack carried out by an individual or individuals from a slow-moving or momentarily stopped company or organization. The objective is to overwhelm the target by a sudden, massive amount of marketing without attention to accuracy. It often results in the wasted time and resources of innocent bystanders, of a certain target and the organization doing the marketing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m all for brave and creative ways of breaking through, but this is worse than spam (you can hit the delete key), sticking flyers under windshield wipers (easy to see and grab), or junk mail (you can recycle it quickly).<\/p>\n

No, these little baggies of fun litter my street as they deteriorate and scatter. My neighbors and I get the privilege of literally cleaning up this marketer’s mess. And of course, all the word of mouth generated is negative.<\/p>\n

So, where have you seen drive-by marketing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I occasionally receive little sandwich baggies containing a folded-up flyer and a few rocks thrown…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2918],"tags":[1247],"class_list":{"0":"post-334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-responsible-marketing","8":"tag-responsible-marketing"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDrive-by Marketing: The Risks of Poor Strategy | Outsource Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Drive-by marketing is not the way to connect with customers. 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