Title This is Marketing
Author Seth Godin
Year Published 2018
Kind of Book Sales
How strongly I recommend it 8/10
My Impressions Good Marketing advice. My favorite of the Seth Godin books I've read.
Date Read Nov 2020
Practical Takeaways
(as a marketer) Ask yourself "who can I help?"
Make sure your marketing delivers a promise
Don't complain, make things better
First find a lock and then fashion a key ie. Look for a need and then create a service, not the other way around
Make products and services for the customers you seek to serve. Don't make a product or service and then look for customers
Don't use customers to solve your companies problems, use you company to solve your customer's problems
Stop feeling bad about charging for your work
Stop looking for shortcuts
Stop making average stuff for average people
5 steps to marketing
Invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling, and a contribution worth talking about
Design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from and care about
Tell a story that matches the built-in narrative and dreams of that tiny group of people (smallest viable market)
Spread the word
Shup up—regularly , consistently, and generously, for years and years—to organize and lead and build confidence in the change you seek to make.
Ask yourself "who's [the product/service for?"
Ask yourself "what emotions does the customer want to feel from my product/service?"
Give them the product/service for free and then have to pay to keep it (the desire for gain is not as great as the desire to avoid a loss)
Understand the irrational forces that drive people
To figure out what the customer really wants, ask why 5xs. (eg. I want a drill. Why? [answer]why? [answer]why? [answer]why? [answer]why? )
Don't assume that everyone is like you
Don't assume everyone knows what you know
Don't assume everyone wants what you want
Don't assume that the customer is a rational long-term choice maker
Be very specific about the change you seek to make
Choose your smallest viable market based off of people who dream of the same things and believe the same things ie. Begin with a worldview
Ask yourself "what’s the minimum number of people I would need to influence to make it worth the effort?" (probably 1,000-5,000)
Overwhelm the smallest viable market with exactly what they want
Ask yourself "Are those in my market open to being taught?"
Ask yourself "Will [the people I sell to] tell others?"
(when marketing) Tell people, "It's not for you"
Make your club exclusive
Ignore the critics who don't get the joke
Don't worry about the people you're not seeking to serve think
Smallest viable market exercise
1.My product is for people who believe_____
2.I will focus on people who want______
3.I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get_____
Marketing Plan
Find a real need
Focus on the smallest viable market
Match the world of the people being served
Make it easy to spread
Earn, and keep, the attention and trust of those you serve
Look for ways to do more work for your members
Show up, often
Have empathy for the person you seek to serve
Deliver quality, but don't make that the only way you distinguish yourself from the competition
Don't alter an alternative way, offer a better way
Serve coffee at your book store
Show up with a smile when you're wincing inside
If a customer really isn't worth it and is complaining a lot, tell them "I'm sorry this isn't for you. Here's the phone number of my competitor."
Be brave enough to pick just one group to market to
Market to people who are new to a market (eg. New dads, engaged women, people who have recently moved)
Ask yourself how your target market wants to change (or not change) their status
Ask yourself, what is my target market's worldview?
Make your logo look similar to the logos of the big companies (It gives the impression of trust and legitimacy)
Think of your brand as a mental shorthand for your promise to you customer
Think of your logo as a post-it reminder of your promise to your customers
Pick a logo that works in different sizes
Pick a logo that works in different media
Never change your logo
Treat different people differently
Don't tell your competition your tactics
When buying ads ask "what is it worth?"
For direct marketing ads, compute how much it will cost, what % of those ads will get clicked, what % of those clicks will get sales
Measure your ROI for the ads you pay for
If you are buying brand marketing ads, be patient. Refuse to measure. If you can't afford to be persistent and patient, don't buy them
Consider everything your company does as part of the brands (eg. The way you answer the phone, the hold music, the part of town you're in, packaging, the people you hire etc.)
Don't change your ads when you're tired of them. Don't change them when you're employees are tired of them. Don't even change them when your friends are tired of them. Change them when your accountant is tired of them"-Jay Levinson
Think of your pricing as a marketing tool, not just a way to get money (marketing changes your pricing. Pricing changes your marketing)
Consider how much better you can make the product or service for your customer by charging more
Be expensive (lowering your price doesn't make you more trusted. It does the opposite)
Build trust with your customers by putting out frequent content
Give your customers a reason to tell their friends about you
Ask what's in it for the customer to share
Make your tribe miss you if you were to go away
Help likeminded people connect and form a tribe (your goal as a marketer and leader is to connect people of the same tribe)
Strive for better, not perfect //less wrong
Make something you're proud of
Big Ideas
People buy solutions to problems they have
Low prices make customers trust you less (why is it so cheap? What's wrong with it?)
It takes a while for a lot the best ideas to be embraced
We put more weight in what other people say about a person/company than what they say about themselves (honest signal)
People buy a product because of how they believe it will make them feel
People believe in conspiracy theories because they want to feel unique
Pop things aren't as big in our society as they once were. They're meaningful to a smaller niche (eg. MASH had 10x viewers as Game of Thrones)
Not everyone wants to raise their status
A person's status is always relative to who they’re around
Marketers who can't find any way to make their product/service unique resort to making it cheaper than the competition
Products and services spread by word of mouth now (instead of by advertising)
People spread ideas/products they like/services they like because they want to make themselves look cool, smart, good taste OR because they want their friends to join so it will be more fun for them (facebook, snapchat etc.)
Early adopters want new
Late majority want safe/reliable
There is going to be a dip between the early adopters and the late majority
Companies make their logo look similar to the big companies logo in order to look legit and trustworthy to the prospects)
Surprising Facts
Every three hundred thousand years or so, the north pole and south pole switch places. The magnetic fields of the Earth flip
There were studies that found that conspiracy theorists are more interested in theories when less of the general population believes them to be true
Most car ads look the same because sameness sends a signal of safeness, which is something people want when buying a car and when spending a lot of money
In any group of one hundred people no matter what human behavior you're measuring, 68% of people will be close to the average. 27% will be a little further away from average. 4% will be on the extreme ends
The Quakers invented the price tag. Before that, it was generally accepted that nothing had a firm price. Everyone haggled.
Unknown Terms
Brand Marketing: a marketing strategy that involves developing a unique brand as the backbone of marketing campaigns. The goal is to link your identity, values, and personality with communications to your audience. Essentially, your brand is the bridge between your product and your customer
Direct Marketing: a strategy that relies on distributing a sales pitch to individual consumers. Mail, email, and texting are among the delivery systems.
Psychographics: market research or statistics classifying population groups according to psychological variables (such as attitudes, values, or fears); also : variables or trends identified through such research.
Sonder: the moment when you realize that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as yours (eg. Everyone feels lonely, afraid, and insecure)
Obfuscate: to make the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. It might be unintentional or intentional, and is accomplished with circumlocution, the use of jargon, and the use of an argot of limited communicative value to outsiders.