“Godin reinforces what good marketers know.”
—New York Times
I’m flattered! I wasn’t sure I knew what ever y good marketer
knows. I guess I do now. After all, the paper of record said so.
But, assuming that you’re like me and the rest of the people I
know (which means you haven’t figured out ever ything there
is to know about marketing yet), here’s a list to get you
star ted.
• Anticipated, personal, and relevant adver tising always does
better than unsolicited junk.
• Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build
a brand.
• Your best customers are wor th far more than your average
customers.
• Share of wallet is easier, more profitable, and ultimately
more ef fective a measure of success than share of market.
• Marketing begins before the product is created.
• Adver tising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about
far more than that.
• Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not
marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
• Conversations among the people in your marketplace
happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing
encourages the right sor t of conversations.
• Products that are remarkable inspire conversation.
• Marketing is the way your people answer the phone,
the typesetting on your bills, and your returns policy.
• You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time.
And once they catch you, people talk about the experience.
• If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget,
you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers
realize that it is an investment.
• People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
• You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
• What people want is the extra, emotional bonus they get
when they buy something they love.
• Business-to-business marketing is just marketing to
consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for
what they buy.
• Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade
show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-ef fectiveness.
At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs,
permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs)
are quickly proving how well they work.
• People all over the world, and of every income level, respond
to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
• Good marketers tell a stor y.
• People are selfish, lazy, uninformed, and impatient. Star t
with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
• Marketing that works is marketing that people choose
to notice.
• Ef fective stories match the worldview of the people you
are telling the stor y to.
• Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hur t your ability
to deliver the right stor y to the others.
• A product for ever yone rarely reaches anyone.
• Living and breathing an authentic stor y is the best way
to sur vive in a conversation-rich world.
• Marketers are also responsible for the side ef fects their
products cause.
• Reminding the consumer of a stor y they know and trust is
a power ful shor tcut.
• Good marketers measure.
• Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful
exercise that star ted a long time ago and doesn’t end until
you’re done.
• One disappointed customer is wor th as much as ten
delighted ones.
Obviously, knowing what to do is ver y, ver y dif ferent
than actually doing it.
Irony aler t: Since the inspiration for what I’ve written here
has been misinterpreted a couple of times, I want to clarify
that the New York Times wasn’t tr ying to be nice when they
said what they said. Even though it seems nice to you and me,
they didn’t mean it that way. And this list didn’t appear in the
Times, it was inspired by their attempt to be snide.
Thank you.
SethGodin.com • SethGodin.typepad.com • Squidoo.com