Reading Rich dad poor dad led me here ✌️. I don’t work in marketing, but I know it helps to know the art of selling to have the impact / financial independence I wanted. So I went to pick on the catchiest book I see on my Kindle marketplace: “This is Marketing” by Seth Godin. I’ve heard of Seth Godin before. He’s kinda famous. And don’t hate me for thinking he lowkey looks like Jeff Bezos.
I enjoyed the book, Although its a bit lengthy and I think they could help from redundant ideas. But it was just what I needed for effective learning: it inspires, gets me excited and shines a light on marketing which I initially had a pretty negative impression on. Excuse my ignorance. But here’s where it changed me: Marketing make change happen. Seth Godin markets marketing to me like a respectable marketer that he is. We’re all marketers - the ability to change things.
Marketing seeks more. More market share, more customers, more work. Marketing is driven by better. Better service, better community, better outcomes. Marketing creates culture. Status, affiliation, and people like us. Most of all, marketing is change. Change the culture, change your world.
Summary:
What marketing is / is not
Don’t be that short-term profit-maximizing hustler that just seeks hype and spam the mass. Good growth comes from good roots anchored around dreams, desires, and communities you’re serving. It takes empathy, patience, respect, and service. It’s a chance to connect, serve, offer solutions, contribute to culture, help others be who they want to be, not a battle/war/contest. It seeks volunteers, not victims. You want trust, you want them to miss you.
Your struggles/emergency/insecurity isn’t a license to steal people’s attention. Get off social media, stop interrupting, stop making average stuff for average people, stop begging clients, and start looking for the long-term path.
The Story
Making the key after you find the lock, is easier than finding the right lock to your key. Know the problem and customer before you build a product/service. Surely someone drowning will look for the lifeguard.
‘What’s it for?’ Clue: the product is just a feature. Making things doesn’t serve impact until you change someone. ‘Who’s it for?’ You can’t change everyone.
Tell something they’ve been waiting to hear and dreams of, believable, inviting, opens the possibility of change. Start serving it to the smallest-viable-market that benefits and care for it, then spread the excitement. Finally, consistently and persistently deliver on it. Be there regularly to earn their attention, trust, and action. Engage the tribe as you make change happen.
Good stories are infinite games. They’re the purpose, vision, milestones, differentiating value, it lets you act in alignment with core values, attract right customers, build brand loyalty, and a story they’ll want to others. They’re a hook, a change awaiting to happen.
Example story template: - the story of self: explain that you are people like ‘us’. You did and now you changed. - the story of us: We could benefit too. - the story of now: enlist the tribe to your journey, providing tension to move together.
The market
Culture is strategy: begin by organizing a close knit community that identifies and align people.
Focus on Smallest-viable-market: A specific demographic, worldviews, psychographics, assumptions, biases, stereotypes (ie. do they bargain, are they rushed, are they careful).
Targeting the mass makes you average/boring, when you try to offend no one and satisfy everyone. You end up compromising or generalizing. Organize your energy on the minimum scale who wants your offer, hears your message, tell others. Once you find and position yourself in that little corner, overwhelm this group’s needs, engage, improve, repeat. Your work isn’t for everyone, it’s exclusive for those who signed up for the journey, resist the non-believers, don’t try to fit-in.
Public relation > Publicity. Telling the story to the right people in the right way
A world full of choices, with too little time, too little space, too many options. Instead of “You can choose anyone, and we’re anyone”, aim for the extremes, stand for something not everything, find an edge. - Pick 2 axes, each representing something users care about (ie. convenience, price, health, performance, popularity, privacy, skill, efficacy, speed, ingredients, purity, sustainability, obviousness, maintenance, safety, danger, experimental, limited, edginess, distribution, network, imminence, professionalism, difficulty, elitism). - Plot your customer’s options in the chart. - Position yourself in an overlooked corner that makes you the obvious choice. - Certain brands resonate in different ways with your emotion (ie. safe, beautiful, powerful, worthy, responsible, smart, connected, hip). A good marketer will make that choice easy. - People assume because they’re in industry x they have to be certain way; no you have the freedom to choose your story.
Make the promise. A template:
My product is for people who believe in _. I focus on people who want _. I promise engaging to this will make you get _.
Asserting what emotion the audience needs. What’s on their mind when they wake up? or at the end of the da? What do they talk about? We have different wants / need / pain / joy, but we share similar dreams and desires: - adventure - affection - avoiding the new - belonging - community - control - creativity - delight - freedom of expression/movement - friendship - good looks - health - learning - luxury - nostalgia - obedience - participation - peace - physical activity - power - reassurance - reliability - respect - revenge - romance - safety - security - sex - strength - sympathy - tension.
Do people like us do things like this? drives action. Change starts with smallest circle they attribute themselves with. This ‘us’ is that specific, tightly connected identity. Begin with ‘us’
‘What does this remind me of?’ Your appearance and first impressions matter. Its why companies have similar logo, and why it helps to be consistent because your works remind of previous works. Symbols are only understood in that specific market. Good designs help fit in with how the audience expects it. Be different but not too much that they don’t resonate. Your ‘brand’ is that emotional expectation telling who you are and where you stand. A commodity doesn’t have a brand because there’s no expectation besides specs and transferrable properties. A logo is simply a brand’s post-it reminder, don’t bother making it memorable.
Don’t waste marketing time on non-neophiliacs who aren’t open to change (not right now). Begin with people with problems, novelty, tension, and endless search for better.
Treating everyone the same is treating everyone worse. Everyone wants to be treated differently. Learn what people choose to be, and delight only the few. - ie. the neophiliacs who seeks innovation and productivity, the typical corporate cog who stays out of trouble, social crusader who wants the chance to make things right, the domination-seeking wants to win or would settle for watching his opponent lose, the affiliation-seeking wants to fit in without getting picked as leader, the one who wants responsibility, recognition, bargain, or overpay to prove they can.
Elite vs Exclusive: Being elite is to gain external acknowledgment, which is out of our control. Being exclusive is about a cultural tribe (us vs them). It may seem like you need to be elite, but in fact its exclusive institution that change things. The exclusive thrives on internal status and belonging. Gain status if you stay, lose it if you walk away.
It’s easier to pattern interrupt people who hasn’t had a pattern yet (ie. new dad, newly engaged). Tension is needed to change patterns. Put a pulling force on one end to trigger a change. But tension comes from a place of ‘care’, not ‘fear’. Tension is about hope, learning, uncertainty, and curiosity. If I learn this, will I like who I become?. Marketers create tension for people to change, and then actually change them to relieve that build up tension. Or they can choose to walk away with that unrelieved tension. - ie. asking someone to join exerts a social engagement force, there’s also tension of being left behind.
Desire to change/protect status drives action. Status is leverage and determine position in social hierarchy. The class clown, the big man, the A student, the cop are status roles we’re conditioned to see ourselves in. Some people are hungry for a status shift, while others fight to maintain their roles. Shame can externally undermine someone’s status.
As marketers, observe how customers work on status - ie. do they seek approval? help selflessly? achievement driven? what wins/losses do they track? - Imagine a grid: status level vs enabling others. There’s bullies who seeks low status but demean others, while there’s those who seeks high status through enabling
Affiliation vs Dominion are 2 ways to measure status, it’s up to the customers not you. Do you win based on being top of class or based on who you sit with. A connection economy are built on affiliation, while manufacturing/scarcity economy are built on dominion.
Instead of being in the long tail on a crowded market, you wanna be in a short head for a niche. Split the curve or connect the markets.
When you’re small, have the guts to ship. Big companies have the resources but they won’t take the risk to change their narratives and disrupt their current market.
Earn enrollment / permission to engage. If they want the promise, they’ll voluntarily enroll, raise hands, and have eyes on the board. Else, it’s impossible to teach people against their will. You earn permission over time (like dating). RSS / Email Newsletters / Subscription / conference is permission. Problem with social media is you needed a middleman to contact your customers, meaning less trust. To make permission, you make a promise (I’ll do this and I hope you’ll give permission to listen), but remember don’t try to do more than that. Permission come in many forms (let them choose what they want to hear), and you can make different promises to different people. Once they’re enrolled, you can educate, take time to tell your story, day by day.
Network effect
Network effect: To spread an idea, build something that works better when it gets spread. (ie. fax machine has more value as more people use it) The more people join, the painful it gets to be isolated off the network. Metcalfe’s law.
Early adopters and market rarely match up. The mass wants something safe and working (pattern match). As your early adopters try to bring it to the masses, you will annoy the masses because innovation will break the present. The way to bridge is network effect. Early adopters will have incentive to bridge the idea to the masses IF there’s network effect. The bridge is mainly ‘What will I tell my friends?’ and ‘Why will I tell them?’. Give them a reason to share and incentivize them
Case studies
- Penguin Magic: Understand that the amateur magician audience always needed new tricks to present to friends and family. Get reviews from fellow magicians that appreciates good work, so quality amongst competitors improves rapidly. Build tension from videos and the trick isn’t revealed until you buy it. Brings excitement and views without distribution cost. Invest in community, from email list to lectures and conventions. The more magicians learn from each other, the more likely they’ll do well.
- Vision Spring: Produce attractive glasses bulk at low cost for villages around the world (working with local traveling salespeople), using the $1 dollar margin between production and sale cost just enough to ship and keep the organization running. He learned that shopping something new weren’t a pleasurable/thrilling experience for those people, to go shopping was a risk costing them dinner and medical checkup if it’s wrong. So he reframed the story from “Here’s opportunity to regain sight and look good, you’re free to try on all the glasses” to “Here’s one that works. Would you like to pay to keep the glasses”. Care enough to cater for their narrative. Imagine the story they need to hear so they can proudly take action.
- Buying SUV: People buy offroad cars or fast cars not for utility. What drives them to spend thousands of dollars on it? You gotta understand those irrational forces. It’s not always more features for less money.
- The quarter-inch drill bit: They wanna buy a drill to make a hole. They want a hole to put a shelf. They want a shelf to make it feel tidy or to be proud for putting things up themselves.. So here’s the story: “People buy a quarter-inch drill bit because they want to feel safe and respected.” The drill is just a feature, the emotion is the real product. People don’t want what you make, they want the way it makes them feel (ie. connection, safety, status). You’re offering a new emotional state.
- Dog food: It’s not about how tasty it is. It’s marketed for the owners to feel satisfaction of giving care and getting affection, the status of sharing luxury. Price/performance isn’t the market’s choice, you gotta serve what the people actually cares about. Being ‘better’ isn’t linear, it depends on what you care about (ie. sustainability, price, status, luxury). Find a spot for people who’re looking for you to find you. Choose your extremes and you choose your market.
- Teenager’s car: it represents shift in status/power from child to an independent adult. For the parent it represents offering freedom and responsibility, and discussions for safety, control, status. Design with these issues in mind.
- Stackoverflow (Jeff Atwood & Joel): Experts Exchange created profit via frustration of having to subscribe. Stackoverflow opts for advertising model, where answers are visible for programmers who’s in a rush. He built something ‘better’. He gave them what they need, built communities based on answers, ranking, reputation, job board, the core audience do the work and runs the system.
- Browser: Google search’s better was based on ‘simplicity’ of the page (doesn’t make you feel stupid, projected clarity and confidence). Duckduckgo’s better is based on anonymity.
- Cafe Bookstores: are ‘better’ than Amazon because they serve coffee - creates a third space, spot to meet, connect, dream. These bookstores is actually a coffee shop that sell books as souvenirs.
- White leather wallet: People don’t need it, they need the feeling of security and style. They’re buying a feeling, not a wallet.
- Ireland gay marriage: A couple made a video of what it meant for them (people like us) to support the referendum. Audience would see themselves as parents, traditionalists, irishmen.
- Standing ovation: at TED, 3 people is enough to start a standing ovation, maybe more is needed in a broadway show, but it’s not possible to have that effect in a jazz show. Our desire to fit in has more effect in community of trust and respect, and less when the venue is amongst strangers / tourists.
- Lions and Maasai warriors: changing cultural belief that instead of killing lions to demonstrate bravery and patience, the young members now demonstrate them by saving one. (creating new belief by changing how status is recognized)
- Facebook: The more network the higher the status. Surrounded by insecure, high-status ivy league students, with fast internet, plenty of spare time, with desire to be seen and connect,
- Promoting clean water to village: early adopter that buys a clean water can holds a badge of honor and invitation to converse. Also have an activity with kids bringing water from home under the microscope. They’d come home saying you don’t have clean water like the neighbour had, you’d also hesitate to host someone when your home has no clean water to offer. It sets up status as a tension2.
- Symbols: the Nike check, a published book reminds of high school classic, scammers misspells to only deal with the gullible and greedy and not to waste their time on the careful readers, website that looks scammy, wheel flares signifies what used to be an expensive process
Pricing
Quality and commodity isn’t enough because your competitors are only a click away (Amazon, Upwork). Go deeper than competing for price. Organize the entire experience around a story / change. Stand on possibility, instead of filling scarceness in commodity.
Pricing is story-telling: There’s a difference between $30 and $300 message. Charging higher lets you optimize for something else, instead of serving the long-line of people. People prefer paying less, but they’d also value other things (ie. paid/helpfull staff, a cute shopping bag, the feeling of getting discount that nobody else got).
Promising cheap is promising the same but cheaper, that’s not change. Cost often helps to build trust, as people tend to justify their commitment (high-end restaurant often survive bad reviews), while lowering cost can lower trust.
Consider making it free if it helps an idea spread faster. Combine the free idea with an expensive expression of it (ie. chef giving away recipes to promote the restaurant, free radio song to promote concerts). It builds awareness, permission, trust, and setting the platform for you to sell things worth paying.
Advertising
Despite the reach, online ads are the most ignored ad ever created. Most people don’t bother ‘paying’ attention. It’s not easy but if you find ad approach that works, scale it.
Funnel: between top of the funnel (attention) to the bottom (loyal customers), people leak out and trust diminish. Fix your funnel by attracting the right people, reduce steps, support and engage, create tension, empower a megaphone for those whose fully engaged to let them share what ‘ppl like us do’, invest offering value to community served and current customers instead of onboarding new ones.
Lifetime value of customer is how much a new customer is expected to generate in long term. Compare with the funnel’s cost. Does the math checkout? If cost per customer > lifetime value of customer don’t buy ads. Focus on improving the funnel.
Direct Marketing is action oriented and measurable, so measure everything. Ad clicks converts into sale, leading to another sale / word of mouth, each of these steps will cost you
Brand Marketing is culturally oriented and can’t be measured (tv / billboard, answering phones, packaging, location, sponsoring events, podcasts), refuse to measure and focus to engage with the culture consistently and patiently. Storytelling requires frequency. Earning trust takes time, don’t go chasing for the next thing/ad.
Search engine: The path isn’t to be found on generic search term, but to have someone care enough to type in your name. You can’t win on generic search, but you can if it’s specific.
Lifecycle
You can always outsource the ‘doing’. It’s easier than ever to start, make assertions, prototype, iterate. Focus all energy on the hard work of making change. Always be testing and scrapbooking (put things together not from scratch).
Business plan template: 1. Truth: the market, ground knowledge, needs, competitors, case study, worldview 2. Assertion: Promise that doing X makes Y happen. Create tension via story 3. Alternatives: Backup if assumption turns out wrong. How flexible are you? 4. People: Your customer and team - their worldviews, abilities, track record in shipping. 5. Money: How much you need, how you’ll spend it, what cash flow looks like, profit/loss, balance sheets, margins, exit strategies.
Acknowledge that you can’t always be authentic in the marketplace. We hide our fears, insecurities, demands, and choose to stay professional because we care and reserve the best version of our work for them, not yourself. When being authentic, rejections are personal and often an excuse to chicken out of important work.
The critics are right that they dislike like your work (experience is personal). Seeking feedback is asking to be proven wrong. Seek advice instead. It’s asking for clues and opportunity to learn about them, their fears, dreams, wants.
How’d I do? How could I make this better for you?
Goal is the change you want to make. Strategy is the long-lasting investments (ie. alliances and partnerships, create insiders and outsiders). Tactics are hundreds of steps to support the strategy (ie. choice of material, price).
Marketing is just a tool, impact comes from the craftsman.
Better begs for improvements, perfect closes the door for more. Ship your work when it’s good enough, then make it better. Offering and asking for help is how you make connections and make things better
Why do we have noises in our head and hesitate when we say ‘Here, I made this"? Advice: As professionals if it don’t work, don’t make it personal. If ur marketing suck, it doesn’t mean you suck. It’s just another process/craft to get better at. We bring value to the world when we market. That’s why people engage. Hesitating means stealing out that value and letting down the person you’re serving. Blow it up and start over, make and market something you’re proud of, and once you served value, do it again.