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- Seth Godin’s latest book This is Marketing offers high-level perspectives and strategies around making genuine connections with your audience.
- In the book, Godin argues that marketing, at its essence, is about communication and connection—not selling people things.
- Great marketers, then, do not pursue the masses; rather, they only aim to matter to those they serve.
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If you want tactical marketing to-dos, This is Marketing is not the book for you.
If, however, you’re interested in high-level perspectives and strategies around making genuine connections with your audience, making quality contributions to peoples’ work and lives, and marketing with purpose, read on.
Seth Godin is one of the most well-known marketers in the world. An insightful, visionary and thoughtful—not to mention stylish—professional, Godin has written 20 bestselling books over the last 20 years. His most well-known titles include Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, Permission Marketing and, now, This is Marketing.
Seth Godin is one of the most well-known marketers in the world. An insightful, visionary and thoughtful—not to mention stylish—professional, Godin has written 20 bestselling books over the last 20 years. His most well-known titles include Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, Permission Marketing and, now, This is Marketing.
Godin also blogs every day, a practice stretching back to 2006. The result of all this output is a treasure trove of marketing insights and advice that has helped shape the way we collectively think about marketing, audience building, and serving our brand communities.
The Big Idea Behind This is Marketing
In This is Marketing, Godin argues that marketing is one of our greatest callings—the work of making positive change on behalf of those we serve.
No small task to change the world through marketing. But it’s a worthy task that cuts through all the noise about the latest tools, techniques, algorithms and strategies, revealing the deeper truth that marketing, at its essence, is about communication and connection—not selling people things.
As Godin writes, “If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.”
To do this, we must be specific and clear about who we serve and how we serve them. Godin’s tough love for readers is that there simply isn’t enough time or resources to serve everyone.
He also stresses the importance of standing up, standing out, and taking a stand when it matters. To be ordinary in our fast-moving and increasingly values-driven world is to be invisible.
“The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring,” he writes, “because mass means average, it means the center of the curve, it requires you to offend no one and satisfy everyone.”
The goal, instead, is to matter to those people you serve. Godin challenges readers to consider how many people would reach out and wonder (or complain) if we didn’t send out our next email blast. “That,” he explains, “is a metric worth measuring and increasing.”
Your Work Is Not for Everyone
Having read many of Godin’s books and followed his blog for years, I can say that his perspective on marketing, creating and building a community (or tribe, as he calls it) resonates more with me than most other marketing chatter. Godin manages to simplify things while also throwing us all into the deep waters and encouraging us to swim.
This is Marketing is both the perfect entry point for new marketers and a brilliant encapsulation of his big picture perspective for those of us who need the occasional reminder.
Godin doesn’t spend time in the ever-changing landscape of this tool, or that strategy or the latest shiny object. Instead, he stays ruthlessly focused on those unchanging truths about marketing and communication.
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In doing so, he is not-so-quietly changing the world, one marketer at a time.
As he reminds us, “Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It’s only for those who signed up for the journey.”
Have you read This is Marketing? Are you a Godin fan? Let’s connect on LinkedIn and chat about it.
