This is Marketing by Seth Godin
This is Marketing by Seth Godin
Highlights and marginalia
These notes were created during my reading process to aid in my own understanding and were not written for the purpose of instruction or summarization. With that said, I get super excited to discuss ideas contained within, but rarely (read never) do I encounter anyone reading the same stuff. I’ve decided to share these unedited notes on the off chance they attract a shared excitement to discuss or are perhaps helpful to other readers. Feel free to ask questions and interact. Enjoy!
Opinion
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What I’m stealing
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Dog ears, highlights, marginalia
Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. (Location 166)
It’s a chance to serve, instead. (Location 168)
The other kind of marketing, the effective kind, is about understanding our customers’ worldview and desires so we can connect with them. (Location 196)
Marketing is the generous act of helping others become who they seek to become. (Location 206)
We build something that people would miss if it were gone, something that gives them meaning, connection, and possibility. (Location 208)
Your emergency is not a license to steal my attention. Your insecurity is not a permit to hustle me or my friends. (Location 240)
“People like us do things like this” is how each of us understands culture, and marketers engage with this idea every day. (Location 282)
Your tactics can make a difference, but your strategy—your commitment to a way of being and a story to be told and a promise to be made—can change everything. (Location 287)
If you want to make change, begin by making culture. Begin by organizing a tightly knit group. Begin by getting people in sync. Culture beats strategy—so much that culture is strategy. (Location 289)
The way we make things better is by caring enough about those we serve to imagine the story that they need to hear. (Location 352)
We make connections. Humans are lonely, and they want to be seen and known. People want to be part of something. It’s safer that way, and often more fun. (Location 385)
when you’re market-driven, you think a lot about the hopes and dreams of your customers and their friends. You listen to their frustrations and invest in changing the culture. (Location 399)
Throughout this book, we’ll return to this essential question: “Who’s it for?” (Location 457)
Choose the people you serve, choose your future. (Location 501)
“It’s not for you” shows the ability to respect someone enough that you’re not going to waste their time, pander to them, or insist that they change their beliefs. (Location 565)
The simple marketing promise Here’s a template, a three-sentence marketing promise you can run with: My product is for people who believe _________________. I will focus on people who want _________________. I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get _________________. And you thought that all you were here to do was sell soap. (Location 581)
We’re seeking our own little pocket of uniqueness. (Location 710)
A marketer is curious about other people. (Location 712)
A lifeguard doesn’t have to spend much time pitching to the drowning person. When you show up with a life buoy, if the drowning person understands what’s at stake, you don’t have to run ads to get them to hold on to it. (Location 720)
Instead, we begin with a group we seek to serve, a problem they seek to solve, and a change they seek to make. There’s a gap in the market where your version of better can make a welcome change happen. Not a tactical change. Not a quarter-inch hole, or even a quarter-inch drill bit. No, we can change someone on an emotional level. Our calling is to make a difference. A chance to make things better for those we seek to serve. (Location 886)
Quality, the quality of meeting specifications, is required but no longer sufficient. (Location 901)
Selling ice cream on the beach in the summer is easy. Raising people’s expectations, engaging in their hopes and dreams, helping them see further—that’s the difficult work we signed up for. (Location 908)
Perhaps it’s a signifier. That he wouldn’t bother with this except it’s what people like him are supposed to do. And not any shoeshine. This shoeshine, in this public spot, from this respected craftsperson. (Location 920)
Note: Being affiliated with someone who is high status within a community is the surest route to building intrinsic value in brand or venture. Thus greatly narrows down the scope of who you are building for. Finding the high status match for whatever it is we are building is of the utmost importance
organize the entire experience around that story. (Location 924)
Good stories: Connect us to our purpose and vision for our career or business. Allow us to celebrate our strengths by remembering how we got from there to here. Deepen our understanding of our unique value and what differentiates us in the marketplace. Reinforce our core values. Help us to act in alignment and make value-based decisions. Encourage us to respond to customers instead of react to the marketplace. Attract customers who want to support businesses that reflect or represent their values. Build brand loyalty and give customers a story to tell. Attract the kind of like-minded employees we want. Help us to stay motivated and continue to do work we’re proud of. (Location 934)
Coffee creates a third place: a spot to meet, to connect, to dream. (Location 986)
Revealing is reserved for your family and your closest friends, not the marketplace. Protect yourself. You’ll be needed tomorrow. (Location 1001)
authenticity in the marketplace is a myth, that what people want is to be understood and to be served, not merely to witness whatever you feel like doing in a given moment. (Location 1005)
If you need to be authentic to do your best work, you’re not a professional, you’re a fortunate amateur. (Location 1017)
when a human being extends emotional labor to take responsibility—“Here, I made this”—then the door is open to connection and growth. (Location 1025)
We sell feelings, status, and connection, not tasks or stuff. (Location 1045)
Note: We all know this but it's important to keep front and center.
If you ask them, you probably won’t find what you’re looking for. You certainly won’t find a breakthrough. It’s our job to watch people, figure out what they dream of, and then create a transaction that can deliver that feeling. (Location 1047)
And this is where we begin: with assertions. Assertions about what our audience, the folks we need to serve, want and need. Assertions about what’s on their minds when they wake up, what they talk about when no one is eavesdropping, what they remember at the end of the day. (Location 1089)
Note: i have strong assertions about both soft serve and dad hats.
Marketers make change. We change people from one emotional state to another. We take people on a journey; we help them become the person they’ve dreamed of becoming, a little bit at a time. (Location 1101)
without a doubt, the heart and soul of a thriving enterprise is the irrational pursuit of becoming irresistible. (Location 1181)
What if, instead, we seek advice? Seek it like this: “I made something that I like, that I thought you’d like. How’d I do? What advice do you have for how I could make it fit your worldview more closely?” That’s not criticism. (Location 1293)
People Like Us Do Things Like This (Location 1329)
For most of us, though, changing our behavior is driven by our desire to fit in (people like us do things like this) and our perception of our status (affiliation and dominance). Since both these forces often push us to stay as we are, it takes tension to change them. (Location 1339)
Note: This is important. Dig into this. Similar to Girards memtic desire
People like us (do things like this) (Location 1343)
Note: Make a people like me list.
Normalization creates culture, and culture drives our choices, which leads to more normalization. (Location 1379)
Focus all our energy on this group. Ignore everyone else. Instead, focus on building and living a story that will resonate with the culture we are seeking to change. (Location 1405)
It’s the extraordinary peer pressure of people like us do things like this. (Location 1441)
Over the years, (Location 1448)
It’s not extreme, not for this “us.” Instead, it’s what we do. (Location 1448)
When life interferes, new patterns are established. This is why it’s so profitable to market to new dads, engaged women, and people who have recently moved. (Location 1487)
When you arrive on the scene with your story, with the solution you have in mind, do you also create tension? If you don’t, the status quo is likely to survive. (Location 1567)
In his brilliant book Impro, Keith Johnstone (Location 1593)
Note: Companies especially new ones that are tied to elevated status create massive surplus value. Think Tesla, Apple etc. Pay attention for another one of those. It was fairly obvious early on that apple and tezla would become objects okf status flr the massess
Sending affiliation signals (Location 1762)
How busy is the trade show booth? Who else is at the launch party? Who blurbed the book? Are “people” talking about it (which is shorthand for “Are people like us doing something like this?”)? (Location 1763)
For a local craftsperson, it means hunkering down in a single neighborhood until a reputation is assured. (Location 1768)
Truth Assertions Alternatives People Money (Location 1782)
“What change do I seek to make?” (Location 1811)
Once you know what you stand for, the rest gets a lot easier. (Location 1811)
That’s precisely why so many logos of big companies look the same. It’s not laziness. The designers are trying to remind you of a solid company. That’s the work of “reminds me of.” You can do it with intent. (Location 1853)
At every turn, Apple sent signals, and they sent them in just edgy enough words, fonts, and design that the right people heard the message. (Location 1911)
If you want to build a marketing asset, you need to invest in connection and other nontransferable properties. If people care, you’ve got a brand. (Location 1941)
course, a quick glance at your Helvetica clip sheet shows that most brands couldn’t be bothered: (Location 1951)
quick glance at your Helvetica clip sheet shows that most brands couldn’t be bothered: (Location 1951)
Standard deviations: The percentages indicate what percentage of the population being measured (Location 1969)
Note: I could also use the midwit curve to target a niche
It’s the neophiliacs, the folks with a problem that you can solve right now (novelty and tension and the endless search for better), that you can begin with. (Location 1978)
the folks with a problem that you can solve right now (novelty and tension and the endless search for better), that you can begin with. (Location 1978)
Neophiliacs want to go first. They want hope and possibility and magic. They want the thrill of it working and the risk that it might not. They want the pleasure of showing their innovation to the rest of the crew. And they want the satisfaction of doing better work faster, as well as the anticipation of being rewarded for their innovation and productivity. (Location 1991)
The affiliation-seeking tribe member wants to fit in, to be in sync, to feel the pleasure of people like us do things like this without the risk of being picked to be the leader. Some people want responsibility, while others seek to be recognized. Some of those you seek to serve want a bargain, while a few eagerly want to overpay, to prove that they can. (Location 1997)
You can learn a lot about people by watching what they do. And when you find someone who is adopting your cause, adopt them back. When you find someone who is eager to talk about what you do, give him something to talk about. When you find someone who is itching to become a generous leader, give her the resources to lead. (Location 2013)
the cost of being human in this situation is easily covered by the upside of delighting an extraordinary customer. (Location 2043)
Amazement and delight go a long way. (Location 2045)
Your goal is the change you seek to make in the world. (Location 2056)
but it’s more likely to be the change you seek to make in those you serve. The goal is your shining light, the unwavering destination of your work. (Location 2057)
Your strategy (Location 2059)
Note: this framing goals>strategy >tactics
Every time we see any of you, we ought to be able to make a smart guess about all of you. (Location 2175)
The familiar is normal and the normal is trusted. (Location 2185)
easier to become a regular at a restaurant that is proudly aligned with your view of the world. (Location 2324)
If permission is at the heart of your work, earn it and keep it. Communicate only with those who choose to hear from you. The simplest definition of permission is the people who would miss you if you didn’t reach out. You should own that, not rent it. (Location 2388)
Mostly, it’s a signal. A way of telling the core of the tribe that attention has been paid, that this is the sort of thing people like us will be talking about next year. (Location 2408)
The best reason someone talks about you is because they’re actually talking about themselves: “Look at how good my taste is.” Or perhaps, “Look at how good I am at spotting important ideas.” (Location 2424)
Note: Could fun idea be a proxy for important?
The goal isn’t to maximize your social media numbers. The goal is to be known to the smallest viable audience. (Location 2484)
The bridge is built on two simple questions: What will I tell my friends? Why will I tell them? (Location 2683)
Give them a why. And that usually involves changing what you offer. Make things better by making better things—things that have a network effect, a ratchet, a reason for sharing. (Location 2686)
The Gartner Hype Cycle (Location 2688)
The tribe would probably survive if you went away. The goal is for them to miss you if you did. (Location 2809)
Marshall Ganz (Location 2811)
The story of self (Location 2813)
But if you can dig deep and see the status roles, can decode dominion versus affiliation, and can use trust to earn enrollment, the process can change. You can produce better by serving the people you market to. Turning them from customers to students. Gaining enrollment. Teaching. Connecting. Step by step, drip by drip. (Location 2971)
The magic of good enough Good enough isn’t an excuse or a shortcut. Good enough leads to engagement. Engagement leads to trust. Trust gives us a chance to see (if we choose to look). And seeing allows us to learn. Learning allows us to make a promise. And a promise might earn enrollment. And enrollment is precisely what we need to achieve better. Ship your work. It’s good enough. Then make it better. (Location 2981)
A Simple Marketing Worksheet Who’s it for? What’s it for? What is the worldview of the audience you’re seeking to reach? What are they afraid of? What story will you tell? Is it true? What change are you seeking to make? How will it change their status? How will you reach the early adopters and neophiliacs? Why will they tell their friends? What will they tell their friends? Where’s the network effect that will propel this forward? What asset are you building? Are you proud of it? (Location 3113)