This is Marketing: The 14 Top Tips Seth Godin Tells You

Entrepreneur Seth Godin spends most of his professional life as a writer inspiring people to develop and raise the level of their skills. Bestseller on Amazon. In addition to his blog, he published his first article in 2002, and is still blogging today.

In his book “This Is Marketing,” Seth Godin tells us a summary of his practical experiences in marketing, which he calls “The Roots of Marketing.” He likened the marketing process to the sunflower, for in order to reach its high growth and length, its roots must be deep and branched. And so with marketing, you will not reach your goals without cultivating the roots and making them deep. What is the most important thing that Seth shared with us in his book?

First: Don't Be a Traditional Marketer: Marketing Between Then and Now

Look around you, you will find that marketing has changed a lot with the passage of time, but the ideas of marketers have not kept pace with this development yet, so you will find them trying outdated methods that are no longer valid or no longer effective enough at the present time. Our understanding of what we as marketers should do is still primitive and selfish, screaming and stealing from our competitors and ashamed of what we do, assuming everyone is like us but lacking in knowledge.

1. Why are we fighting a marketing war?

Let's take a step back, and start with a simple question: What is marketing? The answer is simply and succinctly according to the AMA: It is a set of activities and processes in order to create and deliver value propositions to customers and the community through communication and exchange.

Seth Godin does not oppose such definitions of marketing but finds them simple. He sees marketing as a deeper process of generosity, helping customers solve their problems by telling stories and building connections.

Seth asks marketers a fundamental question; Why sharpen our swords and point them at each other if our business is primarily focused on customers, on our target segment to which we can offer the best value? Marketing is the opportunity to make a change for the better, not by shouting, clamoring, and coercing people, but by serving and providing value to them. Free from the idea of ​​fierce competition between you and your colleagues in the industry, and focus on customers; Understand your compass.

2. Is the marketing process boiled down to advertising?

For many years, creating or buying ads was the best marketing method for many companies, to reach the audience and make an impact on them. Every dollar you paid in ads was equal to the sales you would make, causing a mix of concepts. Marketers see ads as their main business, Which is what Seth Godin went through, until he succumbed to the fact that this is no longer true. At the present time, the marketer's job is to look into the eyes of the audience and create ideas from their perspective, meaning that your compass is the target market.

3. Why should we be ashamed of marketing?

Marketers today face a huge trust dilemma; This is due to the fraudulent methods of some marketers to make quick profits and deceive people, as well as the rude methods of collecting customer data, all at the expense of what marketers can offer. Real marketers, as Seth sees it, do not seek to entrap the largest number of customers, but rather build effective relationships to provide the best for them and help them make a positive change in their lives, in addition to winning their love.

Marketing involves creating honest marketing stories that resonate continuously over a long period of time. And when our ideas spread, we seek to change the culture, that is, we build something that people will miss if it no longer exists. The other type of marketing, based on hype, deception, and selfishness, has a short rope, whatever small goals we achieve through it.

Second: Do not market your product or service per se

When you shop, you are introducing a new emotional state, a step closer to fulfilling the dreams and desires of your customers, not just offering them the product. - Seth Godin

People do not want your products, but rather what you will provide them with feelings and feelings through the product or service. When a person wants to install a shelf in the wall of his house, and then goes to buy a drill, he is not buying it for a quarter-inch hole in which to nail the shelf, but the convenience and security of seeing everything fixed on the wall.

Everyone has a vision of the world and lives a different story in some way, and we as marketers all strive to communicate certain feelings to our customers, regardless of our products or services and the strategies we follow. The product is the only way to achieve the target emotions and the desired result.

Don't underestimate your customers' feelings, their way of thinking, their outlook on life or you. Once you communicate a feeling like belonging, peace of mind, self-esteem, or other feelings that your customers are striving to reach, you have truly delivered value to them. In a related context, Seth refers to two questions that marketers must answer before making any marketing decision: Who is the right product for them? And what will it do for them? Marketing is about helping your audience become better people in their view.

Third: Don't overlook the 3 most important marketing tools

Working in marketing is easier if you understand its purpose, we don't need the latest inventions and shortcuts to deliver benefit and value to our customers. We have 3 tools that are timeless and precise and achieve our goals:

We tell stories: those that resonate and withstand the changing times, honest stories of our actions, products or services.

We build connections: people want to be part of something that communicates certain feelings and value to them.

We create experiences: through experiences of using the product, or interacting with the service in some way.

Some marketers may overlook one of these tools, so someone mistakenly thinks that people want the product he offers, and they have enough knowledge and the right ability to make a decision on their own, and he misses telling stories. What is worse is that the marketer thinks that people like him love what he loves and want what he wants, so he starts completely wrong and misuses his tools.

Fourth: Respect your customers, sympathize with them, and be patient

A good marketer has enough emotional intelligence to know that what they are seeking, is not necessarily what their target audience is seeking, they do not believe in what you believe and do not care what you are interested in. Therefore, it is important to use marketing to solve the problems of the customers themselves, not the problems of the company you work for.

Marketing requires enough respect for customers' needs, empathy for their outlook on life, and patience by continuing to send your targeted marketing messages. That's the essence of marketing as Seth Godin sees it.

Fifth: Don't make the key until you find a lock for it

Seth stresses in various places in his book that the marketer should look at the problem first before finding a solution, and advises you to ask yourself before launching any product or service: What are the problems facing my target audience and they are trying to solve, and what change are they looking for? Your answer will add clarity and increase the value of your efforts, and thus the achievement of your goals.

There is no doubt that we all love the inspiring stories of people who have braved the odds and transformed an industry. But as a marketer, this is a heavy burden and would be an unwarranted excuse to use in your desperate times. So, do not look for impossible change, make what you seek to achieve through your product or service specific, clear and achievable, and you can do it again and again successfully with greater challenges.

Sixth: Your work in marketing does not mean that you target the largest number of customers

Targeting everyone means that you have a huge variety of different segments of people, and that's too many people who won't care about you and what you have to offer. That's why allocating a target audience that cares about what you offer is an essential step in your business. until you begin to customize your target segment; Ask yourself: What sets my clients apart from other people? And know that the more you customize your answer, the more meaning and value you make for your efforts. Not everyone has the same problem or desires.

Here, Seth Godin advises targeting your segment using psychological structure, not demographics. Instead of defining your target audience based on their level of education or ethnicity, you can define them by their outlook on life. We each have our own fundamental principles and our own way of dividing the world and judging matters, and each of us deserves to be treated with respect. In marketing, we look for “the point of view” and invite people who share the same point of view to join us.

To simplify the matter, if we look at Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks customers in their home country, and although they provide the same service which is selling coffee, the difference in demographic characteristics between them is crystal clear, but Seth did not focus on this difference as much as he focused on the difference in psychological targeting deep between them.

You find Starbucks serving a group that has a different view of: coffee, time, money, community, opportunity and luxury. As well as Dunkin' Donuts, it targeted a particular group with a different viewpoint as well. By focusing on this targeting, they have both been able to build a successful and strong brand over the years.

Seventh: Your courage as a marketer is to aim for the minimum viable

What is wrong with the idea of ​​targeting everyone is boredom. We make many concessions to satisfy all people and not offend a group, which will result in boring marketing ideas of medium quality, as it needs to suit them all in the end. If this indicates anything, it will indicate the loss of the marketer's ideas, dispersal and weakness, as he does not know who his audience is.

Organizing your business around the concept of “minimum” will lead you to continually growing, however, marketers often make the mistake of forgetting what is “viable” when targeting the “minimum” in general. It's pointless to launch and market products if they don't really have a market, which brings us back to point five (don't make the key before there's a lock). We are helped here by the concept of agile leadership, which Seth refers to by saying: Think small and fast

An agile approach to product launch coupled with smart targeting, dedicated to the customers we seek to serve and develop, is your path to success.

The ultimate goal of searching for minimal customers, is to find the segment that understands the change you seek, and loves to implement it with you through participation, interaction and loyalty to you. This is what we seek, and you will not be able to get it from everyone, and here, Seth puts this phrase in your hands to fill it with appropriate: “My product/service is for those who believe in…. I will focus on those who want to... I promise them that interacting with what I offer will help them get….”

Eighth: Understand people's motives and what goes on inside them

In a world of choice and time constraints, how do your customers judge their choices? It's not that easy. People are different from one another in what they believe, think, and think is right. They also differ in their motivations to make things better and their understanding of what they really want.

The marketer needs to understand that people make decisions irrationally most of the time (the decision is rational for the decision maker because he made it to achieve feelings). And Seth gives us an interesting example here, which is animal food, dogs in particular. We don't know if the kind they choose is really tasty to their animals, they enjoy, and it's worth the price, and they won't be able to decide that either, but we are sure that the owner of the animal himself likes this particular type of food more than others.

That is, animal food is not made for the animal itself, but rather for its owner in order to feel satisfied with the way he takes care of the animal, who in turn responds to this care with loyalty and affection to his owner. In addition, the state that the owner feels when he buys a luxury item that is considered luxury. Such feelings make some animal keepers want to pay more for food that is gluten-free and contains high-value elements of "illusion".

Our target market choices are not necessarily based on the best price and best performance of our products, and this is not what we seek to market. Humans rely on different factors of input and emotion to make the same decision, and our target (minimum viable) segment is concerned with particular emotions and has a number of common inputs between them.

Ninth: Start by drawing the y- and x-axis and find the extremes

Remember drawing coordinate axes in math class? We'll also paint it in marketing, but don't worry, we're not going to use numbers here, but the traits your target audience is looking for and interested in and makes them feel. Each axis will represent one of these things, it could be price, performance, level, efficacy, health, and so on.

Searching for the extremes of marketing

According to Seth's example, there are six ways to get diamonds across the city, splitting the two axes by: delivery speed and security. What was explained to him was that an armored car and the postal service would achieve and ensure the delivery of a small envelope of diamonds in high security, but that one of them would take a long time to deliver, and the other would take only a few hours.

What distinguishes this method described by Seth Godin in his book This is Marketing, is the ease with which all possible options are articulated, depending on what you are trying to convey. Customers are not as interested in features as they are in the feelings these features evoke in them. Seth suggested some axes that you can draw depending on your target:

the speed

price

the performance

the components

purity level

Sustainability

Clarity

maintenance costs

Safety

distribution

modernity

network effect

Privacy

Difficulty

danger

Experience

limitation

After you choose an attribute for the X-axis, choose a characteristic for the Y-axis and put all the possibilities your customer has in the network, you will then have a map of possible alternatives through which any busy person can find a solution to their problem. Pay attention, this is not the main goal of drawing them, we draw these axes to find a place for us and our products or services to position themselves to the maximum and stand out.

Marketers usually choose the traits that are popular with people, so you find them crowded in a particular quarter. Unfortunately, this congestion confuses customers, and you may find them reluctance to try your product or other alternative products; Because if there is a possibility that one product will succeed and the other will not, it is better not to choose from the beginning, as Seth puts it in his book.

Instead of choosing popular traits, which other alternatives (competitors) choose for what you offer, build your own quadrant by looking for two themes that many overlook, build your story on them; A true story does what it promises. This would put you in a place, where there is no better choice for customers than you.

Tenth: Observe, then test and analyze regularly

What do your customers want? Don't expect to get an answer from them just by asking. Our job is to observe people, find out what they dream about, and then build what makes them feel those feelings. Seth Godin explains that in dealing with people we encounter 3 basic problems:

People confuse needs and wants

But what we really need as human beings is air, water, health, and a roof over our heads. Anything other than this is a desire, but people identify in themselves some desires as needs.

People think a lot about their desires

Those they think are needs, but are bad at finding new ways to satisfy those wants, and often prefer to use popular solutions, even if you don't work well with them so they get stuck.

We think everyone wants the same thing

In fact, they are not, so you will find early adopters looking for something new, and others looking for things that do not change. You find some people want chocolate ice cream and the other vanilla.

These misconceptions may create a barrier for you between your product or service and your customers, start to get rid of them by focusing all your efforts on the segment that you think fit your product according to your monitoring of them, then tell marketing stories about the change you seek, then look and analyze how this segment interacted with you .

Eleventh: Ask for advice, not evaluation

A dissatisfied customer - who does not like what you offer - may be right or completely wrong. That's why Seth Godin finds that asking you to rate your product is kind of stupid, because you're giving people a chance to say what you've made is pointless. This is what is actually noticeable in many products, such as Amazon books, as 12% of the twenty-one thousand reviews on “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” give the book one or two stars.

This shows that the novel has two types of audience, the supporter who finds that the novel fulfilled a certain desire and feeling within him, and the opponent who feels satisfied by reducing your work and encouraging his hatred. Both types of customers are right, Seth says, but he suggests that instead of asking them to rate what you offer, ask them for advice. Like saying: I made this one that I like and I think you might also like, what advice can you give me to make this thing fit and close to what you need?

A question of advice will help you understand the customers who have interacted with your product or service and see their desires, dreams, and what they are afraid of. It will give you some sort of insight into what you can improve in the future and whether or not the problem is in what you are offering. By rating, a customer may give you a star because the delivery is late, or because they are angry because they spent more than they planned, as opposed to giving you useful, constructive advice.

Twelfth: Achieving the network effect is a fundamental factor in your success

achieve network effect

The fax machine has become popular not because of the cleverness of the advertising campaigns built by the marketers, but because the fax machine works perfectly if your colleague also has a fax machine. Your success in outreach depends not so much on your advertising campaigns as on the experience of your customers and beyond. Is what you have provided worth telling other people about your customers? You don't need to work with clients who won't recommend you to people who share the same desires and dreams.

Thirteenth: Take care of your product identity

One of the ways of communicating with humans is through symbols, shapes, and abbreviations. These letters (S-Y-A-R-E) are not a picture of the car itself, but we agreed that when seeing this word, everyone who knows the language will think of the car as we all know it. In marketing, we use symbols, shapes, and sometimes abbreviations to communicate certain meanings to our target customers.

For example, Nike spends millions of dollars to inculcate in the minds of its customers that the “swoosh” icon is a symbol of human potential, efficiency and high performance.

Nike logo image source

The marketer must first have a good understanding that symbols and acronyms may not have the same meaning for all humans, secondly enough awareness to know the right symbols for their customers, and finally enough courage to build a new one if necessary. The logo design you use, the stories you tell, and how your various businesses appear to the public are all important aspects of creating an image in your customers' minds of you.

Identity is not just your product's slogan, it's how you deliver on a promise to your customers. Nike doesn't have a hotel of its own brand but if it decides to, its customers will have some guesses as to what it will be like. And this, according to Seth Godin, is the meaning of business identity: the emotional expectations of you from your customers.

Fourteenth: Keep going, the marketing process doesn't stop

What is repeated is decided

Forgetting is a characteristic of humans. It is normal for people to forget what they read, what they saw, or what they heard, but we remember what is repeated to us. The more we appear to our target customers, the more familiar they become to us, and then little by little we build in them “trust”. The marketer makes a mistake when he starts to get bored of the stories he tells and the change he wants to deliver. Sustainability is an essential goal that we must have sufficient awareness of.

If you look at the entrepreneurs of this era, you will undoubtedly notice the trait of hurry and urgency. They create projects, and then if they don't go as planned in a certain amount of time, they lose hope and give up on continuing the project. But what you don't realize is that the market associates repetition with trust, so it's no wonder you didn't get your chance to earn your customers' trust when you gave up halfway.

In conclusion, these were part of many ideas that Seth Godin illustrated in his book This Is Marketing, the book still contains many other ideas that a summary cannot include. If you are an entrepreneur, working in marketing or if you just want to make a difference in this world with a product, service or idea, then this book is for you to build you deep and fork roots. And don't forget to share with us your top ideas that inspired you in the comments.