Moments Later: What Every Good Marketer Knows

I have never met Seth Godin although he has been one of my marketing heroes for a long time. His ideas have significantly influenced my view of marketing. Since I never studied marketing in college or graduate school, I feel as if I received the best education watching, listening and reading his work. Few people can tell a story and making the complex simple. And I always sense a great deal of joy in his work and the pleasure he takes in teaching and mentoring.

Seth recently republished a list that is a wonderful overview about what marketing is and isn’t. I learn something every time I review it and indeed and want to share it with you.

You can follow Seth and his work by googling the word Seth. If you don’t get his daily blogs via email, you are missing a great jump start to any marketer’s day. This is a link to his popular blog. Seth.

What do you know?

Three years ago, I published this list, which was very much a riff, not a carefully planned manifesto. It has held up pretty well. Feel free to reprint or otherwise use, as long as you include a credit line. I've added a few at the bottom...

What Every Good Marketer Knows:

Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.

Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.

Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.

Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.

Marketing begins before the product is created.

Advertising 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 members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.

Products that are remarkable get talked about.

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 people, once unfooled, 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, the 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-effectiveness. 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 story.

People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.

Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.

Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.

A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.

Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.

Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.

Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.

Good marketers measure.

Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.

One disappointed customer is worth ten delighted ones.

In the googleworld, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more.

Most marketers create good enough and then quit.

Greatest beats good enough every time.

There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.

Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end users have an asset for the future.

You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.

You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call tech support and you market every time you send a memo.

Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.

Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.

If you haven't seen Seth speak, listen to his Ted (Technology Entertainment and Design) talk. It runs about 17 minutes. In it he explains how marketing has changed and how important it is to be leading a tribe. Inspirational, educational and funny.

Seth Godin Speaks at TED talks on the Tribes

Thank you Seth. Keep 'em coming.