Talk to This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See like its author wrote you back.
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What it argues
This Is Marketing is Seth Godin's most comprehensive statement of what marketing is and isn't. It is a repudiation of the idea that marketing means interruption, manipulation, and scale. Godin's definition: marketing is the generous act of helping people become who they want to become. Done right, it serves the audience rather than exploiting it. The book is structured around building a coherent philosophy of ethical marketing, not a set of tactics.
The first principle is the smallest viable audience. Most marketers try to reach everyone, which means they make something bland enough to offend no one and compelling enough to inspire no one. Godin's prescription is to identify the specific people who have a worldview that your offer makes sense to, and then to go deep with them rather than wide with everyone. The goal is not to convert skeptics but to find the people who are already looking for what you offer.
What it gets right
- 1.
Marketing is not manipulation — it is the generous act of helping people become who they want to become. If your product doesn't serve the audience, the marketing is a problem, not a solution.
- 2.
The smallest viable audience: rather than trying to reach everyone, identify the specific people whose worldview your offer serves, and go deep with them.
- 3.
People make decisions based on status and identity — who they are and who they want to be — not just rational evaluation of features and benefits.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Seth Godin is an American author and entrepreneur who has written more than twenty books on marketing, leadership, and change. He founded Yoyodyne, one of the first internet marketing companies, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998, and later founded Squidoo. He has been inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and the Marketing Hall of Fame. His daily blog is among the most widely read in the world. This Is Marketing, published in 2018, represents his most comprehensive treatment of marketing philosophy, synthesizing themes from Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, and Tribes.
