This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See

by Seth Godin

It’s easier to make products and services for the customers you seek to serve than it is to find customers for your products and services.

Time to get off the social media merry-go-round that goes faster and faster but never gets anywhere. Time to stop hustling and interrupting. Time to stop spamming and pretending you’re welcome. Time to stop making average stuff for average people while hoping you can charge more than a commodity price. Time to stop begging people to become your clients, and time to stop feeling bad about charging for your work. Time to stop looking for shortcuts, and time to start insisting on a long, viable path instead.

Marketing in five steps The first step is to invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling, and a contribution worth talking about. The second step is to design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from and care about. The third step is to tell a story that matches the built-in narrative and dreams of that tiny group of people, the smallest viable market. The fourth step is the one everyone gets excited about: spread the word. The last step is often overlooked: show up—regularly, consistently, and generously, for years and years—to organize and lead and build confidence in the change you seek to make. To earn permission to follow up and to earn enrollment to teach.

Persistent, consistent, and frequent stories, delivered to an aligned audience, will earn attention, trust, and action.

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. 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.

Desire for gain versus avoidance of loss.

The way we make things better is by caring enough about those we serve to imagine the story that they need to hear.

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.

if you’re unwilling to have empathy for the narrative of the person you seek to serve, you’re stealing. You’re stealing because you’re withholding a valuable option. You’re keeping someone from understanding how much they’ll benefit from what you’ve created . . . such a significant benefit that it’s a bargain. If they understand what’s on offer and choose not to buy it, then it’s not for them. Not today, not at this price, not with that structure. That’s okay too.

From now on, your customers know more than you do about your competitors. And so your commodity work, no matter how much effort you put into it, is not enough.

What do people want? 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.

people confuse wants and needs. What we need is air, water, health, and a roof over our heads. Pretty much everything else is a want.

Your best customers become your new salespeople.

Based on who they are and what they want and what they know, everyone is right. Every time.

Normalization creates culture, and culture drives our choices, which leads to more normalization.

We don’t want to feel left out, left behind, uninformed, or impotent. We want to get ahead. We want to be in sync. We want to do what people like us are doing. None of those feelings existed before a marketer showed up with something that caused them—if there weren’t a new album, you wouldn’t feel left out if you hadn’t heard it yet. We intentionally create these gaps, these little canyons of tension that people find themselves leaping over. And the reason is status. Where do we stand? What does the tribe think of us? Who’s up, and who’s down?

Where are you going? What’s holding you back? It’s not clear to me why business plans are the way they are, but they’re often misused to obfuscate, bore, and show an ability to comply with expectations. If I want the truth about a business and where it’s going, I’d rather see a more useful document. I’d divide the modern business plan into five sections: Truth Assertions Alternatives People Money The truth section describes the world as it is. Footnote if you want to, but tell me about the market you are entering, the needs that exist, the competitors in your space, technology standards, and how others have succeeded and failed in the past. The more specific, the better. The more ground knowledge, the better. The more visceral the stories, the better. The point of this section is to be sure that you’re clear about how you see the world, and that you and I agree on your assumptions. This section isn’t partisan—it takes no positions; it just states how things are. Truth can take as long as you need to tell it. It can include spreadsheets, market share analysis, and anything else I need to know about how the world works. The assertions section is your chance to describe how you’re going to change things. We will do X, and then Y will happen. We will build Z with this much money in this much time. We will present Q to the market, and the market will respond by taking this action.

You’re creating tension by telling stories. You’re serving a specific market. You’re expecting something to happen because of your arrival. What? This is the heart of the modern business plan. The only reason to launch a project is to make change, to make things better, and we want to know what you’re going to do and what impact it’s going to have. Of course, this section will be inaccurate. You will make assertions that won’t pan out. You’ll miss budgets and deadlines and sales. So, the alternatives section tells me what you’ll do if that happens. How much flexibility does your product or team have? If your assertions don’t pan out, is it over? The people section rightly highlights the key element: Who is on your team, and who is going to join your team. “Who” doesn’t mean their resumes; it means their attitudes and abilities and track record in shipping. You can go further here. Who are the people you’re serving? Who are the champions? What do they believe about status? What worldview do they have? The last section is all about money. How much you need, how you will spend it, what cash flow looks like, profit and loss, balance sheets, margins, and exit strategies. Your local VC might not like this format, but I’m betting it will help your team think through the hard issues more clearly.

The only reason to launch a project is to make change, to make things better, and we want to know what you’re going to do ...

The internet is littered with websites, emails, and videos made by amateurs. Amateurs who made something that they liked. Which is fine. But what a professional does for you is design something that other people will like. They create a look and feel that reminds people of their sort of magic.

Direct marketing is action oriented. And it is measured. Brand marketing is culturally oriented. And it can’t be measured.

The ad exists to get a click. The click exists to either make a sale or earn permission. The sale exists to lead to another sale, or to word of mouth. Permission exists to lead to education and to a sale. That’s it.

Free ideas that spread. Expensive expressions of those ideas that are worth paying for.

The goal is to prime the pump with ads that are aimed at neophiliacs, people looking to find you. Then build trust with frequency. To gain trial. To generate word of mouth. And to make it pay

This is the false promise of the internet. That you can be happy with a tiny slice of the long tail. That anyone can sing or write or dance or do comedy or coach or freelance, and so anyone will, and so you’ll be fine.

We like to do what everyone else is doing.

Because it’s the hit that connects them. Once they see it, they’ll probably want it. This means that living on the long tail has two essential elements: Creates the definitive, the most essential, the extraordinary contribution to the field. Connects the market you’ve designed it for, and helps them see that you belong in the short head. That this hit is the glue that holds them together.

Yes, the internet is a discovery tool. But no, you’re not going to get discovered that way. Instead, you will make your impact by uniting those you seek to serve.

The peer-to-peer movement of ideas is how we cross the chasm—by giving people a network effect that makes the awkwardness of pitching change worth the effort. The bridge is built on two simple questions: What will I tell my friends? Why will I tell them?

impact. They buy a special Jerry can from WHI

The marketer who is out of ideas or energy finishes that sentence with, “. . . bought the cheapest one.” For the rest of us, there’s the opportunity to finish that sentence with a narrative about status, fear, affiliation, belonging, dominion, safety, commitment, insight, or any of the other emotions we’ve discussed.

The story of self gives you standing, a platform from which to speak. When you talk about your transition—from who you used to be to who you became—you are being generous with us.

The story of us is the kernel of a tribe. Why are we alike? Why should we care? Can I find the empathy to imagine that I might be in your shoes?

benefit when we’re part of people like us. And the story of now is the critical pivot. The story of now enlists the tribe on your journey. It’s the peer opportunity/peer pressure of the tribe that will provide the tension for all of us to move forward, together. I was like you. I was in the desert. Then I learned something and now I’m here.

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?