# This Is Marketing  ## Metadata - Author: [[Seth Godin]] - Full Title: This Is Marketing - Category: #books ## Highlights - The answer to just about every question about work is really the question, “Who can you help?” ([Location 87](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=87)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Marketing is the act of making change happen. Making is insufficient. You haven’t made an impact until you’ve changed someone. ([Location 119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=119)) - Tags: [[pink]] - They say that the best way to complain is to make things better. It’s difficult to do that if you can’t spread the word, can’t share those ideas, or can’t get paid for the work you do. The first step on the path to make things better is to make better things. But better isn’t only up to you. Better can’t happen in a vacuum. Better is the change we see when the market embraces what we’re offering. Better is what happens when the culture absorbs our work and improves. Better is when we make the dreams of those we serve come true. Marketers make things better by making change happen. ([Location 138](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=138)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. ([Location 166](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=166)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The internet is the first mass medium that wasn’t invented to make marketers happy. ([Location 169](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=169)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The other kind of marketing, the effective kind, is about understanding our customers’ worldview and desires so we can connect with them. It’s focused on being missed when you’re gone, on bringing more than people expect to those who trust us. It seeks volunteers, not victims. ([Location 196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=196)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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. ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=203)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Marketing is the generous act of helping others become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories—stories that resonate and spread. Marketers offer solutions, opportunities for humans to solve their problems and move forward. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=206)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The other kind of marketing—the hype, scams, and pressure—thrives on selfishness. ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=209)) - Tags: [[pink]] - You can learn to see how human beings dream, decide, and act. And if you help them become better versions of themselves, the ones they seek to be, you’re a marketer. ([Location 262](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=262)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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. ([Location 264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=264)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Persistent, consistent, and frequent stories, delivered to an aligned audience, will earn attention, trust, and action. ([Location 279](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=279)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “People like us do things like this” is how each of us understands culture, and marketers engage with this idea every day. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=282)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=289)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Human beings tell themselves stories. Those stories, as far as each of us is concerned, are completely and totally true, and it’s foolish to try to persuade them (or us) otherwise. ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=296)) - Tags: [[pink]] - We can group people into stereotyped groups that often (but not always) tell themselves similar stories, groups that make similar decisions based on their perceived status and other needs. ([Location 297](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=297)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole.” The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the hole it makes. But that doesn’t go nearly far enough. No one wants a hole. What people want is the shelf that will go on the wall once they drill the hole. Actually, what they want is how they’ll feel once they see how uncluttered everything is, when they put their stuff on the shelf that went on the wall, now that there’s a quarter-inch hole. But wait . . . They also want the satisfaction of knowing they did it themselves. Or perhaps the increase in status they’ll get when their spouse admires the work. Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the bedroom isn’t a mess, and that it feels safe and clean. “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want to feel safe and respected.” Bingo. ([Location 364](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=364)) - Tags: [[pink]] - People don’t want what you make They want what it will do for them. ([Location 374](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=374)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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. ([Location 378](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=378)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Regardless of what the specifics are, if you’re a marketer, you’re in the business of making change happen. Denying this is a form of hiding; it’s more productive to own it instead. ([Location 422](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=422)) - Tags: [[pink]] - If you have to choose a thousand people to become your true fans, who should you choose? Begin by choosing people based on what they dream of, believe, and want, not based on what they look like. In other words, use psychographics instead of demographics. Just as you can group people by the color of their eyes or the length of their ring fingers, you can group them based on the stories they tell themselves. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff calls these clumps worldviews. ([Location 466](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=466)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring, because mass means average, it means the center of the curve, it requires you to offend no one and satisfy everyone. It will lead to compromises and generalizations. ([Location 491](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=491)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Loving you is a way of expressing themselves. Becoming part of your movement is an expression of who they are. ([Location 535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=535)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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 _________________. ([Location 583](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=583)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When a marketer arrives and says, “This is better,” he’s wrong. He actually means, “This is better for someone and it might be better for you.” ([Location 613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=613)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Sonder is defined as that moment when you realize that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as yours. ([Location 617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=617)) - Tags: [[pink]] - linear comparisons don’t make sense when we’re building stories and opportunities for humans. ([Location 643](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=643)) - Tags: [[pink]] - without the magic of advertising, it’s very difficult to grow in a quadrant that’s crowded. Your customer doesn’t know what to do, so he does nothing. The alternative is to build your own quadrant. To find two axes that have been overlooked. To build a story, a true story, that keeps your promise, that puts you in a position where you are the clear and obvious choice. ([Location 826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=826)) - The goal isn’t to personalize the work. It’s to make it personal. ([Location 1028](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1028)) - Being wrong from scratch is exhausting. Radical originality doesn’t have a high return on investment, and it will wear you out. Scrapbooking is an efficient alternative. ([Location 1151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1151)) - Tags: [[pink]] - This simple network effect is at the heart of every mass movement and every successful culture change. It happens when remarkable is designed right into the story of your change, and more important, when the product or service works better when I use it with others. ([Location 1201](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1201)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When people share their negative stories, they often try to broaden the response and universalize it. They talk about how “no one” or “everyone” will feel. But what you’re actually hearing about is a specific sore spot that was touched in a specific moment by a specific piece of work. ([Location 1300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1300)) - Tags: [[pink]] - We can’t change the culture, but each of us has the opportunity to change a culture—our little pocket of the world. ([Location 1357](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1357)) - Tags: [[pink]] - It’s all built around the simple question: “Do people like me do things like this?” Normalization creates culture, and culture drives our choices, which leads to more normalization. ([Location 1378](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1378)) - Tags: [[pink]] - That’s how we make change—by caring enough to want to change a culture, and by being brave enough to pick just one. ([Location 1407](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1407)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When you market to someone who doesn’t have a pattern yet, you don’t have to persuade them that their old choices were mistakes. ([Location 1490](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1490)) - Tags: [[pink]] - marketers who cause change cause tension. ([Location 1523](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1523)) - Tags: [[pink]] - If you look closely at decisions that don’t initially make sense, you’ll likely see status roles at work. ([Location 1589](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1589)) - Tags: [[pink]] - We each have our own narratives. The noise in our head, the worldview that is unique to us, the history and beliefs and perceptions that shape who we are and what we choose. And sonder is the generous act of accepting that others don’t want, believe, or know what we do—and have a similar noise in their heads. ([Location 1704](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1704)) - Tags: [[pink]] - in order to bring our change to the world, we need to make some assumptions about what others believe. We can’t hear the noise in their heads, but we can watch what they do and make some guesses. ([Location 1707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1707)) - Tags: [[pink]] - People who align with one worldview often have trouble imagining why someone would choose the alternative. ([Location 1761](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1761)) - Tags: [[pink]] - 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. ([Location 1795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1795)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Marketers have the humility to understand that not everyone sees a symbol the same way, the awareness to use the right symbol for the right audience, and the guts to invent new symbols to be placed on top of old ones. ([Location 1830](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1830)) - Tags: [[pink]] - You’re not people like us if you don’t talk (talk means typefaces, photo styles, copy) the way we expect you to. ([Location 1901](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1901)) - Tags: [[pink]] - We’re judging everything, and people are judging us in return. Often, those judgments are biased, incorrect, and inefficient. But denying them doesn’t make them disappear. ([Location 1917](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1917)) - Tags: [[pink]] - To change the culture, we have no choice but to acknowledge the culture we seek to change. ([Location 1920](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=1920)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Real permission works like this: If you stop showing up, people are concerned. They ask where you went. ([Location 2351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=2351)) - Tags: [[pink]] - If you don’t market the change you’d like to contribute, then you’re stealing. ([Location 3046](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07DBR1V9S&location=3046)) - Tags: [[pink]]