This is Marketing - Seth Godin

This is Marketing - Seth Godin

Learn how to effectively attract and convince your audience in today’s marketing world.

Add to Favorites
Add to read
Mark as read

What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the word "marketing"? Most people answer "advertisements". But we will find in this summary of the book "This is Marketing" that this association is not entirely correct.

The world has changed, and marketing has changed with it. Advertising today is just another tool used by companies to achieve success.

Therefore, it is important to obtain a broader and deeper understanding of what marketing is, which goes far beyond just advertisements.

In this book, the author Seth Godin teaches you to see and really understand those people you want to influence.

Are you interested? Then, keep reading this PocketBook!

About the book "This is Marketing"

Published in 2018 in the United States, the book "This is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See", written by Seth Godin, brings a new approach to the concept and marketing techniques best suited to today's world, totally immersed in the Internet and social networks.

With easy reading, the book presents, in its 23 chapters and 288 pages, several case studies that base the ideas of the author.

About the author Seth Godin

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, educator, author, and speaker on the topics of marketing and leadership.

He served as Vice President of Marketing at Yahoo and is a member of the Marketing Hall of Fame, with successful publications in the Financial Times.

Also, he has founded two companies and has written 18 books, including:

To whom is this book indicated?

The content of "This is Marketing" is essential for advertisers looking for new ideas and inspiration, who seek to understand how they can adapt to the whole new reality in the current world.

In addition, the work is intended for people who want to know more about marketing and, more than that, learn to identify and defend themselves against manipulations.

Main ideas of the book "This is Marketing"

The highlights of Seth Godin's lessons are:

  • Marketing always seeks to increase. Increase your market share, increase your customers, and increase your work;
  • Marketing is guided by improvement. Better services, better community life, and better results;
  • Marketing creates a culture;
  • Marketing represents change;
  • By changing culture, you change the world;
  • Marketers are responsible for change;
  • We are using marketing all the time, so we have the ability to change the world (more than we imagine);
  • We have an obligation to do marketing that we are proud of.

Download the "This Is Marketing" Book Summary in PDF for free

Do you have no time to read now? Then download the free PDF and read wherever and whenever you want:

[Book Summary] This Is Marketing - Seth Godin

Overview: The internet

In the past, if a company wanted to reach the masses, it had to pay for TV ads, which reached millions of people every day, as this was the main form of entertainment.

However, this has changed with the advent of the internet. People's attention is divided between TV, mobile, Netflix, Youtube, among many other forms of media.

The author Seth Godin explains that the internet has changed the rules of the game. It is the most massive communication medium ever created, connecting billions of people.

Each user can make their "version" of the internet, with totally customizable Facebook and Twitter feeds, for example.

This allows you to precisely reach the group you want, anytime, anywhere in the world. Moreover, another advantage of the internet is that you can accurately measure the results of your advertising, allowing you to optimize your content.

According to the book "This is Marketing", the problem is that all of your competitors also have access to all of these benefits. Thus, the importance of using a differentiated approach is evident.

For this, Seth Godin suggests some steps to carry out effective marketing, which will be analyzed next.

Overview: First step

The kickoff is easy to understand, but very difficult to do: you need to create something worth buying. This is usually understood as a task done only by designers.

However, the author Seth Godin explains that marketers play an important role in the development of a new product or service.

Effective marketing begins with identifying the intrinsic needs and desires of people. Usually, they are related to different emotional aspirations, like adventure, connection, freedom, tranquility, and strength.

As emphasized in the book "This is Marketing", a product worth buying is one or more of these emotional aspirations.

As an example, Seth cites the situation of a man who wants to buy an SUV because he is attracted to "off-road" abilities, to overcome obstacles on dirt roads, and to cross difficult terrain.

In the end, the man may never actually go "rally" with the car, but just knowing that he can do it is enough to motivate the purchase, as it satisfies his thirst for adventure.

Therefore, the author shows us that efficient marketing begins already in the first stage of development. After identifying the aspirations of people, it guides the whole process to build products that meet those needs and desires.

Overview: Second step

The next step in efficient marketing is related to the idea that it is impossible to please everyone because people are different, so they want different things. But that doesn't stop them from being your audience.

To do this, the author Seth Godin suggests in the book "This is Marketing" to divide your audience into two groups: adopters and adapters.

Adopters are those who embrace new things. They love the feeling of discovering something more efficient and innovative than what they were used to before.

On the other hand, adapters run away from new things. They prefer the security of dealing only with objects they are already familiar with.

Seth Godin says that the distinction between these two groups is essential since the product you are offering will be something new to anyone who has not yet bought it.

So it is much more likely that you will be able to persuade the adopters than the adapters, for it is in their nature to accept and test new things.

Thus, the second step is to focus on adopters, as they will constitute your Minimum Viable Market - the smallest number of people who will make your product profitable. This concept is similar to the Minimum Viable Product.

Overview: Third step

According to the book "This is Marketing", a tribe is a group of people who fraternize with each other and share the same worldview - the set of hypotheses through which they see the world around them.

It is this worldview that determines how they will pursue their values, desires, and needs. With that in mind, the next step is to create, connect, and lead tribes by telling stories that resonate with the worldview of their members.

When telling stories, it is possible to make a promise and connect with the audience using a language they will understand, affirms the author Seth Godin.

That way, you can start bringing people together who want and believe in what you are offering. They can be considered as "fans" of your product.

Overview: Fourth step

Finally, after starting to increase the number of fans, your next step is to persuade these people to actually purchase your product.

For the author Seth Godin, the key to doing this is to create tension - an uncomfortable feeling of pressure for which your product offers the antidote.

One way to do this is to challenge the condition. Most people want to stay within the tribe. Your mission is to make your product adopted as an essential part of the group.

For example, in the phrase "people like us do X, Y and Z things", your product becomes one of the variables. This makes your offer a part of the tribe's culture and forces people to buy your product if they want to remain within the group, as explained in the book "This is Marketing".

What do other authors say about it?

In the book "Launch", the author Jeff Walker presents a guide on how to sell products on the internet, considering all the challenges and difficulties of doing efficient digital marketing.

In "Selling With Emotional Intelligence", Mitch Anthony highlights ideas that promise to triple your sales in a matter of months by working with your clients' emotional intelligence.

Finally, Jonah Berger explains in the book "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" how to make your products become a habit in people's lives.

Okay, but how can I apply this to my life?

After presenting all the principles of the book "This is Marketing", the author Seth Godin offers a series of questions that must be answered to create and apply an effective marketing strategy:

  • "Who is it for?";
  • "What is the public's worldview that I want to achieve?";
  • "What are they afraid of?";
  • "What story am I going to tell?";
  • "What is the transformation I want to do?";
  • "How will this change your condition?";
  • "How will this reach the adopters?";
  • "Why will they tell their friends about it?";
  • "What will they tell their friends?";
  • "What is the value being built?";
  • "Am I proud?".

Did you like this summary of the book "This is Marketing"?

So, did you like the summary of the book and the marketing lessons? Leave your comment, your feedback is extremely important!

Also, if you want to find out about all the principles and concepts presented by Seth Godin, the full version is available for purchase below:

Book “This is Marketing”