5 Essential Strategies to Revamp Your Marketing in 2023 from This is Marketing by Seth Godin
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, as we move into the New Year, you’ve been setting goals to grow your business. And that probably means you need to improve your marketing! To do this you could take some classes on digital marketing or hire social media help. Those things would be great.
But if you’re ready to make changes, it’s important to start from the ground up. You need to ask yourself, am I marketing to the right people? Is my message resonating with anyone? Do I have a clear message at all, or am I all over the place? It doesn’t matter how much marketing you put out in the world. If it’s not speaking to anyone, it’s not going to create sales.
If you’re ready to reflect on the core of your marketing, then This is Marketing by Seth Godin is a great place to start.
5 Essential Strategies to Revamp Your Marketing in 2023
1. Market with empathy
As a marketer, it's essential to realize that you aren't marketing to yourself. Your job isn't to create marketing that you like, but rather marketing that will speak to potential customers. You need to understand your customers hopes and dreams. How do they see themselves in the world today and in the future? What are their priorities? What problems do they face? Listen to their frustrations and their aspirations, and then design marketing that will help them see how your product/service can create the change they seek in their lives.
2. Have a small target market
It’s impossible to deeply understand and appeal to everyone. To truly market with empathy, you need to have a small target market. The more the specific the group of people you serve, the more precisely you can address their needs. They will become your cheerleaders and loyal customers. They will be passionate about your business because you will be speaking directly to them.
While traditional marketing education suggests that you focus on things like age or race to set your target market, Godin suggests that you focus less on demographics and more one psychographics. What someone looks like matters less than what they want they want from life and how they see themselves in the world.
3. Key in on customers’ worldview
When narrowing down your target market, and designing content that will appeal to them, it’s important to consider potential customers’ worldview. People naturally gravitate toward the ‘view’ of their group or tribe to help them easily make decisions. When you think of your customer, think about how they might complete the statement, “Someone like me would because I am the type of person who .”
For example, “Someone like me would join an entrepreneur community because I am the type of person who uplifts and celebrates others.” vs “Someone like me would join an entrepreneur community because I am the type of person who uses all available resources to get to the top.”
Notice that both people are talking about why they would join an entrepreneur community, but for very different reasons. Designing a community and accompanying marketing that appeals to both worldviews is unlikely to be successful. These two groups don’t want the same community benefits and won’t be drawn to the same messaging.
4. Accept that you won’t serve everyone
Inevitably, you will find plenty of people who won’t be drawn to your product or service. Your marketing won’t speak to them. Their worldview won’t align with the worldview of your target market. And that’s ok. In fact, it’s a sign that you are doing things correctly.
If everything you do is designed to be tolerable for the masses, you will bore everyone. No one will be passionate about your product. No one will see themselves in your marketing.
Of course, you need to make sure there enough people who do care about your messaging and product to sustain your business. (For example, trying to sell Bigfoot inspired wetsuits to Bigfoot hunters who also enjoy scuba diving might be too small of a target market.) But don’t be discouraged when you meet people who aren’t the right fit. Most people won’t be right for your business. You just need to find the special group of people who are, take very good care of them, and make them raving fans.
5. Focus your messaging on outcomes
Perhaps you’ve heard this before: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” – Theodore Levitt
The idea here is that people are interested in the outcome of using your product or service, not the product or service itself. They want to know that their problem will be solved, and their life will be better. They don’t care very much about how you’ll make it happen.
You are understandably passionate about the details of your product or service. You worked hard to design them and you’re proud of what you’ve created. But remember your marketing isn’t about celebrating you.
Talking about your specs or service processes might come up on your product page, packaging, or during an exploratory phone call, but don’t lead with these things. No one is passionate about the minutiae of your business except for you.
Small Business Book Review: This is Marketing
I had a really hard time figuring out how to review This is Marketing by Seth Godin. One the one-hand, it helped me come up with some great ideas for my business and the core messages were very valuable.
On the other hand, reading it was very tedious, as it is clearly an assemblage of blog posts grouped together on some loose themes that sometimes flow well, but usually do not. At times it felt very repetitive as sections had very similar content. Other times, I was genuinely confused how we had jumped from one topic to another without any clear transition.
This book would be far better if it had actually been written as a book with clear structure, learning points, and transitions. But if you’re willing to trudge through it, what Godin has to say is essential for your marketing. So I give This is Marketing a 3.5/5 stars. You’ll learn a lot, but you’ll have to be patient and work for it.
