This is Marketing: Chapter One

Not Mass, Not Spam, Not Shameful…

As we begin on the journey of marketing and becoming an efficient marketer, Seth Godin highlights how what we have so far understood as marketing, has changed and drastically so.

Gone are the days where the field of marketing was synonymous to that of advertising and was limited to our TVs and radios to a great extent. While those mediums still hold great influence, annoyingly catchy jingles have now made way for effective marketing which relies on empathy and service.

In other words, marketing now is not just limited to grabbing the attention of the consumer but rather concerns itself with telling a story that helps establish a connection with them.

This, to a large extent, has been possible due to the rise of the Internet which has really changed the way the world works. It is a vast and endless egalitarian medium.

“It is a place where all your ideas deserve to be seen by just about everyone.”

Thus, as marketers, we are not here to selfishly use any tactic possible to get someone, anyone, to buy what we are so desperate to sell. Rather, the focus has now shifted to creating solutions and solving problems that we face. Or as the author himself put it:

“It doesn’t make any sense to make a key and then run around looking for a lock to open. The only productive solution is to find a lock and then fashion a key.”

That is, instead of using spamming, tricking, coercion or the endless other selfish and unethical methods to find customers for our products and services, we must now focus on finding new ways to serve the very customers and meet their needs and demands to make the world a better place, one day at a time!