This Is Marketing: An executive summary

Ideas that spread, win. 

Marketers make change happen: for the smallest viable market, and by delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages that people actually want to get. 

Marketers don’t use consumers to solve their company’s problem; they use marketing to solve other people’s problems. They have the empathy to know that those they seek to serve don’t want what the marketer wants, don’t believe what they believe, and don’t care about what they care about. They probably never will. 

At the heart of our culture is our belief in status, in our self-perceived understanding of our role in any interaction, in where we’re going next. We use status roles and our decisions about affiliation and dominion to decide where to go and how to get there. 

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

Direct marketing is not the same as brand marketing, but they are both based on our decision to make the right thing for the right people. “People like us do things like this” is how each of us understands culture, and marketers engage with this idea every day. 

Ideas move through a slope. They skate through the early adopters, leap through a chasm, and slog their way to the masses. Sometimes. Attention is a precious resource since our brains are cluttered with noise. Smart marketers make it easy for those they seek to work with, by helping position the offering in a way that resonates and is memorable. 

Most of all, marketing begins (and often ends) with what we do and how we do it, not in all the stuff that comes after the thing is designed and shipped. 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.

Source: This Is Marketing by Seth Godin