Home Features Mastermind Videos About Advertise Blog Network Contact
   
Entrepreneur Advice:
Seth Godin
www.sethgodin.com
   
About Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year, a Fortune Best Business Book and it spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared on the New York Times business book bestseller list.



Recent Article:

Reaching the unreachable - For more on Seth Godin visit www.sethgodin.com

Marketing, I think, can be divided into two eras.

The first, the biggest, the baddest and the most impressive was the era in which marketers were able to reach the unreachable. Ads could be used to interrupt people who weren't intending to hear from you. PR could be used to get a story to show up on Oprah or in the paper, reaching people who weren't seeking you out.

Sure, there were exceptions to this model (the Yellow Pages and the classifieds, for example), but generally speaking, the biggest wins for a marketer happened in this arena.

We're watching it die.

The latest is the hand-wringing about the loss of the book review sections from major newspapers. Book publicists love these, because it's a way of putting your book in front of people who weren't looking for it. Oprah is a superstar because she has the power (the right? the expectation?) of regularly putting new ideas in front of people who weren't looking for that particular thing.

Super Bowl ads? Another example of spending big money to reach the unreachable. This is almost irresistible to marketers.

Notice the almost.

In the last few years, this model is being replaced. Call it permission if you want, or turning the world into the Yellow Pages. The web is astonishingly bad at reaching the unreachable. Years ago, the home page banner at Yahoo was the hottest property on the web. That's because lazy marketers could buy it and reach everyone.

Thanks to the Long Tail and to competition and to a billion websites and to busy schedules and selfish consumers, the unreachable are now truly unreachable.

If I want a book review, I'll go read one. If I want to learn about turntables, I'll go do that. Mass is still seductive, but mass is now so expensive, marketers are balking at buying it (notice how thin Time Magazine is these days? Nothing compared to Gourmet.)

And yet. And yet marketers still start every meeting and every memo with ideas about how to reach the unreachable. It's not in our nature to do what actually works: start making products, services and stories that appeal to the reachable. Then do your best to build that group ever larger. Not by yelling at them, but by serving them.



Like this article? Share it with your friends
[Get Copyright Permissions] E-Mail | Print | More  


Related Articles Related Articles
Reaching the unreachable
  Marketing, I think, can be divided into two eras.
The Fundamentals of Crisis Communications
  Crisis communications at its most basic level consists of three elements: crisis planning, crisis response and crisis recovery. This article explores each of these categories and provides helpful tips for how to get...
Reaching Your Goals
  Why do so many business owners and managers fail to meet the goals they have in mind?
Steps to Reach Your Goal!
  Clearly not everything stands in your way towards success. By identifying the one or two issues which are obstacles, you begin the process of eliminating or reducing the bottlenecks and impediments to your progress....
Living On The Top of The Mountain
  I just came back from speaking to a large audience of insurance agents. Of course, the subject was as it always is, The E-Myth. I don’t have any interest in talking about anything other than that. It’s what I do. ...

Related Forum Posts Related Forum Posts
Re: Madame C.J. Walker... Re: Madame C.J. Walker...
A lesson learned... A lesson learned...
Stress Survival Tips for Working at Home by Christine Torres Stress Survival Tips for Working at Home by Christine Torres
 


Seth Godin Books

Seth Godin - All Marketers Are Liars

Seth Godin - Free Prize Inside

Seth Godin - Purple Cow

Seth Godin - Survival Is Not Enough

Seth Godin - Permission Marketing

Seth Godin - Unleashing The Ideavirus

Seth Godin - The Big Red Fez

 

More Seth Godin

Seth Godin's Blog

Seth Godin: Highly Ranked Speaker

 

 
   
 
 
   

 

 

Have A Suggestion?
Toronto Salsa Classes / Toronto Salsa Lessons Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
Have A Suggestion?

Featured Ebook


ebook Famous Entrepreneurs - Modern Empire Builders


Featured Ebook

More Evan Carmichael
Have A Suggestion?

Sales Lessons From Starbucks And Dell