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Bestselling author, Entrepreneur and Agent of change. Seth's blog can be found at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
May 2009
Sunday May 31, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:46AM EST on May 31, 2009
If you want to grow the size of your customer base, you need to confront the buffet dilemma. Any decent buffet has foods that please 85% of the population. Meats, cheeses, potatoes... the typical fare. Once your business hits a...
Saturday May 30, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:05AM EST on May 30, 2009
Microsoft, home of the Zune, has just announced that they're going to launch Bing, a rebranding and reformatting of their search engine. So far, they've earmarked $100 million just for the marketing. Bing, of course, stands for But It's Not...
Friday May 29, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 12:05PM EST on May 29, 2009
Sonia has a great post about what happens when you try to close the sale.
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:40AM EST on May 29, 2009
Marketing tells a story that spreads. Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes. If you don't pay the salesforce (because you go direct, or you go free), then who is going to do that for you? The only answer...
Thursday May 28, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:04PM EST on May 28, 2009
You can get alerts whenever this blog is updated by following @thisissethsblog on Twitter. Twitter is immersive. It washes over you. But what happens when a great link or clever post goes by? Squidoo just launched a promotion around the...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:12AM EST on May 28, 2009
The smart guys at Contrast came by the office to talk about their thesis of abandoning conventions. It's the intent of changing what we expect when we use something. Obvious things like the design of a cell phone or subtle...
Wednesday May 27, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:01AM EST on May 27, 2009
It's both, and that's the problem. Some marketers are scientists. They test and measure. They do the math. They understand the impact of that spend in that market at that time with that message. They can understand the analytics and...
Tuesday May 26, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:54AM EST on May 26, 2009
If you've got talent, people want more of you. They ask you for this or that or the other thing. They ask nicely. They will benefit from the insight you can give them. The choice: You can dissipate your gift...
Monday May 25, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:40AM EST on May 25, 2009
Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin were both printers who became writers... one would imagine they did this because it was cheaper to write your own stuff than hiring someone, and having words to print and sell is good business if...
Sunday May 24, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:41AM EST on May 24, 2009
The guidance office at the high school has a big poster for Wellesley College hanging by the door. It's just a picture of a building, no features, no benefits, no text at all. Kids apply to schools (a quarter of...
Saturday May 23, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:40AM EST on May 23, 2009
Kodak created a billion dollar industry by giving people a tool to feed their nostalgia. We don't take pictures because we want to know what we're seeing now... we already know that. We take pictures because it makes us feel...
Friday May 22, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:08AM EST on May 22, 2009
Jerry reminds me of a story from the launch of the Permission Marketing book. I recall having a conversation with the marketing folks at Simon & Schuster. I complained that I had just returned from a road trip and didn't...
Thursday May 21, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 10:01AM EST on May 21, 2009
In the fall, a new trim size edition of Purple Cow is coming out. The book will include a significant appendix, filled with stories from people like you. If you know a business or service or organization that deserves to...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:41AM EST on May 21, 2009
Our story so far... Back in the 1960s, TV shows took great pains to catch you up on what had happened so far. Batman spent a minute or so recapping last week's story. So did The Fugitive. The thought was...
Wednesday May 20, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:03AM EST on May 20, 2009
The range and availability of freelance talent is greater than it has ever been before. World class designers, artists, illustrators, photographers, strategists, potters, copywriters, programmers--they're all one click away. There are two ways to work with talent. The first is...
Tuesday May 19, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:54AM EST on May 19, 2009
Decades ago, a guy came to me with a nutty business idea. He was filled with energy and enthusiasm. "It'll cut through the market like a thresher through a wheat field," (actual quote). He practically shouted, "like a hot knife...
Monday May 18, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:49AM EST on May 18, 2009
Actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right. If you run into Elton John at the diner...
Sunday May 17, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:21AM EST on May 17, 2009
Luxury goods are needlessly expensive. By needlessly, I mean that the price is not related to performance. The price is related to scarcity, brand and storytelling. Luxury goods are organized waste. They say, "I can afford to spend money without...
Saturday May 16, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 7:43AM EST on May 16, 2009
Here's an unrelated tech tip: If you access Gmail using a program on your computer (like Mail.app or Outlook) sometimes you'll get an alert telling you that Gmail has rejected your password. It turns out that there's a hidden link...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:54AM EST on May 16, 2009
The rules of a great billboard (great = cost effective) are as follows: 1. "Next exit" 2. EZ off and on 3. Free parking 4. Major thoroughfare 5. Take action now 6. Credible promise Billboards are useful for building brand...
Friday May 15, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:35AM EST on May 15, 2009
No project, no brand, no company exists in a vacuum. You make bets about external forces when you build something. If you want to cross the Atlantic by boat, you can build a sailboat. Your bet is that the wind...
Thursday May 14, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:40AM EST on May 14, 2009
Until 1967 (when I was seven) it was against the law for a white man to marry a black woman in Virginia. Marketing is a complicated beast. It's not just advertising. It's stories that spread, it's editorial content, it even...
Wednesday May 13, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:22AM EST on May 13, 2009
If you hear someone talking about "open source," it's quite possible that this isn't what they mean. One major soft drink company, for example, was talking about turning their brand open source. Pretty unlikely. Do you think that they meant...
Tuesday May 12, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:19AM EST on May 12, 2009
The most important decision-making rule you learn in business school is still largely misunderstood. When making a choice between two options, only consider what's going to happen in the future, not which investments you've made in the past. The past...
Monday May 11, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 11:55AM EST on May 11, 2009
You can visit the site to email it to friends or post a comment. You can find the book and other information here. And you can watch it below:
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:19AM EST on May 11, 2009
If you changed your model to have members instead, what would that look like? If people had to subscribe, or be admitted, or apply... and if you had to please the membership, not convert new strangers. The web likes businesses...
Sunday May 10, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:38AM EST on May 10, 2009
Stalling provides a hurdle that allows you to filter out requests. If you put people on hold for six minutes, the trivial calls hang up. If you tell people that they can have something they've requested but will have to...
Saturday May 9, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:19AM EST on May 9, 2009
In a down economy, marketers fret a lot about price. We think that since times are tough, people care about price and nothing but price. Of course, people actually care more about value. They care about value more than they...
Friday May 8, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:49AM EST on May 8, 2009
If you want to know who's a newbie on a film set, just watch what happens at lunch. Major films have huge buffets laid out for cast and crew, and the newcomers can't resist. It's FREE! Over time, of course,...
Thursday May 7, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:44AM EST on May 7, 2009
Most marketers are organized around more. More share. More customers. And if you want to do that fast, it means marketing to strangers. Strangers that don't care about you, don't trust you and aren't listening to you. You market to...
Wednesday May 6, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 10:07AM EST on May 6, 2009
When I wrote Permission Marketing, people thought I was some sort of crackpot (some people still do, fortunately). One author wrote that I was "delusional" and skeptical marketers were sort of amazed that the idea caught on. The Direct Marketing...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:41AM EST on May 6, 2009
Make easy things look difficult. Make difficult things look easy. Flying a plane from one city to another, on time, is incredibly difficult. There's a million things that can go wrong. And yet, for years, the airlines worked hard to...
Tuesday May 5, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:44AM EST on May 5, 2009
A business model is the architecture of a business or project. It has four elements: What compelling reason exists for people to give you money? (or votes or donations) How do you acquire what you're selling for less than it...
Monday May 4, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:56AM EST on May 4, 2009
You might not be as permanently stuck in a rut as you think. The rut you're in isn't permanent, nor is it perfect. There are certainly less perfect ruts, but there may be better ones as well. The certain thing...
Sunday May 3, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 7:26AM EST on May 3, 2009
Email is dying because it's free. If you can send an email for free to 100 of your closest friends, instantly, you probably won't abuse the privilege. But someone else will because they might define 'friend' differently than you or...
Saturday May 2, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:16AM EST on May 2, 2009
I got a call a few weeks ago from a telemarketer at Premier Impressions. (Her number is 800 778 6304). She told me she was selling ads for a free directory being published by my local library. Actually, first she...
Friday May 1, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:28AM EST on May 1, 2009
There are a thousand things you can do to improve the mechanics of people spreading the word about you, your conference, your product, your event, your service. You can create hashtags, provide kiosks, host discussions, give out free postcards or...
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