If I had to give just one piece of marketing advice to anyone, it would be to listen to Seth Godin's marketing advice.
He's the marketing mastermind. He knows what works and what doesn't.
As I was reading his post Top 10 Secrets of the Marketing Process, I think I figured out why so many of us are drawn to him.
Our everyday-thinking, non-marketing-mastermind logic usually tells us to do the opposite of what Seth would advise us to do, but when we hear what he has to say, we realize that he's right.
I know that's not a very profound insight, but it's the truth. What he says makes more sense than what most of us come up with on our own.
To illustrate, here are some examples of what we tell ourselves -vs- what Seth advises:
What we tell ourselves: Don't focus on a niche until after your biz is established and you have lots of clients. Your biz will grow faster if you don't have a niche because the wider you cast your marketing net, the more chance you have of catching a fish (or a client). Right?
Seth's advice: Focusing obsessively on one niche, one feature and one market is almost always a better idea than trying to satisfy everyone.
What we tell ourselves: If we come up with a great idea, but feel uncomfortable with the radical-ness of it, temper it down by merging it with another idea. If you take the least radical parts of both ideas you'll create something that's more palatable to the masses, and will therefore be more successful. Compromise is a sign of maturity and rationality, isn't it?
Seth's advice: Compromise in marketing is almost always a bad idea. Extreme A could work. Extreme B could work. The average of A and B will almost never work.
What we tell ourselves: Don't waste your time on measuring the success rate of your marketing efforts. You've already got too much to do, and really, if something is working or not working, it'll be obvious, right?
Seth's advice: Test, measure and optimize. Figure out what's working and do it more.
Thanks for setting us straight (again), Seth. :-)
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