Making change with marketing

The sole purpose of marketing is to make a change is a big statement. Marketing is the generous act of leading people to get them to make things better. Marketing is also when we want things to be different, for example, what we do when we want to change culture and behaviour. I think marketing is the work of telling a story that’s true to someone specific to help them see the world differently and take a different action. And in my opinion, this is a fact because if change doesn’t happen then there is no marketing.

“Our job as marketers is not to do what we did yesterday, just faster and cheaper. Our job is to figure out how to change the people in the market who want to be changed.”

— Seth Godin

To begin the marketing journey, we have to be specific and ask ourselves two questions:
1)    Who is it for? For example, target audience, and
2)    What changes are we seeking to make? For example, how would they like to receive this content?

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What is stress?

What is stress?
I’m not a medical expert so I cannot give you a medical answer. One of the best descriptions of the word that I have head was from the marketing guru, Seth Godin, who described stress as wanting to do two things at the same time, for example, stay and go, be quiet and be seen, whatever two things they are. When you are stressed at work it’s because you don’t want to be at work and the same time you want to get paid, and that causes stress.

I think that if you are stressed all day long it’s easy to lose all enthusiasm for anything, and what amplifies this is when you are afraid of something; you’re afraid of being insufficient, you’re afraid of doing a bad job and you feel like an imposter. When we add all of this up, modern industrial work is filled with stress and kills passion, so it’s not surprising that there is so much dissatisfaction in the way we do our work. This is why people who can’t find a better path go home and self-medicate with alcohol, pills or Netflix, and the people who can go home and find a hobby or literature that elevates themselves. Contact me via e-mail when you ready to turn your work or hobby into more of a less stressful choice which fills you up with energy and joy.

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It’s a symptom not a tactic

Many years ago, I heard Seth Godin say, “You should always start with the minimum viable audience, and the minimum viable audience (MVA) is the smallest group of people who we can imagine serving. Once the MVA have been identified, then we can be specific and if we can be specific, we will create something worthwhile and when we create something worthwhile, it’s easy to sell because it’s worthwhile.”

Social media isn’t the way you become popular, it’s after you are doing something important that people talk about you on social media. I’m a big fan of “word of mouth marketing”, I know it’s old school, but nothing beats the process of actively influencing and encouraging organic word of mouth discussion about a brand, organisation, or event. So, I think that if we can change the lives of 50 people then they will tell their friends and family. Imagine being a specific, unique entity that connects with people at a really deep level, just start by being really special and then the word will spread, and you will add more people.

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What do we make?

According to my guru, Seth Godin marketing is simply “making work that matters for people who care”. As a marketing expert, we make change! We are trying to make a change happen and often we think that we just have to make it better. The problem with better is that it has no real definition. Let us assume we are trying to make it better for the customer and the enemy in the search for better, is average. And average is what everything we do is measured against.


You do not want to yell at strangers about your average products for average people. You have to make a brave promise to yourself that you are going to make something better for a very tiny group of people who are risk averse. And who also want to demonstrate to their community that they understand what it means to fit in with better quality products and services. I think there something about this change that we are making that is contagious. So contagious that people are proud of engaging with your products or services that they want spread the message.

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How can you become a meaningful specific and not a wandering generality?

This means that you should not become someone who is wandering through life with no specific purpose or meaning to your life. Instead, be someone who stands out from the crowd. With dreams and goals that add meaning and purpose to your life as you accomplish them along your life journey, you become a meaningful specific.

I think that marketing is creating true stories, that when they intersect with people who want to hear them, these stories will change those people for the better. Seth Godin recommends reaching your “smallest viable audience that you can be sustained by.” And he describes the smallest viable audience as “that core group that you know, you understand and seek to interact with and so delight them that they will tell others.” 

I don’t want to trick people into paying attention for a short while by making interesting click bait. I think that whatever your brand aesthetic may be, consistency in tone, voice, and style is crucial in building trust and keeping your audience coming back for more.

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