Categories: Articles

Marketing Defined… Leave It To Seth Godin

I was on the phone with Bryan Eisenberg – co-author of Call To Action and Waiting For Your Cat To Bark and the online marketing optimization guy behind GrokDotCom. He was telling me that he interviewed Seth Godin to discuss Seth’s upcoming book, Meatball Sundae. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of this book, and I’m pretty jealous that Bryan’s got a galley copy on his desk.

What really struck me was a comment from Bryan. He said that Seth was discussing where marketing is at, and said something like, "Marketing has gone from ‘how many’ to ‘who’."

I think we’ve all said something akin to that – but definitely not as clear… and simple. Leave it to Seth Godin.

If you think about it, it’s the reason the music industry is struggling so much, and it’s also the reason so many Marketers struggle to understand these many new channels and tactics. If you flip a model from "how many" to "who" it’s bound to change everything from how much money you can make to how you’re going to connect.

I really can’t wait to get more Godinisms out of Meatball Sundae.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.