Seth Godin: A Marketing Maverick

Today more than ever, entrepreneurs are faced with a number of serious challenges, including getting adequate funding, finding great partners and vendors, and realizing measurable returns from their marketing. The good news is that even though money is tight and competition is stiff, there are a few things you can do to punch through the clutter and achieve market dominance.

To help you get on the right track fast, we turned to Seth Godin, a recognized marketing expert and best-selling author of 10 books, including The Dip, All Marketers are Liars and Permission Marketing. At the recent Inbound Marketing Summit held in Cambridge, Mass., and subsequent phone interview, Godin offered timely insight into how to succeed.

Tell Consumers Why They Need Your Product
Timing is everything, or is it? Even a great innovation such as sliced bread won't always hit the mark, Godin says, if consumers don't get why it's directly valuable to them. Nearly 20 years after its invention, Wonderbread put together the perfect campaign for sliced bread ("Helps build strong bodies 12 ways") that resonated with the end consumer. The result: The general public embraced it with enthusiasm.

Use the Latest Technology to Make Your Point
While our world is changing at lightning speed, you can still learn a lot by looking back and following proven methodologies. Godin pointed out the success that Charles Revson realized in 1947, because he went where the masses were gathering and marketed to them via that era's emerging medium--TV. The lesson to be learned per Godin: If you keep doing what you've always done--for example, marketing via what worked before (say direct mail or radio) when the internet is the new medium--you'll be one of many business owners wondering why things are not turning out according to plan.

"The winners will figure out what to do and run with it," Godin says. That means getting involved with online social communities such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and becoming an active participant in consumer-focused dialogue. (Check out Michelle Anton's blog, "Does God Twitter?" And here's another Weekend Entrepreneur blog about Facebook.)

So success in this swiftly evolving landscape involves being an active participant in consumer-focused dialogue. This requires first knowing who you are, what you do and how it is relevant to your end consumer(s); putting together compelling communications that tell your story; and--of course--delivering. Per Godin, there are immense opportunities for business owners who are willing to "build an (interaction) platform and get out of the way of the conversations that people want to have."

According to Godin, the companies that embrace the evolving business models, options and culture (whether it's using better technology, producing top-notch services or products, testing various online portals and/or participating in ongoing interaction within new and emerging social communities) first and best, will win. The others eventually will fail. As a nimble player, you can be one of the winners, profiting from the new landscape of business.