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everyone has dreams,” says Seth Godin. “We have fears and hopes and desires. We want to be seen. We imagine what we
could do and what that might feel like.”
The author of 19 internationally best-selling
books that have managed to change the way people think about marketing and work, Godin believes that the best way to achieve your marketing goals is to help others become who they want to be. “Instead of trying to change people’s hopes and dreams, what if we worked to fulfill them instead?” he asks.
It would be wise to listen. Godin’s book Purple Cow is the best-selling marketing book of the decade, and his Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular e-book ever published. His books have been translated into more than 35 languages. Much of what Godin preaches to companies,
in TED Talks, and as a keynote speaker for large gatherings of marketers around the globe is based on a belief that too many brands are not catering to a minimum viable audience. Instead, they are making average products for average people because they want to maximize their audience and get a return on their investment.
Godin believes that modern marketing—and, indeed, the survival of a company—depends on
its ability to serve the people on the fringe. He believes the audience that matters most is made up of smaller numbers of people who truly care about what you’re selling and what you have to say. As he writes on his blog, when you do that, your quality, your story, and your impact will all improve. Curious where you might discover those people for your brand? You’re in luck. They aren’t hard to find if you’re willing to do a little looking around.
“The hard part is in choosing to look for them,” Godin says. “In meetings around the world, big organizations are presented with the chance to make original, useful, generous work for fringe markets that desperately want to be seen and served. And they walk away. They walk away because they’re not in the business of innovation, not really.”
He refers to the eyeglasses industry as a prime example of catering to the margins, pointing out that designers and retailers are making a
fortune by turning a disability aid into a fashion item. The same has not been done for people with other disabilities. That’s why Liz Jackson created an advocacy group called the Disabled List, a curated list of disabled people who are available to consult with companies to better cater to the needs of people with disabilities. The group was founded on the notion that disabled people are rarely seen as experts in disability, a notion that one must admit doesn’t make much sense.
“Liz has correctly pointed out that designers and retailers are not doing the same thing for canes, hearing aids, or wheelchairs that was done for eyeglasses,” Godin says. “Not because there isn’t a market, but because it requires guts.”
Godin even contends that nearly every best- selling book was written for an interested few, not the boring middle. For mass-market brands that must cater to the bigger pieces of the consumer pie, there are still ways to stand out by operating
The audience that matters most is made
up of smaller numbers
of people who truly care about what you’re selling and what you have to say.
at the fringes. Again, it starts by making the decision to do it, which requires taking a chance, like Nike did.
In December 2016, the global sports brand announced that it would spend millions of dollars in an effort to break the two-hour marathon barrier in a project titled Breaking2. Nike introduced Breaking2 as “the ultimate
Image Credit: Cuidad de Ideas