This morning while scanning through my emails, I stopped on my daily blog update from Seth Godin, the marketing rock star that brings all of us in the marketing space down to earth. I immediately forwarded it to my husband who is in the throes of campaigning for a city council seat in our small Florida town.
Seth’s post enforces everything I was sharing with Mark this morning at coffee time on our front porch…our treasured weekend ritual of mind-melting on all things life. More than just forward the email to him, I couldn’t resist scribbling down my own asides, adding emphasis and bringing it back home to his campaigning efforts. (‘Cuz that’s what we significant others do for each other, right?!) 
Here’s a peek at Seth’s post (in bold) and my notes to Mark. Apply it to whatever it is you’re “selling” be it widget, service or idea. All good marketing begins as “grassroots” and needs to be looked at in the bigger picture. It is the sum of a lot of parts and starts with simple connections.
1. Advertising and marketing are no longer the same thing.
Maria: Doing door to door “advertising” is not going to win it. It’s just one piece. You need constant follow up in the form of blog / email updates which is part of what’s called “marketing.”
(As an aside…by definition advertising and marketing have never been the same thing. In Marketing 101 we learned that advertising is a subset of marketing, including the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion…but I think we can probably all agree that advertising is often / usually mistakingly seen as the same thing regardless of definition and semantics.)
2. The most valuable forms of marketing are consumed voluntarily.
Maria: Asking for people to “volunteer” their email address gets you to that sweet place of being able to “market” efficiently yet with the warmth of permission.
3. The network effect is the most powerful force in the world of ideas.
Maria: Showing people that following you is part of the bigger picture…they’re all connected in the effort to get you elected…Your Facebook page shows that “network” effect.
(The last assertion is based on the fact that culture changes everything about how we live our lives, and culture is driven by the network effect… society works because it’s something we do together.)
Just about every big organization ignores all three.
Maria: You CAN and WILL win this election with a whole-food marketing approach. The flesh-pressing is just the advertising that gets you to the real / deeper marketing which is primarily permission based, inbound marketing (email / social).
I highly recommend subscribing to Seth’s Blog. His daily dose of succinct reasoning should be part of every marketer’s diet. What do you recommend?
See you in the comments!
