Seth Godin, This is Marketing - You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See
Marketing is powerful when it sells a product to someone who discovers more joy or more productivity because he bought it. Marketing is magic when it elects someone who changes the community for the better.
Just because you can market something doesn’t mean you should. You’ve got the power, so you’re responsible, regardless of what your boss tells you to do.
Realize that as a marketer, the better you are trying to teach or sell to the right person is worth far more than what you are charging. Make things better. It’s entirely possible that the thing you are marketing satisfies no real demand, there is no good strategy behind it, and that you are being selfish in thinking that just because you built it you should stick with it.
Blow it up. Start over. Make something you’re proud of. Market something you’re proud of. But once you’ve done that, once you’ve looked someone in the eye and they have asked, “Will you do that again for me?,” once you have brought value to a student because you taught them and helped them get to the next step, do it again, and then do it again. Because we need your contribution. And if you’re having trouble making your contribution, realize your challenge is a story you are marketing to yourself.
It is the marketing we do for ourselves, to ourselves, by ourselves, the story we tell ourselves, that can change everything. It’s what’s going to enable you to create value, to be missed if you were gone.
3 Sentence Marketing promise:
My product is for people who believe ___________________________________________.
I will focus on people who want _______________________________________________.
I promise that engaging with what I make will help you get ___________________________.