Marketing Musings: Things to Know About Marketing

Seth Godin just re-published his list of things “he knows for sure” about marketing…my 9 favorites are:

1. Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2. Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3. Products that are remarkable get talked about.
4. Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
5. People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
6. Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
7. Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.
8. Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.
9. You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.

Here is the full list: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/what-do-you-kno.html