Seth's Blog : The other element of guerilla marketing



The other element of guerilla marketing

The first element is the guts to do things without money or bureaucratic approval.

The guerrilla marketer doesn't wait for a policy, or a developed industry or a line to form. She steps up and speaks up.

But, as Jay Levinson said from the start, more than thirty years ago, the other half is at least as important, and easy to overlook:

The core element of guerilla marketing is generosity.

You don't market at people, or even to people. We market for them and with them.

Guerrillas have long understood that it's possible to attract someone's attention. What makes it a viable approach, though, is that people are delighted once they find out what you've got going on. Effective guerrilla marketing always begins with a product or service that's worth the marketing you're going to put into it.

Hence the two tensions:

1. Big company industrial marketers don't believe enough in what they sell to become guerilla marketers. Guerrilla marketing flies in the face of bureaucratic indifference.
2. Many would-be guerrilla marketers spend so much time seeking attention that sometimes they forget to re-focus on the promises being made. 

Next Monday is World Guerrilla Marketing Day, a holiday I just made up, guerrilla-style. What will you ship?

       

• Email to a friend •

More Recent Articles

• Bravery is for other people
• 70% re-orders is a sweet spot
• First, interact
• Are you interesting?
• Selling like Steve

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect."
Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy

---

Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.

Seth's Blog : Bravery is for other people



Bravery is for other people

Bravery is for the people who have no choice, people like Chesley Sullenberger and Audie Murphy.

Bravery is for the people who are gifted, people like Ralph Abernathy, Sarah Kay and Miles Davis.

Bravery is for the people who are called, people like Abraham Lincoln,  Rosa Parks and Mother Theresa.

Bravery is for other people.

When you see it that way, it's so clearly and patently absurd that it's pretty clear that bravery is merely a choice.

At least once in your life (maybe this week, maybe today) you did something that was brave and generous and important. The only question is one of degree... when will we care enough to be brave again?

       

• Email to a friend •

More Recent Articles

• 70% re-orders is a sweet spot
• First, interact
• Are you interesting?
• Selling like Steve
• Gravity and entropy, denied

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect."
Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy

---

Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.

Seth's Blog : 70% re-orders is a sweet spot



70% re-orders is a sweet spot

My latest book, Your Turn, just went back for its third and fourth printings, bringing the total to more than 100,000 copies in print.

I did some math on the orders and discovered that more than 70% of them were going to people who had previously ordered a copy.

This never happens.

It never happens because the book industry is built on the idea of inventing desire and then destroying it by selling the reader a copy. You never need two copies of a book, after all, and so there's an insatiable need for new readers.

In the case of Your Turn, though, the book is intentionally built and sold as a way of spreading an idea... once people see the benefit in spreading the idea, many of them decide to spread it more. Most people buy the 5 pack.

It occurs to me that 70% is almost a magic number for re-orders in just about any business. It means that new people are hearing about your work and showing up to try it, and it also signifies that there's a base audience that's counting on you to do what you promised.

How would your project change if you re-organized what you do to get to a sweet spot of re-orders? I had to take a leap in the creation, distribution and pricing of my book to create that dynamic. What would you need to do?

PS To celebrate the new print run, I just added a long lost video of me launching Linchpin in NYC in 2010. It's on the Your Turn page, about a third of the way down. Read the copy near the top to get the password.

Thanks for the work you do and the impact you make.

       

• Email to a friend •

More Recent Articles

• First, interact
• Are you interesting?
• Selling like Steve
• Gravity and entropy, denied
• The two-review technique

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect."
Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy

---

Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.