Alexandre Lim

What is The Marketing Seminar?

The Marketing Seminar is a 150-day workshop by Seth Godin. It's a more active way to consume his bestseller book: This is Marketing.

The format is watching videos with some reading then practicing what you learned. You pick up your own project and post on a Discourse platform dedicated to the workshop.

What's interesting is that you're with a cohort. Other people will also post their work. You will have feedback from them, but you're encouraged to leave constructive feedback on the projects you're interested in.

You'll learn another way of doing marketing. No more hustling people. You can do it with care and be proud of your job.

I had a great time going through the course. Doing marketing the way taught in this seminar is gratifying. You don't have to go against your principles or values.

Why did I take the course?

I took this course for two reasons. One reason is that I'm interested in entrepreneurship, and marketing is vital to make people aware of your service or product.

The other reason was my job. I was working for one of the biggest french newspaper companies: Le Monde. I often had to work with the marketing team. Each of us had our own jargon, but our goal was the same. We wanted to understand our readers better to serve them to the best of our ability. So, I decided to learn more about marketing to build a bridge between us to understand each other better.

Some notes from what I learned

What change are you trying to make? What is your marketing for?

Marketing is the act of going into the world to make a change happen. If there is no change, the marketing didn't work.

We help our customers become the person they seek to be.

We don't get the chance to change everybody as marketers.

Tactics are things that we can change. We make efforts, and even if they don't work, we're still in the game to play again.

A strategy is our posture. The arrangement of a series of tactics.

Change your tactics often but not your strategy.

At the heart of marketing, every time is the promise.

You will never understand through empathy, but you have to try imagining it and seeing the frustration other people have.

When using, talking, or buying from you, what's story is the other person telling about themselves?

About culture: People like us do things like this.

Do before your ask. Give before you get.

Would we miss you if you were gone?

Ideas that spread win. Because ideas generate awareness and trust and trial and make it more likely that you'll find the students you seek. What idea will you spread?

Showing up again and again, and consistently conveying the messages you are all about — this is what it means to build a brand. Remember: A brand is the sum of the marketing promises you are making. This is the key to establishing the trust it takes to earn permission to market to your tribe.

The truth about elevator pitch: No one cares about you, and no one is going to buy something on an elevator. So stop pitching.