Godin’s New Marketing Approach
“It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back” — Seth Godin. That quote pretty much sums up why Godin’s Marketing approach is disruptive than that of Kerin’s marketing approach. Kerin surrounds his Marketing approach around Traditional Marketing theories. Kerin applies traditional marketing theories to fulfil consumer needs, on the other hand, Seth Godin’s marketing approach is disruptive which emphasizes on understanding and connecting with consumers.
First thing to notice in Godin’s book is the way he utilizes storytelling in his approach to marketing. He starts off with his story about Selling glasses in a small village in India. While Kerin’s approach is more textual, with graphics and theories which takes a more traditional marketing approach. Godin doesn’t see consumers just as a target audience but believes marketers should engage with their audience in order to connect with them. “Marketing is the generous act of helping others become who they seek to become. It involves creating honest stories-stories that resonate and spread.”- Seth Godin.
Kerin’s traditional marketing approach is understanding consumer needs and exploiting those needs by pushing products in order to make more money. However, Godin’s approach explores the deeper side of consumer behavior. Godin goes farther to explore how consumers react to different ways of selling the products and observes details which leads him to a more disruptive approach from Kerin’s traditional marketing approach. Godin observes that his traditional approach to sell eyeglasses to people in the small village in India is not as successful as he imagined. Thus, Godin dives deeper into analyzing consumer needs in order to better approach consumers particularly in that village. He then put himself in the shoes of villagers and realized that it’s a pretty difficult decision to choose glasses. He then goes on to removing that option by offering the glasses villagers try right then and there. He then described this as “Desire for gain versus avoidance of loss” which he could’ve never understood if he didn’t put the efforts to connect with his audience.
In Today’s digitally savvy world, there’s even more need to connect with your consumers. Consumer needs are becoming more saturated and marketers must connect with the audience in their niche to understand various saturated markets. It’s becoming harder to connect with the target market online since there are so many potential brands people connect with. As per Godin, Marketing today is about telling a compelling story to your target audience based on your personal connection with the brand audience.
