This Is Marketing by Seth Godin, published by Portfolio in 2018, gathers decades of the author’s thinking about marketing into one book. Godin is a former tech entrepreneur, a long-time daily blogger and the author of many marketing bestsellers. Here he argues that marketing at its best is the work of helping a specific group of people get where they want to go, and that shouting at strangers with ads has stopped working.
What is This Is Marketing about?
Godin opens by separating real marketing from spam. Mass advertising was built for an era of a few TV channels and shelf space; it tried to reach everyone and convince them to buy average products. Today attention is scarce and people filter out anything that feels like an interruption. The marketer’s job, in his view, is to find people who already want a change and offer them a better story about their future.
The book’s best-known idea is the smallest viable audience. Instead of asking how many people you can reach, ask how few people you need to serve so well that they cannot imagine life without you. That small group spreads the word to others like them. Godin then walks through how to understand that audience: their dreams, fears and worldview, and the status games and sense of belonging that shape every purchase. He uses a simple chart with two axes to help readers find an empty, meaningful spot in the market.
Later chapters cover tension (the gap between where customers are and where they want to be), trust and permission, pricing as a signal, branding as a promise, and how ideas spread from early adopters to the wider culture. The chapters are short, written in Godin’s familiar style of brief paragraphs and pointed questions, and the book reads more like a series of essays than a manual.
What are the main lessons for founders?
- Start tiny on purpose. A narrow audience lets you hear every complaint and fix it. Fifty passionate customers teach you more than five thousand indifferent ones.
- Sell the change, then the product. Describe who your customer becomes after using you. Features matter only as proof that the change is real.
- Use status and belonging honestly. People buy things that tell others who they are. Know which group your product helps them join.
- Earn permission. Email lists, communities and repeat customers are assets you build by being useful again and again.
- Price as a story. A price says something about who the product is for. Cheap is a position, and not always a good one.
Who should read This Is Marketing?
It suits founders who feel awkward about selling, creators building an audience, small brands, mission-led companies and anyone writing their first marketing plan. It also helps technical founders who think marketing is just ads, since it reframes the work as understanding and serving people. The book reads well in short bursts, a chapter at a time.
Readers who want tactics for paid ads, search, funnels or sales scripts will leave frustrated. There are no channel playbooks here, and few numbers.
How do you put This Is Marketing to work this week?
- Write one sentence that completes this idea: my product is for people who believe this, and it helps them reach that. Make it narrow enough to exclude most of the world.
- Name 20 real people who fit that description and talk to five of them about what they want to change.
- Draw Godin’s two-axis chart with two attributes your audience cares about, plot your competitors and look for an empty corner.
To turn what you learn into a plan with channels and budgets, the free Marketing Plan Generator on Fe/male Switch gives you a structured first draft.
Where does This Is Marketing fall short?
The book is high on philosophy and low on execution. It tells you who to serve and why, then leaves you to work out how to reach them, measure results and hit sales targets. Much of it repeats ideas from Godin’s earlier books and blog, so long-time readers will find little new. B2B founders with complex sales cycles will need extra help. For a hands-on channel plan, read Traction, and for positioning against competitors step by step, read Obviously Awesome.