This Is Marketing

This Is Marketing

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#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller Instant New York Times Bestseller A game-changing approach to marketing, sales, and advertising. Seth Godin has taught and inspired millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, leaders, and fans from all walks of life, via his blog, online courses, lectures, and bestselling books. He is the inventor of countless ideas that have made their way into mainstream business language, from Permission Marketing to Purple Cow to Tribes to The Dip. Now, for the first time, Godin offers the core of his marketing wisdom in one compact, accessible, timeless package. This is Marketing shows you how to do work you’re proud of, whether you’re a tech startup founder, a small business owner, or part of a large corporation. Great marketers don’t use consumers to solve their company’s problem; they use marketing to solve other people’s problems. Their tactics rely on empathy, connection, and emotional labor instead of attention-stealing ads and spammy email funnels. No matter what your product or service, this book will help you reframe how it’s presented to the world, in order to meaningfully connect with people who want it. Seth employs his signature blend of insight, observation, and memorable examples to teach you: * How to build trust and permission with your target market. * The art of positioning–deciding not only who it’s for, but who it’s not for. * Why the best way to achieve your goals is to help others become who they want to be. * Why the old approaches to advertising and branding no longer work. * The surprising role of tension in any decision to buy (or not). * How marketing is at its core about the stories we tell ourselves about our social status. You can do work that matters for people who care. This book shows you the way.

  • Author: Seth Godin
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • Published: 2018-11-13
  • Pages: 290
  • ISBN-13: 9780525540830

Additional information

Author

Seth Godin

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Summary

What the internet says

Aggregated insights from reviews and discussions across the web.

Overall reception: Mixed reception

Seth Godin's 'This Is Marketing' receives generally positive reception online, with an average rating of 3.74 on Goodreads and widespread praise for its core philosophy that marketing should be about solving people's problems rather than manipulating consumers. Reviewers consistently highlight Godin's emphasis on finding your smallest viable audience, building trust through empathy and storytelling, and understanding that people buy feelings and transformations rather than products. The book synthesizes Godin's decades of marketing wisdom, referencing his previous concepts like Purple Cow and Tribes while incorporating timeless ideas from other marketing classics like 'Crossing the Chasm.'

What readers loved

  • Reframes marketing as helping people solve problems and creating meaningful change, rather than manipulation or spam
  • Provides actionable framework for identifying your smallest viable audience and being specific about who your product is for
  • Strong emphasis on empathy, storytelling, and understanding customer narratives about status and affiliation
  • Explains the crucial difference between brand marketing (long-term, cultural) and direct marketing (measurable, conversion-focused)
  • Highly quotable with memorable insights like 'Make things better by making better things'
  • Accessible to beginners with no marketing background while offering value to experienced marketers
  • Encourages self-reflection and journaling about what change you want to make in the world

Common critiques

  • Writing style is disjointed with short, clipped paragraphs and weak transitions that make it hard to follow a coherent thread
  • Feels like a collection of blog posts rather than a unified book with one big central idea like Godin's previous works
  • Surface-level and filled with generalizations rather than industry-specific or deeply actionable advice
  • Repetitive content that rehashes ideas from Godin's previous books without enough new material
  • Physical book quality reported as cheap-feeling with sticky covers and creaking binding that detracted from the experience

Based on reviews from

  • Goodreads
  • The StoryGraph
  • Live By The Shelf
  • Books of Titans
Last updated May 18, 2026 Summary based on publicly available reviews. May not reflect every reader's experience.

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