Seth Godin said once:
"It's not to sell something to person A. Instead, at least right now, it's to get person A to encourage person B to buy/do something. That's often viewed as a nice after effect, a bonus or an extra. I think, though, that it might be the entire point of the exercise."
Marketing is just about a simple question: is your product / service so cool, so exciting, so remarkable, and so fantastic that people will want to tell everyone they know about it?
Seth's view on the key point of marketing takes us from audiences to communities, moves focus from reach to the tipping point. It makes marketing a conversation with consumers, that is based on trust and respect. The conversational marketing should be the natural reaction on the increasing ad avoidance, increasing number of consumers who find traditional advertising annoying and the technology developments that empower consumers. Especially when we know that for 68% the most credible source of information about companies is "a person like me" (only 20% in 2003), according to Edelman's 2006 Global Trust Barometer.
It is about changing focus from selling to creating cascades of conversations among influential people who will influence other influential people who will influence other influential people, and so on.
Tags: Seth Godin, Marketing, Advertising, WOM
