Seth Godin has published a blog post every day since 2002. No ads, no paywall, no viral strategy. His argument about marketing is simple and uncomfortable: stop trying to reach everyone. Reach the few people who would miss you if you were gone, and give them something worth talking about.
Who is it for, and what is it for?
Every piece of marketing, in Godin's view, starts with two questions. Who is it for? Pick a specific group, not an age range. What is it for? Name the change you want to make in their work or life. If you can't answer both, the post is noise, however polished it is.
The smallest viable audience
Godin argues you should start with the smallest group you can sustain yourself on: the early, curious people who look for new ideas. Most people want things that already work and ignore new offerings. Win the curious few first, and they carry the idea to everyone else. Saying "this isn't for you" to everyone else isn't a loss. It's what makes the work sharp.
Be a purple cow
A brown cow is invisible. A purple one gets talked about. In a feed full of competent posts, competent is invisible too. The test isn't whether a post is good. It's whether anyone would bother to tell someone else about it. That usually means more specific, more honest or more useful than feels safe.
Permission is the asset
Interrupting people with ads is renting attention. Earning the right to show up in someone's inbox because they asked is building an asset. Followers can vanish with an algorithm change. An email list stays yours. Godin's point is that permission compounds over time and paid reach doesn't.
People like us do things like this
Culture is the strongest force in marketing. People change when they see that people like them are changing. A brand that names its group and what it believes, and speaks as one of them, earns a kind of trust that features never will.
How Maria uses this
- Your audience, in your profile. Your smallest viable audience, the change you want to make, and "people like us". Maria uses all three when she pulls ideas from your journal.
- A practice streak. Godin's daily blog is a practice, not a campaign. Maria counts the days in a row you showed up with a post or a journal entry.
- Email sign-ups as a result. You log sign-ups next to followers and leads, so you can see which posts build permission, not just reach.
- A shipping checklist. Five questions before you post: who it's for, what it's for, whether it's remarkable, whether it's generous, and whether it builds permission.
Sources: Seth Godin's ideas, summarized by Rework · DMA on the smallest viable audience · Summary of This Is Marketing