Telling A Good Marketing Story | Seth Godin Q & A | Question 5

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Question 5:

You said earlier, that marketing is all about telling a good story. What are the elements that go into a good story? You mentioned authenticity… How do you do that?

Seth:

Well let’s start by understanding, it’s NOT your story! It’s my story. You let me tell myself a story. If I’m the consumer, if I’m the business buyer, or a consumer consumer, I’m going to buy something because I believe the story. I’d like to talk about Fancy Feast Gourmet Cat Food. It smells horrible and it’s smooth like pâté. Well, cat food is not for cats. If cat food were for cats it would come in mouse flavor. But in fact people buy Fancy Feast cat food for themselves. Because of the way it makes them feel. Because of the story they can tell themselves. Not because of the cat. And the story is, “If you love your cat, if you want to take care of your cat, if you want to prove to your cat that she’s worth an extra buck, then you’ll buy this. That’s a story. Well if it was just ???? in a smaller can, the story wouldn’t resonate. It has to be different cat food. It has to be cat food that actually appeals to cats, because otherwise the story will fall on it’s face. So what we see here is that we have to live the story We have to breathe the story. All marketers aren’t liars, all marketers are truth tellers, because the best stories are the ones that spread and the ones that are authentic.

Read: Q & A 1 | Q & A 2 | Q & A 3 | Q & A 4 | Q & A 5

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