Seth Godin: All Marketers Tell Stories

All marketers are storytellers. Only the losers are liars.

Book: All Marketers Tell Stories

Author: Seth Godin

Score: 3.5

Writing style: A ‘candy floss’ book, comprising of almost 150 short stories surrounding the idea that all marketers tell stories and if they do it right, we believe them.

Food for thought: Four reasons that your marketing didn’t or isn’t working. 1: No one saw it 2: People like it but decided not to invest 3: People saw it and they didn’t like it 4: People liked it, but they didn’t tell their friends.

Our gathering in March for Book Club left us with even scores on the door it was almost unanimous that everyone felt the score of 3.5 was spot on for Seth Godin’s All Marketers Tell Stories. Throughout All Marketers Tell Stories, Seth Godin explains that great marketers do not just talk about the features and benefits surrounding a topic. Instead, to be successful they tell a story and that is where this book comes in handy with almost 150 short stories! There was a slight struggle where we came over a lot of repetition with the storytelling however, it could be argued that this led to Godin’s points sinking in and taking effect. Could Godin’s message have been conveyed in a blog post? Yes! Reading on through the book bought us closer to Godin’s punchline- that customers don’t just buy products anymore, they buy the story behind them. Therefore successful businesses and marketers of the future should cease to become better storytellers and succeed at that.

I mean, who did make Granola healthy? As Godin explains it certainly wasn’t Quaker or Alpen, we all know that it is loaded with sugar and saturated fats- but as consumers, we have been told a story that a single bowl of Granola is healthy! It would readily prepare us for a long Cornish coastal walk or we could retreat to a health spa where we would be enticed to eating a bowl full (a small bowl full at that) served with some fresh low-fat yogurt. This is exactly the point, as consumers we believe stories. Without our belief, there is no marketing. Marketers can spend millions on promoting their products and services, but unless we (as consumers) actively engage in believing their story then nothing happens! We do not head to the supermarket in January once we have commenced our ‘New Year, New Me’ health kick, and we don’t end up purchasing some delicious and nutritious Granola…or do we?

Once again Godin tells us that successful marketers are those that honestly tell a story that people want to believe and share, once you have established your three main questions. 1.) What is your story? 2.) Will the people who need to hear the story believe it? 3.) Is it true? You can move on to persuading your listeners that your story is more important than the story they currently believe. 

In short, the book is an easy read with numerous anecdotes where Godin continues to explain what makes marketing campaigns successful, and what doesn’t. Perhaps there isn’t a need for this to be as long as it is and with more factual evidence Godin could get to the point a lot sooner whilst still conveys his message with as much importance.

*Candy Floss Book- A book club member of ours referred to this book as a ‘Candy Floss’ book, as it looked fairly sweet and substantial from the cover and title pages. However, it included a lot of ‘fluff’ around the main solid core, of supporting the center of the story ‘tell quality stories about your business to an already warm, targeted audience to attract more custom’.