Seth Godin: Profile of a Marketing Guru

How the author of Permission Marketing used online savvy and smart self-promotion to become a speaker, writer, and blogger in demand

By Jessie Scanlon

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Thousands of authors write business books every year but only a handful reach star status and the A-list lecture circuit. Fewer still—one, to be exact—can boast his own action figure. Last December, the Seth Godin Marketing Guru, a 5-inch plastic likeness of the well-known marketing maven, joined a line of similar kitschy collectibles that includes Einstein, Mozart, and a popular Seattle librarian named Nancy Pearl. In the nearly 10 years since his first best-seller, Godin has become a marketing phenom with a string of titles, including Purple Cow, Unleashing the Ideavirus, and his newest, Tribes—written at a pace of almost one per year (not counting e-books).

But Godin didn't reach guru status through his books alone. A five-year stint as a columnist for the magazine Fast Company helped raise his profile, and his blog, sethgodin.typepad.com, which consistently ranks in Web-tracker Technorati's top 20, helped him reach beyond business readers. Across these media, Godin delivers his combination of counterintuitive thinking and a great sense of fun. "He's a born entertainer," says author and consultant Tom Peters.

Godin's overarching theme is simple: Companies can no longer rely on mass-media advertising to sell average products to average consumers. Instead, they must create remarkable products and services and let consumers do the marketing themselves to generate a buzz. In the "new marketing" landscape that Godin chronicles, the balance of power has shifted from companies to consumers, thanks to TiVo, spam filters, blogs, and YouTube (GOOG).

Dissed by Academics

No one, including Godin, would consider this a totally original thesis. Patrick Barwise, a London School of Business professor of management and marketing, tut-tuts that while Godin's writing is "very readable with lots of examples, it's not grounded in research. His arguments are oversimplified and overstated."

But his followers don't seem to care. While entrepreneurs are his core audience, Godin's readership stretches up the corporate ladder, around the globe, and outside the business world. That Godin's books appeal to readers like Amy Curtis-McIntyre, a former vice-president for marketing at JetBlue Airways (JBLU), and also to Jeffrey Reed, an orchestra director, and Anne Jackson, an evangelical author and blogger, is both impressive and curious.

Godin's secret to resonating with such diverse readers: He has mastered marketing in the Digital Age. His blog and books invite readers to join his e-mail list, through which he lets them know about new publications or workshops. He offers free e-books—Unleashing the Ideavirus was downloaded 2 million times before it was published. Between books, he also spreads his ideas through speeches and workshops.

The Ultimate Self-Promoter?

Still, given all the business writers competing for attention, how did Godin reach the top tier? How, in the lingo of his new book, has he become the leader of such a large tribe? Was it through remarkable ideas. Or has he just been remarkably good at self-promotion?

Godin, 48, works in a light-filled, loft-style office in Irvington, N.Y., 20 miles north of Manhattan. Wall-to-wall windows facing the Hudson River offer a calming view. But Godin himself is hyperkinetic—his mind spins through 70 RSS feeds and 300 e-mail replies a day. He posts once or twice daily to his blog and reads five books a week. In 2001 he wrote Unleashing the Ideavirus in five days. "I clearly have ADHD," he says. "Lucky for me the world kind of organized around me rather than the other way around. It's such an asset."

He shares the space with the four-member staff of Squidoo, a Web startup he launched in 2005 that allows anyone to create a page on a topic of their expertise.