Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department

Great article on integrating marketing with your core business:

http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2009/07/seth-godins-talk-from-business-of-software-2008.html

My takeaways:

• Products for your customers, not customers for your product.
• Commitment before success!
• Be Remarkable. People remember and talk about purple cows, not brown ones.
  
• Don't sell to everyone: Products on the edge are unique and sell when other struggle (Hummer & Mini).
  
• BMW spends a fraction on marketing compared to GM. They spend that extra money on engineers.
• Get people to talk about your products: mismatched socks for teenage girls. "Look at my socks"
• Longtail companies sell what other don't have. 50% of Amazons sales are not at BN.com.
  
• Joel on Software built his own media channel and can easily market products
• Threadless has brilliant marketing... get lots of your friends to go to the site and vote for you so you win.
• 37Signals was brilliant in getting people to share.
  
• Runners in Newton shoes wave at each other.
• Martin Luther was a "heretic", but formed a tribe by being different and stand up.
• Enrich your customers lives and connect them to each other.