Be Remarkable or Don't Bother

In Seth Godin's classic Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable he explains how in today's world, if you're not remarkable, chances are you won't succeed.

Gone are the days when the traditional P's of marketing and a huge advertising budget guaranteed success. Today, with all the constant media noise, it takes something different to get a consumer's attention.

This something different is a purple cow. As Seth explains, a cow gets boring after you see a few but a purple cow, because it's so remarkable, is memorable—at least for a while. So whatever your product or service, you need to be remarkable. Don't try to aim for the masses since that's probably been done; instead, aim to be different—to be remarkable.

Better yet, figure out who the "sneezers" are in your niche: the early adopters who love finding and trying something new and then spread it to their friends. Market to the sneezers and you're golden. 

And what helps make a purple cow is building the remarkableness into the product or packaging itself, instead of trying to do it with advertising after the product is developed. Involve your marketing team from the start and you'll have a better chance at a true purple cow.

Seth also explains that even purple cows stop being remarkable after a while, so milk them for what they're worth and then find another purple cow.

For someone who's fairly new to the world of social media and digital marketing, this was a very interesting and informative read...and in some ways equally discouraging. Being remarkable isn't easy and I'm not sure it's for everyone. It takes seeing things differently and understanding how you can revolutionize an industry, product, or service. 

I guess it's how you define remarkable. If you find something you're really good at and hone that skill, you can be remarkable at that. Even if you don't become famous or filthy rich, those that need that skill will find you based on word of mouth. And that may be all many of us aspire to.

How remarkable do you aspire to be?