Recently I have been watching the video interview between Seth Godin who is a best selling book author and marketing guru and Bryan from “behind the brand”. I remember this brand name rather than this name because the pronunciation of “brand” is very close to “brain” which is what I am interested in.

One of the questions that Seth got asked was “Why people failed”? The answers from Seth are：

1. You are pitching to the wrong people. In other words, you are targeting the wrong audience and your content is just not for him
2. What you are making is not good enough

And I very much resonated with these answers, not only because I am a marketer and defining target market/ audience is one of the vital tasks I always do when trying to develop a marketing strategy for the company that I work for, but also producing epic content nowadays is a MUST to succeed in this information overloaded age.

We are in the connection economy for over 15 or 20 years now and the rule of games has changed.

We will need to grab attention from the people who we want to sell our products and services to and then let them trust us. Sales will then take care of itself.

But the online competition for attention is very stiff nowadays. It usually takes time, effort or even a lot of money to get noticed.

Just look at the super ball ads in USA. Big corporations have thrown away millions of dollars trying to get their brand presented in front of people. Other companies have spent a great deal of money on Google ads while spending lots of time and effort on SEO (Search engine optimization) trying to get the attention from the crowd.

It is hard but it is worthy because if nobody knows you, no one is going to buy from you. It is the very first step in the buying process.

And that is where the right target audience comes into play.

We can’t reach and please everyone.

Not only because of the cost is way too high, but also the products, services or content that you make will be mediocre which will not stand out being loved by certain group of people.

One of the most important reasons why that particular thing go viral is because people loves it. Gopro is a good case study on it.

Also, defining your target market and only making things for that specific group of people will help you build trust.

Thought leadership has boomed into popularity nowadays in the last 10+ years. And people will follow them and trust thought leaders because they have something to say that is valuable in that niche. Seth Godin is a great example on how to generate trust from a group of people who are marketers, freelancers, bootstrappers/entrepreneurs, artists, parents, bloggers, writers, speakers and so on

Finally, the quality of products or services or content is super important.

Nowadays, we have so many choices out there. After we are now in the information age and in the connection economy, the supply of information and knowledge has exceeded its demand and it is a lot easier to connect to other people comparing with before.

So the only way to win is to make something that is way better than other people so you can stand out, get loved and be trusted.

If trust is built, brand is built and your business will thrive.

What is the key take away here?

So get attention and build trust. It is how we can succeed in the connection economy.