Some thoughts on Marketing from Seth Godin.
I don't think you'll learn much from this textbook.
It's nothing specific--I actually don't think you can learn how to market from
any textbook. As marketing textbooks go, this is a very good one, but still, it's
not going to work.
It's not going to work because marketing is about nuance, experience,
experimentation and passion. And I don't have a clue how you could start from
scratch and learn that from a textbook, no matter how good.
So, what to do?
The first thing you should do is obsess about the terms in this book. Vocabulary
is the first step to understanding, and if you don't know what something means,
figure it out. Don't turn the page until you do.
Second, get out of the book. Go online. Go market.
There are very few endeavors that are as open to newcomers, as cheap and as
easy to play with. You can't learn marketing without doing marketing. Go find
a charity or a cause or a business you believe in and start marketing. Build
pages. Run ads. Write a blog. Engage. Experiment.
If you don't learn marketing from this process (the book for vocabulary, the web
for practicing) then you have no one to blame but yourself. You've already made
the first step, don't blow it now. We need you. Market what matters.