iDiz Incorporated

Seth Godin is the author of ten bestsellers about marketing that have been translated into 30 languages. Since he left Yahoo! as VP of Direct Marketing, he has blogged over 3000 posts, has the #1 blog written by an individual, and emails daily insights to a continually growing list of opt-in subscribers.

The man has a platform.

Now Godin claims that his latest book, Linchpin, the culmination of the last ten years, is a book so important to him that he calls it his “biggest and most important and most personal and most challenging book. A book that scared me.” And it is a good book, one you will probably want to read, and one you can learn from. But what I’m suggesting you look at and learn from is how he promoted the book.

He gave them away about a month before anyone else could buy them, and shipped them free to anyone on his email list that would make a $30 donation or more to the Acumen Fund.

Genius.

Why? Over the last several years, Godin has acquired a unique following of people who voluntarily want to listen to his ideas, which he gives away, over and over. In the process he has sold tons of books to these same people. Then he gives these same people the chance to feel like insiders by getting a pre-release copy of his latest book, simply by making a charitable donation. A double dose of feel-good from Seth to his tribe, and all he asks them to do is add a review to Amazon or post their comments online. His audience helps him spread the word – an excellent example word-of-mouth marketing.

So what does that have to do with credit unions? As a CU marketer, you have a built-in unique group of members who have voluntarily connected to you. What are you doing to listen to them? How do you make them feel like an insider, feel so strongly about your credit union that they spread the word?