RemarkableorInvisibleWhat Seth Godin Taught Us About Being Noticed

The Short Version

Seth Godin's core idea is simple: in a world full of noise, average is invisible. People do not notice the safe, the generic, or the fine. They notice what is worth talking about. We agree, and we think it matters more now than when he first wrote it, because AI has made average content free and endless. Where we adapt Godin is in who you aim at. We aim the message precisely, but we want the reach to be wide.

What Godin Argues

Across books like Purple Cow, Tribes, and This Is Marketing, Godin returns to a handful of ideas:

• Remarkable means worth remarking on. A brown cow is invisible in a field of brown cows. A purple cow gets talked about. If you cannot say what makes your business genuinely different, your marketing has nothing to carry.
• The smallest viable audience. Do not try to please everyone. Find the specific people who need what you do, and serve them so well that they spread the word.
• People like us do things like this. People choose based on who they want to be and how they want to be seen. Marketing that understands identity moves people; marketing that lists features rarely does.
• Permission over interruption. Earn the right to be heard by being something people want to receive, rather than shouting at them because you can.

Where We Agree

Average is now free. Anyone can generate a week of posts in a minute. That has not made marketing easier. It has made the feed louder and the bar higher. A business that sounds like everyone else in its category is not just unremarkable, it is unfindable.

Distinctive beats clever. We have learned that "remarkable" rarely means a stunt. For most businesses it means being instantly recognisable, the same colours, the same character, the same tone, every single time, plus one or two things you do that people do not expect. A same-day callback. A handwritten note in the box. A quote that arrives before the customer has to chase it.

Empathy comes first. Godin's line that you cannot be seen until you learn to see is the start of every brief we write. Before we design anything, we want to understand what your customer is worried about, what they are comparing you to, and what would make them feel smart for choosing you.

Where We Adapt Godin

Narrow the message, not the market. Taken literally, "smallest viable audience" can talk a business out of growth. The research on how brands grow, led by Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk, shows that most sales come from the many people who buy from a category only now and then, not just from a loyal core. So we do both: we write as if speaking to one specific customer, and we make sure everyone in your category can see it.

For a Garden Route business, the tension mostly disappears. "Everyone in the area who might need a plumber this year" is not a mass market. It is a few thousand people, and you can reach all of them with a message that feels like it was written for each one.

Positioning before remarkable. You cannot be remarkable in the abstract. You are remarkable compared to something: the other supplier, the DIY option, or doing nothing. April Dunford's work on positioning starts with that alternative, and so do we.

How It Shows Up in Our Work

Being remarkable is not a one-off exercise. Markets move, competitors copy, and what made you stand out last year can become what everyone does. So we keep brainstorming strategy with our clients, and we keep challenging what is working and what is not. A plan we cannot question is a plan that will go stale.

• AI Dose: your brand is set up once, with colours, tone, and character locked in, so every post looks and sounds like you. Consistency is the cheapest form of distinctiveness.
• Creative Dose: our team looks for the one thing about your business worth talking about, and builds a monthly plan around showing it, not just saying it.
• Signature Dose: we start with a positioning workshop: who you are really competing with, who you are best for, and the one sentence that makes the right people say, "That is exactly what I need."

What You Can Do This Week

1. Write down what your customer would do if your business did not exist. That is your real competition.
2. Finish this sentence: "Unlike [that alternative], we…" If the answer is "care more" or "offer quality service", keep going.
3. Pick one small, unexpected thing you could do for every customer that costs little and signals care. Do it for a month.
4. Look at your last ten posts. Could a stranger tell they are yours with the logo covered? If not, choose your colours, fonts, and tone, and stick to them.

Questions People Ask

What does "remarkable" mean for a small business?

Worth talking about. For most small businesses that means being instantly recognisable and doing one or two things customers do not expect, rather than a big creative stunt.

Should a small business target a niche?

Write for a specific customer, but make sure everyone in your category and area can see it. Precise message, broad reach.

Does AI-generated content make it harder to stand out?

Yes. It makes average content free, which raises the bar. Distinctive, consistent, human content stands out more than it used to, not less.