Seth Riffs on Proximity

A few weeks back I was dis­cussing Newton’s Law of Grav­i­ta­tion and the impor­tance of prox­im­ity in Mar­ket­ing. This dis­cus­sion revolved around the idea of get­ting close to the cus­tomer, and how that can yield huge div­i­dends. Seth Godin has fur­thered the dis­cus­sion with this great riff on proximity.

Seth looks at the impli­ca­tions of prox­im­ity rel­a­tive to the pain expe­ri­enced by the con­sumer. The closer you are to the con­sumer, the more you under­stand their pain. The bet­ter you are at reliev­ing that pain, the more value you bring. The more value you bring, the more you can charge for what you do.

Think about how trust and rela­tion­ships play a role in your pur­chas­ing deci­sions, espe­cially in today’s fast paced world. The mod­ern mar­ket­place is more frag­mented than even, and the abil­ity to attract atten­tion through sheer mass becomes more dif­fi­cult every day. Con­versely, it seems that tech­nol­ogy is mak­ing prox­im­ity — which accord­ing to New­ton is expo­nen­tially more impor­tant than mass — eas­ier to achieve every day.

Seths Blog: Prox­im­ity to pain