The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing's notes, summary and lessons

The basic issue in marketing is creating a category you can be first in. It’s the law of leadership: It’s better to be first than it is to be better.

If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.

Forget the brand. Think categories. Prospectsare on the defensive when it comes to brands. Everyone talks about why their brand is better. But prospects have an open mind when it comes to categories. Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what’s better.

It’s better to be first in the prospect’s mind than first in the marketplace. Being first in the mind is everything in marketing. Being first in the marketplace is important only to the extent that it allows you to get in the mind first.

Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products. Marketing is the process of dealing with those perceptions.

A company can become incredibly successful if it can find a way to own a word in the mind of the prospect. Not a complicated word. Not an invented one. The simple words are best, words taken right out of the dictionary.

When a competitor owns a word or position in the prospect’s mind, it is futile to attempt to own the same word.

Less is more. If you want to be successful today, you have to narrow the focus in order to build a position in the prospect’s mind.

A fad is a wave in the ocean, and a trend is the tide. A fad gets a lot of hype, and a trend gets very little. Like a wave, a fad is very visible, but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible, but it’s very powerful over the long term.