Modern Marketing Strategy: Empathy, Trust, and the Smallest Viable Market

Glossier — Community First, Products Later: Modern Marketing Strategy

Emily Weiss didn’t start with a product. She began with a blog (Into The Gloss, 2010). She listened intently and wrote in her readers' language. Then she launched Glossier in 2014. By 2016, the brand grew by ~600% YOY. This shows a modern marketing strategy: build empathy for years before making money. The lesson? Patience. It took four years to break out and seven to gain real brand power.

Patagonia — Trust Compounds

Patagonia’s famous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad (2011) urged customers to consume less. Crazy? Yes. Effective? Even more. Within a year, revenue rose by ~30%. By 2017, sales topped $1B. Customers didn’t buy jackets—they bought into trust. This is a modern marketing strategy where values fuel growth.

Gymshark — From Niche to Unicorn

In 2012, Gymshark made gym clothes for YouTube fitness creators. By 2020, it reached a ~$1.3B valuation. Eight years from garage to global. They served the smallest viable audience—obsessed lifters—before scaling to the mainstream. That’s a modern marketing strategy in action: niche now, unicorn later.

McKinsey on Personalisation

McKinsey found:

• Brands excelling at personalisation generate approximately 40% more revenue.

• 71% of consumers expect relevance.

• 76% get annoyed when they don’t receive it. This is the data side of a modern marketing strategy: empathy, but at scale.

Edelman Trust Barometer

Edelman reports that businesses are the institutions that people trust the least. Media? Struggling. This means your brand must earn trust daily. No shortcuts, no magic funnels. That’s the trust aspect of a modern marketing strategy.

HBR’s Simplicity Warning

Harvard Business Review has long said: customers don’t want a “relationship” with your brand. They want clarity, simplicity, and ease. So yes, empathy matters, but usability converts. Another key part of a modern marketing strategy.

Here’s some irony. Godin says: “Find your smallest viable audience.” Nice idea. But three problems arise:

1. Winner-take-all markets (like social media) punish smallness.

2. Over-segmentation can limit growth if acquisition costs rise faster than lifetime value.

3. Most customers don’t want intimacy—they want a smooth checkout and quick shipping.

So yes, the heart of a modern marketing strategy is empathy. But remember: people want their packages on time.

1. Define your smallest viable audience.

• Write down 200 people who would care the most.

• Use their language (kindly).

• Build your first offer around them. This is the raw version of a modern marketing strategy.

2. Earn permission

• Create useful lead magnets.

• Write short, respectful emails.

• Celebrate unsubscribes—they clean your list. That’s permission marketing—the polite side of a modern marketing strategy.

3. Build trust through proof.

• Share receipts: testimonials, before/after shots.

• Partner with someone credible.

Acknowledge mistakes and correct them in a public manner. This separates hype from a real modern marketing strategy.

• 0–3 months: first 10 real sales, audience mapping.

• 4–12 months: 100–1,000 true fans, repeat purchases.

• 1–3 years: adjacent niches, rising retention, stable growth. That’s the calendar view of a modern marketing strategy: slow, steady, and sustainable.