“Are you going to work to stand out?” Seth Godin asked a group of digital marketers, branded content creators and a whole range of creative professionals in Philadelphia last week at the Digital Summit (#DSPhilly on Twitter) Aug. 23-24 during his Keynote address.

“We’ve branded ourselves to death,” he said. “We don’t need more clutter. We’re here to find small threads of interest and connect and amplify them – we’re entering a connection economy.”

Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog ), who was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, an industry-leading interactive direct-marketing company that Yahoo! acquired in late 1998, focused on how marketers can truly differentiate their brands – while doing good in the world as socially responsible companies.

Home in on the smallest possible number of people who’ll take action with and on behalf of your brand so your efforts will go viral, Godin said.

“What you need to do is optimize for the smallest possible market – those people who if they didn’t hear from you, they’d ask where you were,” he said. “It’s called creating a movement. You want to reach people who are dreaming of what you’re offering, and will pay extra because they’re getting exactly what they want.”

Marketers should make their promo efforts something people want to talk about, Godin said. “We make change happen,” he said. He cited decades-old iconic brand Harley-Davidson: “Think about it: What will make your brand tattoo-worthy?”

Your role is to make a difference, to delight, Godin said. “We need to see our customers – give them the dignity to be understood.” In turn, leverage your customers’ power by turning them into your brand’s megaphone.

Here are more insights from Godin, who was vice president of direct marketing at Yahoo! before becoming a full-time speaker, writer and blogger.

On handling fear: “When fear shows up, you know you’re making something good,” he said. “It means you’re really onto something and need to persist.”

On the dangers of focusing only on ROI: “Look, ROI can be such a trap filled with barbed wires and evil tigers and boiling oil,” Godin said. “The curse of digital marketing is that it can be measured. Look at artists like Van Gogh. How can you measure their work? ROI will never get us to an artistic leap; it’ll just get us to pedal faster.”

On creating a culture around your brand: The first step is figuring out what the dreams and needs of the people you seek to serve. “You need to be empathetic with them to get to the next step,” Godin said. “You’re pulling together lonely people who want to be connected.”

On B2B selling: “You’re always trying to convert customers into brand ambassadors,” said Godin, who pointed out that the biggest difference between B2B and B2C selling is that the buyer isn’t spending their own money. “The buyer wants a good story to tell their boss, to justify why they’re purchasing from your company.”