Category Archives: Marketing

What is your Hogbook?

June 8, 2018 By in Marketing, Quotes 1 Comment

I was listening to a podcast interview with Maria Bamford and she summed up the current state of marketing in a story about online dating.

I had done online dating for a long time. I used to have a screen name that was very sort of vague. I put FunnyThoughtful. Lots of responses, too wide a net. I changed my name on OkCupid to Hogbook, because I liked the idea of a book about hogs called Hogbook. One guy answered, and we’re married today.

I think everyone experiences the desire to try and make the things they create more appealing to everyone, but that’s like trying to date everyone. Don’t you want to narrow it down to just the right people?

If you’re doing good, specific work, that kind of broad marketing hides what you do rather than advertising it.

What can you do to make sure that the right people find you? Being too broad in your approach may make you invisible to the audience that you are trying to attract. Market yourself in a way that describes what you do in a specific way so that when someone comes into contact with it they have enough information to be attracted or repelled.

I find when you start to ask people for advice on creative projects they immediately suggest getting rid the thing that is unique about the project because they haven’t seen anything else like it or it doesn’t appeal to them. If you’re opening a restaurant that only service blueberry pancakes and you call it The Breakfast Place you’ll get more people in the door. But, they’re going to be disappointed once they’re inside and they’re going to suggest that you start serving scrambled eggs and waffles. If you call your restaurant The Greatest Blueberry Pancakes in the WORLD, the right people are going to show up.

Don’t be afraid to make something that some people don’t like. As long as the right people like it, it’s going to be successful.

What is your Hogbook?

Send me a dollar

January 20, 2018 By in Marketing Leave a comment

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There was an old classified ad that would run in tiny local newspapers that said, “Send me one dollar and I’ll send you the secret to making $1000 in the mail-order business.” What you got was a single printed sheet with instructions on how to place a classified ad that said, “send me one dollar and I’ll send you the secret to making $1000 in the mail-order business” and how to make a copy of the letter in your hands to mail out to the people that responded.

The beauty of this idea is that it exists only to make money.

Often people approach creative endeavors with the idea that making money from it will be a side-effect of the creative process, not an intrinsic part of it. What if you started with making money and then applied your creative process to it?

There’s no money in being a poet, but there’s a poet who sets up a booth at a local street fair in Seattle and writes poems for $10 on an old analog typewriter as you stand and wait. There are also Art-o-mat vending machines all over the US that sell tiny pieces of art for a few dollars from a vending machine.

Do a project where money is the point. Sometimes even a little money can prime the pump and lead to bigger things.

 

The Marketing Seminar

January 4, 2018 By in Creativity, Marketing 2 Comments
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Last year I took Seth Godin’s The Marketing Seminar for 100 days.

That’s right, an online seminar that lasts more than three months. Crazy, right?

I want to recommend that you take it.

If you are involved in any creative endeavor that you intend to show to other people, you should be concerned about marketing. Multiple participants in the seminar said they learned more about marketing during the 100 days than the did getting their MBA. Not only do you get 50 video lessons from one of the most brilliant marketers working today, but you also get access to the amazing community he and his team have created.

In fact, the most important things I learned in the seminar I learned from interacting with other participants. I got to exercise my marketing muscles and learn about businesses that I would otherwise never have access to. I now know more about quilting and improvisational keyboard than I ever expected.

The generosity of the other participants astounded me. It made me a better marketer. I left charged up with the possibilities of new ideas and the energy that comes from a group of people clicking together into a group mind working on solutions to shared problems and new ideas.

There were CEOs, artists, political activists, storytellers, life coaches, lawyers, and financial advisors. There was even a guy that sells underpants for your hands.

My advice is that you join and make a commitment to participate. Learn to face your fears head on and to present your work to other people confidently and appropriately.

I found it to be a life changing experience and I think you will too. 

The latest iteration of it starts posting content on January 8th, but you can join up until the 17th. (Edited: Since I wrote this review, a couple of iterations of TMS have come and gone. Check Seth’s site for the latest details.)

If you want some insider info, click the purple dot on The Marketing Seminar site for a reduced price.

Seth, Sweatshirts and Creativity

January 30, 2009 By in Creativity, Marketing 1 Comment

The amazing Seth Godin cast his spotlight on creativity this week. In a short post he does a good job of using a sweatshirt as a metaphor for creativity.

For me, creativity is the stuff you do at the edges. But the edges are different for everyone, and the edges change over time. If you visualize the territory you work in as an old Boston Bruins sweatshirt, realize that over time, it stretches out, it gets looser, the edges move away. Stuff that would have been creative last year isn’t creative at all today, because it’s not near the edges any more.

It’s true, creativity is moving all the time. That’s why if you write an idea down and forget about for a few years, you’ll likely find someone has already done it by the time you get around to it. Seth uses this to persuade you to spend more time near the edge, which I agree with.

However, since creativity is a moving target, doesn’t that mean we should be moving quickly on our ideas? Each creative impulse we have is correct for a moment, but that moment will pass. Don’t spend time on the edge and then not take action. That’s the definition of creative frustration.

Act quickly and often, that’s the way to make progress. If you don’t, you’re just setting yourself up for regret.

We’ve all had to sit next to that guy on the bus that claims he invented Post-It notes in his basement in 1967, but never got around to doing anything about it and now all he has left to do is ride the bus and tell the same story over and over again about what an unrecognized genius he is.

Don’t be that guy. And don’t sit next to that guy if you can help it, his breath smells like tuna fish and socks.

Read Seth’s post here

Start with projects you can complete

July 28, 2008 By in Creativity, Creator Blog, Marketing, Writing Leave a comment

Warren Ellis, novelist and comic writer, wrote a great post about the best way to complete a project that people will want to consume. He frames it around Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible web project

Part of his point is that you have to earn people’s trust before they will pay attention to something big. Instead of starting with a huge epic or a full length feature, start with something small and manageable and build.

The three strongest points he makes are, “Be Short, Be Bold and Get It Done.” Later in the article he adds, “Be Great.”

He adds:

I can’t tell you how many new hopeful comics writers I meet who have never finished anything in their lives because their intended first project is a hundred-episode epic that creates a whole new universe or three. And I tell them all the same thing: you’re screwed. No-one will want it. Not until you’ve written something short, capable of being produced on a budget, and finished. Your epic may be worldchanging, but no-one will ever know because no publisher will gamble that kind of money on an unknown. And that’s before you get to the vagaries of the attention economy.

I think this is fantastic advice, especially with web content. I know people who won’t even start a video on youtube if the length is over five minutes. Produce enough brief, memorable stuff and people will flock to your longer, more complex stuff. Build an audience, create desire with tiny savory snacks before you serve up a meal.

Also, limitations can be a powerful way to inspire yourself. Challenge yourself to Be Brief, Be Bold and Get It Done!

Read the whole article here

Playing the media like an instrument

April 14, 2008 By in Creativity, Creator Blog, Marketing Leave a comment

Joey Skaggs is an artist, but his medium isn’t painting or poetry, he uses the media to create huge projects. You see, he creates pranks. He changes the world and people’s perceptions of reality by putting fake information into the machine that has been set up to show us reality. His point, that what the media reports needs to be questioned, is obvious, but his pranks are clever.

He has a list of all of his pranks on his site, but some of his more memorable ones include a cathouse for dogs (a doggy prostitution ring) and vitamin pills made from cockroaches. Both of these received huge media attention and his fake cathouse for dogs almost got him arrested after it was reported on ABC news.

While I was looking through his site, I came across a great essay he wrote on how to play the media. If you ever have to deal with the media, the advice in this piece will help you put yourself in control. Or, you can just use it to pull your own prank.

ANGLING FOR THE JOURNALIST
Concoct a well thought-out story. TV news producers, writers and reporters are greatly under the influence of Hollywood. Hollywood is equally influenced by what appears in the news. Our culture is reflected in both of these forms of media. So it’s important to combine the necessary theatrical elements to attract them. In essence, give them what they want!

Dangling the line:
You may select from any of the following hooks, lures, and tasty baits. Mix and match for a formula that is sure to work.

Dependable hooks:

Sex
Controversy
Power
Sensationalism
Exploitation
Heroism
New technologies
Betrayal
Revenge
Incompetence
Faith
Little guy against the system
Wealth
Determination
Anything with an animal or a child

The whole article.

In any case, all of the articles on his site are an interesting glimpse into how the media works and how you can take advantage of it. It’s not easy. He points out that faking a business actually requires more work than actually having a business.

For me, it made me realize how many different mediums there are for us to apply our creativity to. Even if you can’t change the world to be the way you want it, maybe you can get the media to report that it’s that way.

The vultures of mediocrity

March 11, 2008 By in Creator Blog, Inspiration, Marketing Leave a comment

Seth Godin, marketing smartypants and action figure, has a great post about how the world drives you to mediocrity. It’s very short, so I am reprinting most of it below. I do recommend you read his blog if you are at all interested in marketing yourself or your work.

There’s a myth that all you need to do is outline your vision and prove it’s right—then, quite suddenly, people will line up and support you.

In fact, the opposite is true. Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over.

If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely it would be worth the journey. Persist.

I wanted to add to it. Those forces are not just outside you acting on you. There is a drive inside ourselves to do things in a way that is “good enough.” Before you even start to worry about the world stopping you from being mediocre, you have to decide that you want to be better.

The difference between good enough and great isn’t always huge. It might just be a few extra seconds. It might be one more ingredient or one more draft that separates you from being extraordinary. If you want to be great, you have to convince yourself before you can convince anyone else.

Expect more than the mediocre. Stop settling for a C+ life, you deserve at least a solid B, don’t you? Just kidding! Shoot for the A+!

Trying for great and achieving mediocre half the time is much more satisfying than trying for average and achieving it every single time.

After you set your standards high, then prepare yourself for the forces in Seth’s post. The vultures of mediocrity are circling over every creative person, ready to rip into any good idea that dares to call attention to itself.

Articles Referenced In The NPR Interview

February 25, 2008 By in Marketing 4 Comments

If you are visiting my site for the first time, welcome! If you like my site, please consider adding my RSS feed or sign up for email updated from the link on the right side of every page.

I thought I would post some links to articles and ideas I talked about on the air.

First of all, we never got around to explaining my intro. It was referencing two articles on attaching magical powers to objects. You can read them here and here.

Create a James Lipton of your very own.

Orson and Ed.

Here are five quick tips on creativity.

Here’s a link to page with all the creativity tips.

Here are links to the Yodelling Pickle and Deluxe Jesus Action Figure.

David Byrne on making money from music

December 18, 2007 By in Marketing, Music Leave a comment

Wired has just posted a fantastic article by David Byrne on the strategies of making and marketing music for emerging artists.

Touring is not just promotion. Live performances used to be seen as essentially a way to publicize a new release — a means to an end, not an end in itself. Bands would go into debt in order to tour, anticipating that they’d recover their losses later through increased record sales. This, to be blunt, is all wrong. It’s backward. Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it’s a way to make a living.
So with all these changes, what happens to the labels? Some will survive. Nonesuch, where I’ve done several albums, has thrived under Warner Music Group ownership by operating with a lean staff of 12 and staying focused on talent. “Artists like Wilco, Philip Glass, k.d. lang, and others have sold more here than when they were at so-called major labels,” Bob Hurwitz, president of Nonesuch, told me, “even during a time of decline.”
But some labels will disappear, as the roles they used to play get chopped up and delivered by more thrifty services. In a recent conversation I had with Brian Eno (who is producing the next Coldplay album and writing with U2), he was enthusiastic about I Think Music — an online network of indie bands, fans, and stores — and pessimistic about the future of traditional labels. “Structurally, they’re much too large,” Eno said. “And they’re entirely on the defensive now. The only idea they have is that they can give you a big advance — which is still attractive to a lot of young bands just starting out. But that’s all they represent now: capital.”
So where do artists fit into this changing landscape? We find new options, new models.

Read the rest here

Tesla and Edison: inspiration vs perspiration

October 16, 2007 By in David Theory, Marketing, Quotes 2 Comments

N.TeslaI’ve been reading about Nikola Tesla for the last couple of days. Tesla was a brilliant inventor that had flashes of insight so intense that plans for his inventions appeared whole in his head at once in every detail. Tesla and Thomas Edison were bitter enemies and I came across a Tesla quote that helps to define the difference between them.

Edison famously said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Tesla’s response, recalling the time he spent working for Edison, was, “If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.”

Edison was of his age, approaching the problems of the world as a laborer. Tesla was more of our age, creating ideas easily and watching them spread… or not.

Here’s another quote of Tesla’s, “The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries. If timely it is quickly adopted; if not, it is apt to fare like a sprout lured out of the ground by warm sunshine, only to be injured and retarded in its growth by the succeeding frost.”

Edison understood what people wanted and worked on that. Tesla was a fountain of ideas, but he had no idea what people would accept.

Another interesting distinction in creativity and marketing.

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