No One Needs a Juggler
EPISODE 051: NO ONE NEEDS A JUGGLER
When you're selling juggling to the world, as I did for a dozen years, you can't afford to let your marketing slip. It's easy to get lazy with marketing, to believe that "social media" is a two-word marketing plan. But to relegate your marketing efforts mostly to social is to miss out out on a wider gamut of real-world marketing and connection. Let's talk about it.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
In 1994, just fresh out of theology school and filled with a heady sense of purpose and calling, it would be understating it to say I confused and disappointed my alma mater by heading not into the pastorate, but onto the comedy stage, to become not a Reverend but the Rubber Chicken Guy. I thought I was well-prepared for this transition, having spent much of the previous 5 years into which I crammed my 4-year degree, juggling and riding my unicycle in the lobby of the school chapel. While my colleagues were wrestling with first-year Greek, I was learning magic tricks. What I did not learn, either in class or in my extra-curricular activities, was the one skill I would need to eventually do this professionally, specifically the ability to market myself and get the word out, because if there was one thing I would learn quite quickly, it's that nearly no one is sitting around thinking to themselves, "You know what we need? A juggler!"
Now remember, this was 1994, a full 10 years before Facebook was created. Mark Zuckerberg was only 10 years old, about the age of the kids I was entertaining at the time. I hadn't used a computer for anything more than playing games, and the world wide web had only really been available to anyone not claiming to be a super-nerd, for a couple years. YouTube, the perfect platform for marketing a comedy juggler and magician, was 11 years in the future. And yet, I managed to build a thriving business as a comedian, across Canada and into the US, eventually gaining national press attention and performing full-time for audiences in the thousands. All of it without Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.
What's that got to do with you? Well, to be honest, I have no idea. But last month I did an episode called the Monkey Trap and I talked about my departure from social media and I got more feedback about that one episode than any other, which tells me I struck a nerve. And it occurred to me that you might be one of many that are wondering how to market themselves as creative people without social media. But the more notes I made about this episode, the more I realized that, social media or not, anyone that intends to get their work into the world, and in front of a larger audience, probably needs to be part of this conversation, because–whether you're pre-Social, post-Social, anti-Social or, um, Social-media-aligned(?)–getting the word out about whatever it is you do, and finding eyes and ears, minds and hearts to encounter and benefit from your work, isn't easy, and I was thinking perhaps we should talk about it.
I'm David duChemin and this is episode 051 of A Beautiful Anarchy, my podcast about the joys and obstacles of everyday creativity. Welcome here.
Music / Intro
Ok, so to be clear, this is not about social media. This episode is my plea that you build a platform of your own. Whatever social tools you are using to promote your work, to get it in front of your audience and so to grow that audience, I am shamelessly imploring you to consider the reality that you do not own or control those platforms. This is important because one day you might choose to leave, or change, the social media platform you currently use. Or it might change itself and no longer be the right tool for you. Or your audience might leave. How would you reach your audience if one day you woke up to find Instagram was gone? Where would you connect with the people that love what you do, if suddenly YouTube was gone and with it all ten thousand of your subscribers? How would you interact with them?
If you are relying on social media and it's working for you, I'm not for a moment asking you to give it up. I'm asking you to consider the reality that things change and if you own your platform, that change will be less cataclysmic. You'll have more options. But more than that, I'm asking you to consider whether a reliance on social media is cutting you off from the full gamut of possibilities where growing and connecting with your audience is concerned, because looking back, social media made me lazy. It made me dependant. And it had a terrible return on investment relative to the time and energy, and sometimes money, I spent on it, which is the question anyone doing any marketing (whether you like that word or not) should be concerned about.
If you just heard the word "marketing" and found your eyes kind of glazing over a little, I want to remind you that marketing is a profoundly human activity. Or it can be. At its best it's about connection, and service. It's about giving your corner of the world a chance to see what you do and choose to be part of it. Marketing is the creation and building and caring for an audience that's in the market for your ideas, your art, music, whatever it is for which they will come to rely on you to make their lives better. They may never spend a dollar with you, that might not be what you're asking for, but they'll spend their time and that's arguably an even tougher ask. Marketing is about trust and connection. Or it can be. And we have done that for thousands of years without the help of Mark Zuckerberg and friends.
When I was launching my comedy career I had the same questions then that I have now. How do I find my audience? How do I connect with them and give them a chance to see how I can solve a problem for them? It began with identifying "them" and the problem that I could solve, and if you're asking what problems a juggler could possibly solve then you've never had a thousand 7-year olds and their exhausted parents sitting in one place, just one step away from going full-on Lord of the Flies.
You solve a problem. You give something with what you do. That might be laughter, it might be creating an experience, or teaching, or helping people make their homes spaces they love. It might be filling the need for beauty. But you do serve them. Maybe you tell stories. Maybe you create hope. Maybe you give people things about which to dream. But unless you're a hermit or a misanthrope, there's a better than good chance that what you make benefits others. The first step is identifying who those people are. The second is in connecting with them.
How? As a comedian I made lists by hand. I found directories of churches and schools, libraries, and summer festivals. And one by painful one I sent out brochures. I didn't tell them about my juggling prowess, the magic tricks I would do, or that really funny joke with the fart noises that I told 20 minutes into the show. I told them I could captivate an auditorium full of kids and give them something important to think about at the end of 45, 60, or 90 minutes. I didn't sell them juggling. I sold them laughter. I sold them a family experience together.
When times got a little tough I walked through town going to every restaurant and asking the manager if I could do some magic tricks for his waiting customers. A couple hours spent doing card tricks and I had a regular weekly gig that helped pay the bills.
When I was performing in a new town I'd contact local media before showing up, and the local radio station, or newspaper would drive some interest in my show. My crowds slowly grew. My mailing lists slowly grew as well, and every year they'd get a new brochure, filled with reminders of what a great time we had and how I kept the audience laughing and made their job easier.
I would call previous clients and ask them for letters of reference. I'd ask them if they knew anyone else working with groups of kids or families and if they would introduce me. Slowly I ended up at corporate functions and Christmas parties. I had business cards printed up that looked like trading cards and I'd sign them at the end of shows and every kid went home with my contact information. They never called me, but their parents did. Eventually I held my own dessert theatre evening, which paid for someone to film my show, edit it into a short marketing video, and my days were filled with mailing out video tapes and later DVDs. The bigger prospects got sent a rubber chicken as well, which in hindsight feels silly, but they didn't forget me.
Does this sound like a lot of work? It was. It was a long way away from posting something to Instagram and calling that marketing, which of course it can be, but it's hardly going to make a dent in the universe, is it? If you want to sell juggling to the world, you've got to put in the work.
I don't know what you do, so I don't know to whom your work appeals or what problems it solves, but I know there's a human being on the other side of your marketing efforts. And I know it doesn't take social media for us to be able to surprise and delight them. I know that Facebook is not the only glue that holds us together, nor is it necessarily the best glue. And I know that word of mouth is still the best marketing tool around and that even if you decide not to use social media, so much of the world does and you can still benefit from others talking about you on platforms you're not part of.
So here's what I'm doing right now, and the thoughts that I'm having right now, as I return to a focus on old-school, real-world marketing that is more intentional and less reliant on social media.
First, I'm going all-in on word of mouth. If you've heard my podcast before then you've heard me ask you to share this if you think it'll be helpful to others. I do the same with my emails. And I make it as easy I can think of to do that. But you have to ask. I can read the greatest book–and it shames me to say this because I'm an author and I know better–but it won't usually even occur to me to leave an Amazon review, but when someone asks me, I'm there in a heartbeat. The same is true of referrals. I can't think of a time when someone pinned me down and asked if I could introduce their work to others, that I have said no. I just had my office painted and before he left the painter left a bottle of wine with a custom label on it, thanked me for choosing him, and promised to drop by with another bottle anytime I recommended him to others. Think I will? Are you kidding? It's wine!
If I had a photography studio or customers that I dealt with in person I'd have a referral program and buy you a nice bottle of wine as a thank you for your trust in me. I'd do whatever it took to make you remember me, starting with a great product and over the top service. I think too many people believe that their work will speak for itself, and of course it needs to. The work itself needs to be so good they can't ignore you. But that's a given. Your so-called competition is doing that too. What's the rest of the experience? Sure your music is great, but what's the experience of the album art and the liner notes, where are the bonuses for the die-hard fans? How can you surprise and delight them on your website or Patreon page?
Word of mouth is not passive. You've got to make something that people want to talk about. You've got to give them the tools to talk about it, too. How's your website? Do you make it easy for art directors to share your work with others if that's an audience you want to serve? When you send an inquiry email to those art directors or the editors of a magazine, do you send something generic, or do you send something so great that they'll want to pass down the line, even if it's not a fit for them at the moment? It begins with making something great, to be sure, but if it you don't go the extra mile then there's a chance you'll just end up in the pile with the others, because they're making great work too.
Remember, there are many ways to connect to your audience. No matter what you do there's probably a dozen podcasts about it, or made for the kind of people who enjoy that thing. Have you been a guest on those podcasts? You weren't just waiting for the host to discover you and ask you were you? You don't need social to connect with those hosts, introduce yourself and tell them why you think you'd be a great guest, or propose some subjects that would be a good fit.
It's not just podcasts, either. What about magazines? You don't need social to do your research and make a list of relevant magazines to pitch your ideas to. Maybe you've got an article idea, maybe you can submit images to a gallery of featured work, maybe you've just got a great story or a new approach that you think their readers might interested in reading about. But they aren't going to call you. When's the last time you sought out these kinds of connections and proposed something? I don't mean an email that says "hey, here's who I am, perhaps we can work together" That's lazy. Connect the dots. Spell it out. Give them some ideas. Get them excited.
It might not be now but a time is coming again when there will be stages needing speakers. You could be exploring local groups that need someone fascinating to talk to them. Not everyone loves speaking in front of others, but if you're a creative person I guarantee you've got stories to tell about lessons learned that others will find fascinating. Musicians want to do concerts, that's obvious, but what about offering an evening that combines storytelling and a compelling presentation with your music? Why are more photographers not speaking to corporate groups? Where's the potter with the presentation about the life lessons she's learned from working with clay? If you're thinking that's not going to sell many pots, you don't understand the power of connection and how lucrative back-of-room sales are, never mind the larger possibilities of reaching a growing audience. For the right person, that one shift in marketing themselves could lead to podcast appearances, magazine articles, book offers, and higher prices paid for the work you love doing. Good luck doing that with social media.
What people forget when they start talking marketing is that it's not about markets. It's about people. And it's not how many connections you make, which is what we like about social media - the promise of so many people discovering us - it's about the kind of connections you make. You can make those kinds of connections in the comments on a great blog that shares your work. Not just by replying to those comments but sending them a personal email and connecting. You can make those kinds of connections by replying to emails in a personal way, especially the emails that begin with "I know you'll never read this, but...". It's not always scalable or even possible, but the more open and available you are to the fans of your work, the deeper the connections you will build and the more likely it is that those people will more deeply engage with your work, and for longer. I know I've mentioned it before but if you're not actively connecting with your audience by email, you're very likely missing out on the medium that still gets more attention than anything else and anyone I've coached gets asked the same question: how's your mailing list and why aren't you growing and serving that audience?
What people also forget when they rely on technological tools is that high tech is not the same as high touch, and it is the latter that people are craving. In a world where communication has become so scalable, where the one-emoji response to comments is the norm, it's the longer reply, one that uses the person's name and expresses gratitude and seeks to connect, those high-touch efforts get a much better return on the investment of the time it takes to engage in them, than anything else. And the best ROI of all comes not just from the use of a tool like email, but from how we use that tool to connect. To serve. To help. And yes, even to love.
Marketing can be a human, creative, and soulful endeavour. At its best it connects people and makes lives better and there are a million ways to do it, with or without social media as one of those tools. At the beginning of this episode I begged you to create a platform of your own. The most obvious way to do that is with a blog. I know, blogs aren't the cool kid on the block anymore. Who even knows what a "blogroll" is anymore? But they remain a great place to call home. A place that you own. A place where you can post what you want, link to what you want, and interact the way you want. A place where you own the content–whether that's written, audio, video, or photographs–a place people can find and enjoy and share your work without the incessant scrolling and growing number of ads on social platforms. None of which you own. And if you do it right, it's a place where you can grow an audience and freely stay in touch with them over email.
The emails I got after The Monkey Trap episode tell me some of you are worried you can't run a business without social. They tell me you're worried no one will be able to find you. You're not alone in that worry. But creative people have been building audiences for longer than these new tools have been around, and we've always found ways to connect.
So whether you use social media or not, whens the last time you gave any real thought to broader efforts to find those connections? When's the last time you put stamps on something and sent it? When's the last time you focused on surprising and delighting your audience? Are your emails full of heart and a gift to those who get them, or just a sales email in disguise as a generic newsletter? Sure you've got a YouTube channel, but what else are you doing with those videos? How are you using them to introduce your work to people who aren't on YouTube? And perhaps more importantly, how could you be using your YouTube channel to get the audience that most resonates with your work onto a platform of your own?
This episode won't apply to everyone. Once in a while I lob one over the fence to those who not only make a life but also a living with their creativity, and if that's you, I hope this helps, and if you're willing I'd like to give you some homework. When this episode is over, grab another cup of coffee, pull your notebook out and make a list of 10 things you can start doing now to take your marketing efforts beyond social media. For some of you the first thing might be finally starting to grow and serve your audience by email. For others it's finally getting your work into the real world of magazines, or getting you on a podcast or radio interview, but make a list of ten things. And then I want to suggest you read two books on marketing. The first is This Is Marketing by Seth Godin, which should help re-frame what it means to put your work into the world. The second is Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson, which should give you some further ideas about how to do that.
Social media has made many of us think this should be easier than it is, that if we just crank out content the world will follow and like and subscribe and the phone will start ringing, but it doesn't work that way. It never has. "Social media" is not a two-word marketing plan that displaces the need to do the legwork it takes to make better, deeper, and broader connections to an audience that is finding it increasingly hard to sort the signal from the noise. There are a lot of people out there, all clamouring to be heard, and it's only getting worse. The ones who will be heard, and listened to, are the ones who make the connections, who make their marketing deeply personal, who surprise and delight their audience, and who make not only their art but also their marketing, something beautiful.
Thanks so much for listening and for making me part of your creative life. I would be especially remiss after this episode if I didn't ask you to share this podcast with others you think might find it helpful or encouraging. Just point them to aBeautifulAnarchy.com and they'll find their way from there. I talked about connecting with your audience by email; one of the ways I do that is with On The Make, a monthly article about creativity which I'll happily send you every fourth week when this podcast takes a break. Just go to StartUglyBook.com , scroll to the bottom of the page and tell me where to send it. Of course, if you stopped mid-scroll and took a look at my two most recent books about everyday creativity, I'd be grateful as well. Thanks again for joining me, we'll talk soon.
Here are the books I mention in this episode:
Seth Godin, This is Marketing
Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerilla Marketing
Jonah Berger, Contagious
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0