Why Your Marketing Is Like Being the Best, Lightest, Brightest Lighthouse You Can Be

What else went right for me in 2019?

Marketing.

Not my marketing so much; I still have much to learn about how to market consistently, in the right places with the right message. Marketing strategy for creatives is a different beast and success in this area is a matter of trying different things, seeing what works, what doesn’t, and doing more of what works. Sort of like learning to cook. There are an infinite number of cookbooks telling me how to cook, but I have to get my hands in the dough to really learn how to do it.

What went right were the two epiphanies about marketing. One shifted the way I look at the purpose of marketing. The other shifted my attitude toward it.

I’ll start with the shifted attitude.

Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic, puts forth the idea that if we’re pulled to create something, there are people who want and need our work who are doing the pulling.

This means marketing is nothing more than what we do to help our people find us. In the book, Attracting Perfect Customers, the authors say our job is to be lighthouses. So our marketing is us being the best, lightest, brightest lighthouse we can be. That sure beats viewing marketing as at best, drudgery, and at worst, obligatory fibbing.

The other epiphany came from having a conversation with the part of me that knows about my marketing. The part said,

“Your marketing is as important as your writing. It’s actually a way to showcase your writing, but it’s ultimately the way to express authentic insight. That’s the main goal of your marketing. Tell people how it is and what to do to make things the way they want and need it to be. Marketing is teaching. Just in smaller chunks.”

Marketing strategy for creatives: take the marketing off your "boring" list so you'll actually do it

Armed with the idea that my job is to be a lighthouse, and that my marketing is as important as my creative practice, completely shifted my perspective. I went from dreading marketing (or at least procrastinating it), to incorporating it into my creative practice. Just placing marketing into the “creative” category (and removing it from the drudgery list) brought new insights and ideas for ways to market and what to say, that hadn’t occurred to me before.

You can do this yourself; talk to the part of you that knows about your marketing. Ask permission, (May I talk to the part of me that knows about my marketing?), then start with these three questions:

1. What should I do to market my work?
2. Where shall I put my marketing?
3. Anything else?

If you do this, email me or comment and tell me what you learned. 

And if you need help with your marketing strategy for 2020, book a 15-minute chat with me and we’ll brainstorm about it.

What went right with your marketing in 2019?