Category: MarketingCategory: Marketing

Here’s a bit from my interview with Rusty Pilgrim:

Q. I have to be honest —my opinion of marketing is pretty close to that old Bill Hicks joke where he says, “Are there any marketing people here? You? Great. Kill yourself. Seriously —kill yourself.” That’s more or less how I’ve always felt.

But your approach is completely different. In fact, it’s so different that I wouldn’t even call it marketing. Was there a specific moment or event that led you to take this path?

A. Lots of Seth Godin books, starting with Purple Cow. Make something remarkable, and people will make remarks. It five people like it, maybe they tell five more. If they don’t, start again. Either re-work everything, or play to the crowd, or double down and find the right five people who might enjoy what you’re doing.

Not everyone is going to love what we do, and that’s okay. Even the most famous people on the internet are complete unknowns to most of the world. So to me it’s all about making a thing that you can make, making friends, having fun, building community. If that leads to paying some bills, great. If not, at least you’ve enriched the lives of those around you.

Michael Gilbride talks about spending big bucks in hopes of a big return. Most of the time we call this gambling!

“Instead of spending a sh**load of money on a music video and praying it goes viral, what could we do that would guarantee her music gets in front of her target audience?”

The artist had a song about body dysmorphia. Rather than making a music video and hoping her target audience would see it, she ended up booking a performance at an outpatient center for eating disorders.

In doing this, she’ll perform in front of an audience more likely to appreciate her message. That’s the guarantee, the possibility of making one fan.

Spending thousands on a music video may lead to the same outcome, sure, but performing in one space for a few people is a safer bet.

CJ Chilvers has a slightly more PG-13 way of saying this (do shit that doesn’t scale), and provides some great examples in the meantime:

• I’ve seen an author put his phone number on the front cover of his book.
• I’ve seen newsletters set up booths at events just to subscribe a few dozen people — because both parties know each other are real and engaged.
• I went to a bar to meet the inventor of podcasting. He asked people to show up to discuss his podcast and what was on their minds — maybe a dozen or so did. That was more than a decade ago and we’re still telling our readers about it.
• I traveled seven hours to meet at a bar with two like-minded content creators. It led to several podcast episodes, countless blog posts ideas, and an event.

See the rest on his website. As I said back in 2024:

“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing (on social media) and go do other things,” you might say.

Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.

Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?

Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).

Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.

It’s tempting to find a shortcut, a “growth hack.” But doing the thing that seems slightly uncomfortable (or absurd) stands to make more of an impact, like our Social Media Escape Club member Jes talking about handing out their email list on a clipboard during a show. That led to 35 new people signing up.

Does that scale? Nope. Do it anyways.

How do you get more subscribers? Pitch yourself. Get awareness off your plate and go do fun stuff with other people.

Jason Mantzoukas loved the UK show Taskmaster so much he pitched himself to be on the show.

Everyone should just know how hilarious Jason Mantzoukas is, right? Instead of sitting around and hoping to picked to be on the show, he reached out. He put the ball in motion.

Jason could have posted every day on social media hoping that the executive producers would see how serious he was. Or, he could tell his manager. Send some emails. Get things into motion. We can do the same.

Here’s a new video drop I made for Sean King O’Grady from their Substack Note, but figured it might be helpful for other folks.

1. Double check all the links in your profiles

On your profile (Substack, socials, whatever), this person has a website URL listed. On desktop, you can click it and it works — but on mobile, it doesn’t. In this case edit your Substack profile and add that link as an external website so it works everywhere.

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2. Should You Start a Separate Newsletter?

If early on in the process, no, I wouldn’t. Put all your effort into your main newsletter and get as many people on that as possible. Tell people there about whatever else you’re doing and selling. Once you’ve made some sales, you’ll have email addresses of people who bought from you — that can become your second email list.

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3. Should Your Newsletter Have a “Name?”

You’re the artist — trust your gut. If your name works, your name works. The success you see from others doing it differently isn’t your path. You’ve done great work so far — keep doing it your way. People who care about what you’re doing will sign up and stick around, no matter what it’s called.