Category: MarketingCategory: Marketing

This is not meant as hard and fast advice, but something to chew on:

Be yourself, and don’t confuse the market.

The simpler and more direct I can make my branding, the more genuine it will feel. Ultimately all I need to do is be true to myself (sometimes this is hard to do though!).

Read more: https://tomcritchlow.com/2016/08/01/brand

Got this bit from ‘Discoverability for illustrators’ by Tasha Goddard via Robyn Hepburn:

“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”

Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.

Are you asking people to “subscribe for updates” to get people on your email list? Maybe promising a 10% discount?

Remember, you’re competing with Netflix, social media, family, new albums, holiday plans, and a million other things – rework your pitch.

“Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”

There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”

It’s because stories sell.”

Hardly anyone knows about your latest project, let alone something you did three weeks ago (or three years).

Send a link to three people and let them know about it. Doing this takes minutes and is probably more effective than posting on socials for 95% of your audience to miss. Send via email, text, or DM. Just be cool about it.

Photographer Wesley Verhoeve suggests suggest we “Leave Grace Notes,” in his post ‘What a Burger Restaurant Taught Me About Creative Work.’

“Guidara’s team believed in ‘grace notes’: small gestures that surprise and delight. A remembered wine. An extra dish.”

This from the book “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara.

“In our (photography) world: a behind-the-scenes Polaroid. A thank-you zine. A note weeks later saying thank you for the opportunity and trust.

These don’t scale. But they stick.”

I’ve say this in slightly more profane way in “Maybe you don’t need more subscribers,” but the core idea remains: things that don’t scale can resonate.

Marketing our work isn’t just about logos or brand colors, it’s about how we make people feel.