Monday, August 8th – 11:55am
How much are you worth? A dime, a dollar, a hundo? Are you a priceless ol’ prince who can’t be afforded even if someone tickled your nose with a crisp Benjamin? Well, aren’t you cocky to think I’d have my bills anywhere near your nose …
And that’s my point.
Self-worth means jacksh*t if you can’t convince the rest of the world that your time, your skills, and your frosty insights on life and business are worth their time and money.
The learning curve — which I’m only at the elbow’s bend of — for any “content creator” is the mistaken belief that people give a crap about good work. To believe that if you make the thing well, then people will come. I call it the “Judge a Book by the Third Paragraph of the Fourth Chapter” fallacy.
A Lesson on Salesmanship as an Artist
I recently released a short film. You can’t find it now because it’s trapped in the realm of hungry gatekeepers (I’m submitting to festivals at the moment). But for two weeks it was out, and it became my top-viewed movie on YouTube.* Sure it was of solid quality, but that’s not why it did so well. It did well because I cared that it did well.
I became the salesperson for my own film:
- I made a sincere, candid video telling people exactly why I wanted them to watch it.
- I texted friends (who had no direct incentive to promote the film) and asked them to tell people about the movie.
- I posted the film on relevant subreddits.
- I linked the film in a Discord group I’m a part of.
- Any time someone sent me a DM saying that they liked the film, I asked them to write that publicly on their IG story (A low-hanging fruit since it’s only a 24-hour commitment for practically no effort on their part).
The moral of the story is that I didn’t let people find the movie BY ACCIDENT. I’m willing to guess that 95% of the views came from word-of-mouth referrals or from one of my many sales pitches.
Is this getting too marketing jargony for your palette? I get it, I used to resist all the jargon too. What changed my mind was a lack of results — and if you keep at it, I’m sure you’ll flip too.
Even with this blog, I’m constantly selling you on the ideas AS I’M WRITING THEM.** I don’t assume you care about my anecdotes and I KNOW you don’t care about my short film …
But I also know what you DO care about.
- For one, you care about yourself.
- For two, you care about selling yourself to other people.
That’s why you’re here, right? Self-interest with a sprinkling of curiosity?
Well, let me jump to the secret of salesmanship as an artist so you can get back to scouring the internet for cheap growth hacks that you’ll forget tomorrow:
“The secret is to ALWAYS frame your call to action as being in the best interest of the AUDIENCE MEMBER.”
Even for art and film; especially for art and film. My sales pitch for the film I made involved these 3 persuasion techniques:
- Created urgency (by saying “it will be my final film for a while” & “only available for a limited time” — both true statements)
- Created anticipation (by showing snippets of the film and the editing process for the weeks leading up to the release)
- Created credibility (by asking friends and fans to promote the film in their own words on their own social channels)
All of which produced the feeling in the soon-to-be-viewer that I OUGHT TO WATCH THIS THING NOW.
I don’t think these techniques are revolutionary in the world of marketing or selling, but I think most artists forget that their work (even if it’s free financially) requires that you sell it to your audience. Remember, all content costs someone their time and attention to consume it …
Only a fool would think those are cheap to earn.
P.S. If you like juicy insights like this one, you ought to sign up for the email list.
*One film did better on view, but this was based on the popularity of one of the actors (i.e., not replicable).
**The bolded, italics, and ALL CAPS words are more intentional than you know.