Creative Marketing

Photo Credit — Thomas Leuthard

Living Creatively : Part 3

In almost exactly two-months time, my daughter will no longer be a teenager. However, when she was a fair bit younger, I had to, quite often, remind her of a very important fact. (as my father did with me) It’s a fact we would all do well to remember — whatever our age.

If you have to tell people you’re cool … you’re not!

My message to my daughter, about being cool, was pretty specific, but it is based on a much broader principle.

If people cannot see what you claim to be, then you probably aren’t … and saying you are, won’t make it so.

Let me put it simply. The people who feel a seemingly constant need to trumpet the fact that they’re “really smart”, a “stable genius”, “have the best words”, or the “biggest button”, are trying to sell something they don’t own.

This behaviour is all too common among politicians and others who live in the spotlight, but you’ll also see it in the people around you. If you’re brutally honest with yourself, you’ll also see it — or the fear of it — in yourself — as I do.

• If I have to tell people that I’m cool, clever, talented, intelligent, because they can’t otherwise really see it, then am I really what I claim to be?
• If I have to threaten, bully, bluster, or otherwise use “my power”, or some other “cheat” to convince people that I am what I say I am, then am I really what I claim to be?

We all knew that one weird kid, back in school, who constantly told everyone how cool they were, claimed they had a really hot boy/girlfriend that no-one ever met, or that he was a deadly, kung-fu ninja. I’m sure you all also remember the result/s of his/her claims. If they were lucky, they were ignored, otherwise, they were mercilessly mocked.
(If you can’t remember that kid … it may have been you — just kidding, I hope)

If people cannot see what you claim to be, then you probably aren’t … and saying you are, won’t make it so.

On some level, we all know this statement to be true.

But, is it the whole truth?

• If I don’t publicise what I can do, as an artist, or in a broader creative context, how will anyone know?
• If I don’t build my personal brand, my name won’t be the one on the lips and contracts of potential clients.
• If I don’t market my work, abilities, and achievements, how will I make a living?

Marketing, brand-building, and promotion of our work are, or seem to be, inescapable necessities in our modern, free-market, consumer society. It is perfectly fair and factual to say that one cannot make a successful living as a self-employed individual, entrepreneur, artist, or even “professional”, without marketing of some kind.

• So, on the one hand, we have a truth that says, “if you have to tell people, you’re a fake”.
• While, on the other hand, we have another truth that says, “if you don’t tell people, you will fail”.

This article is about creative marketing/promotion. More specifically it aims to examine how to promote one’s self, and one’s work, without falling into the traps of either braggadocio or silence.

[Note: braggadocio — vain and empty boasting — bluster]

Let’s start by gaining a clearer understanding of the problem.

None of us want to be seen as that weird kid at school (mentioned above), or to be identified with yet another blow-hard politician.
(if you do, you have much greater problems — he said jokingly — sort of)

With that in mind, what is it that causes this kind of over-the-top self-promoting behaviour in so many people?

Psychologists, sociologists, and other learned -ologists all tell the same, basic story. Excessive, and generally “empty” self-promotion is primarily caused by insecurity.

In fact, there are basically two, opposite behaviours that stem from the same insecurity :

1. I believe the story told me by my insecurity, and I don’t own it. As a result, I try to hide my insecurity and “emptiness” with bluster, false claims, anger, bullying, etc.
2. I believe the story told me by my insecurity, and I own it. As a result, I keep a low profile, secure in the certainty that I have nothing of value to offer.

Of course, as with most polar-opposite behaviours, these extremes exist on two ends of a continuum, with many different “blends” in-between. What is considered “normal”, is a fairly extensive section in the middle of the continuum.

I’ll go out on a limb here (not really), and say that we would all, in this instance, want our behaviour to fall within the normal range. Believe it or not, I’ve tried both extremes during my life.

As a child, I was shyly insecure, and often tried to disappear into the background, believing I had nothing of value to offer. Later, in my teens, I made a conscious decision to change. Let’s just say that my behavioural pendulum swung from one extreme to the other. While I don’t think that my braggadocio ever quite reached Trump-like proportions, opinions may vary.

The problem was, I changed my behaviour without changing my belief about my self-worth. Later in life, I settled into some semblance of normalcy, which I’m still working to optimise.

Suffice to say, I know, from experience, that neither withdrawal, nor braggadocio are effective behaviours for dealing with insecurity.

Moving on. Those same, previously referenced psychologists, etc., agree that insecurity is largely an immature response, which is why it generally leads to immature behaviour. Both withdrawal and braggadocio are immature behavioural expressions of insecurity.

So, thus far, we have undealt-with insecurity, leading directly to immature behaviour.

The same behavioural experts, as I’ve referenced before, go on to say that undealt-with immature behaviours (based on undealt-with insecurity) lead to personal instability.

If you’ve been following my articles for even a short while, you’ll know that I define creativity and destruction as polar opposites. Instability, of any kind, is undoubtedly destructive — to ourselves, and often to others.

Undealt-with insecurity and immaturity is destructive, not creative. This, in turn, means that failure to properly market ourselves, and our creative endeavours, either due to withdrawal or braggadocio, is destructive, not creative.

So, now we know that insecurity about ourselves and our work leads directly to bad marketing. Bad marketing, in turn, is destructive in one way or another. We are all insecure to some extent. That means that all too often, we’re either going to downplay our work/talents/abilities, or we’re going to go over the top, and put people off that way.

Both over and under-promotion stem directly from insecurity.

Insecurity results in immature behaviour.

Immature behaviour — in an adult context — is destructive, not creative.

So, what can we do about it?

Be secure in the value of your creativity

A few weeks ago, I read an article by Todd Brison, in which he wrote,
“On some level, every creative person is waiting for someone to tell us we are crap.”

If you don’t agree, read it again … and then again, until you manage to claw your way out of denial, and find the truth of that statement within yourself. We are all, to one degree or another, insecure about our creative endeavours. Then ask yourself these questions :

• What caused me to be insecure about myself and/or my work?
• If I truly believe that I, and my work have value, then why am I not more secure about my work?

If I don’t value myself, and/or my work, then how can I expect anyone else to value me, or my work?

Recently, I’ve realised the following, about myself :

• I under, or over-promote myself, my work, my time, my efforts, and my skills because I don’t truly believe that they have value.
• I battle to put an economic value on my work, my time, my efforts, and my skills because I don’t truly believe that they have value.

To put it really simply, I feel like a fraud every time I try to market my brand, or my creative endeavours, because I don’t believe I’m offering anything of value. I feel like a thief every time I ask someone to pay for something that I do not truly value. That is a hard truth to swallow, but it is truth none-the-less.

I must genuinely value my creativity before I can comfortably market it to others. I must genuinely value my creativity before it will be valued — or purchased — by others.

Before I can properly and honestly market my brand, along with my creative work, skills, time, and efforts, I must discover, recognise, and value them, myself.

Focus on your creative work

Do you remember, back when you first started writing, painting, inventing, writing songs, or being entrepreneurial? Life was all about the work, and the work was all about the passion.

Then, at some point, you realised that to make a living from your passion, you’d have to market your work. More and more, you were drawn into the valid effort of marketing your creative work, building your brand, and attracting and interacting with potential clients.

Slowly, but surely, marketing, in all its forms, took up more and more of your time, effort, energy, and passion. Life was no longer all about your creative work. Your original passion, your creative work, now had to share time, energy, and passion with the undeniable need to market your work.

After all — we don’t really have a choice, do we? Marketing is vital. Isn’t it?

A primary step in rediscovering the value in your creative work, is putting your focus back where it belongs — on your creative work.

Such an easy answer — but not always easy to do in real life.

Here are some starting points :

• Reject all ideas of perfection. There is no value in perfection, because perfection does not exist. The value in your work has nothing to do with how close it is to some imagined idea of perfection. By harbouring ideas, or even goals of perfection, you immediately devalue your perception of your work. Chasing perfection is destructive. The value in your work is the expression of your creativity.
• Rediscover your passion. I’ve already covered this to some extent, so I’ll be brief. You are not primarily a marketer. You are primarily an artist, entrepreneur, musician, etc. So, stop dividing your passion and energy between your creative work, and marketing. Focus primarily on your creativity.
• Focus on the value in creativity. Yes, to some extent, this is the flip side of my first point on this list. Even if it is only that, it is still worth repeating. However, perfection is not the only thing that devalues our perception of our creative endeavours. We all have our insecurities, our upbringing, and many other things to contend with. Even society often tells us to “get a real job”. Root out doubts about the value of creativity wherever you find them. They are lies. Creative work is always valuable.
• Present your work confidently. If I present my work along with my doubts regarding its value, then I’m essentially telling my “audience” not to waste their time, attention, or money. Although many people failed to see the “value” in Picasso’s early impressionist work. Picasso was confident of its value, and the rest of the world slowly came to agree with him. Present your valuable work with confidence.

Creativity is thinking differently, to do the best with what you have available.

What if we apply our creativity to our marketing. Let’s not just market our creative work in the same ways that everyone else does. Let’s be creative.

• Believe in the value of your “product”.
• Create your “product” with passion.
• Let your “product’s” value speak for itself.
• Offer your “product” with confidence in its innate value.

If, like me, you’ve been wondering what it takes to get people to notice, appreciate, and pay for your creative work, then I hope what I’ve said will be helpful to you.

Remember :

People will only value your work if you value it yourself.