A recap of episode 73 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Logan Nickleson where he why marketing has gotten such a bad rap, the most essential element for finding your audience, and how we can use psychology to our advantage.
Logan Nickleson has always had an admiration for the arts. When he was a child he liked to draw and paint. When he was 15-16 years old he started getting into music. And for college, he went into journalism.
While in college, Logan saw the changes that were happening in journalism. So he changed his major to advertising. This led to his internship at an advertising agency.
His internship turned into a full-time job, where he worked on numerous projects. It was during this time that a revelation came to him. While making short videos for clients, he was having a hard time finding music for his videos. So he decided to use his own music.
Inspired by stock photography sites like Death to Stock and Unsplash, Logan decided to take all the music he created, and started his own stock site. The only difference was his stock site would for music. Thus, Music For Makers was born.
In this episode, Logan talks about why marketing has gotten such a bad rap, the most essential element for finding your audience, and how we can use psychology to our advantage.
Here are three things you can learn from Logan:
Many artists and creatives believe marketing is a spammy tool to sell things, but that's far from the truth. Logan believes marketing gets a bad rap. "I think there's a perception out there to market yourself and your work, it's icky and you're like this salesman, you know, almost like the car salesman type. I think it's really just a lack of understanding of really it doesn't have to be that way."
Logan believes people just have a false notion of what marketing is. Marketing is often thought of as a bad thing, but it isn't. "I think it's just, mostly people have this preconceived notion of what selling your art or what marketing your art is, and... it doesn't have to be gross or pushy or whatever."
Marketing, in its essence is getting your product out in front of an audience. The problem is, most marketers are still trying to do it the old-fashioned way where they just spam their audiences. This is what artists think about when they hear the word marketing. That's why they think marketing is selling out. "There's a lot of artists that think that to try to push your art out as a business is kinda selling out. I think it's kind of a misunderstanding of the process really."
If you still think marketing means selling out, I urge you to listen to Logan, and discover for yourself what marketing really is.
One of the biggest troubles artists and creatives have is figuring out who our audience is. This is one of the most important, and often times most difficult, things an artist has to do.
The problem is, we usually go about it the wrong way. We believe everyone is our audience, and that is simply not true. Figuring out who your audience is involves finding people who are actually interested in your work as a starting point. "I think it just starts off with a basic critical thinking of... who's the most basic version of the person who is interested in this, and then kinda putting it out there, and then just revising and reiterating until you find the right audience."
It doesn't end there either. You can't just rely on your initial hunch of who your audience is. Knowing your audience is a continuous process. Your audience evolves as you do. That's why it's crucial for you to constantly reevaluate who your audience is. "I would say it's kind of a continuous process where you reevaluate to see whether... this is still the primary audience or are there other audiences out there who would love their product that don't have any idea that they exist... So the research is ongoing I would say."
One point that consistently came up during my conversation with Logan was the book Influence by Robert Cialdini. In the book, Cialdini talks about all the ways we are influenced by psychology.
One of these points is one of commitment. When we commit to things, we are more likely to follow through on them. So start small, and work your way up from there. "When we commit to something, we are a lot more likely to be consistent... If you can get somebody to commit to a small thing, you can then later convince them to commit to a bigger thing like buying your product."
Another thing we talked about was the idea of accountability. Accountability nudges us to do things we commit ourselves to. It helps motivate you when you don't feel like doing something. It helps get you to the finish line. It gives you compelling reason to do something. "It's about this idea about accountability. Kinda announcing that you're going to do this or whatever and using that as a motivator to make you actually follow through and finish... I think it's a critical piece to let people know and... ideally let there be some consequence if you don't follow through. It makes a more compelling reason to do the thing you're wanting to do."
In its simplest form, it is about survival. We aren't necessarily in physical danger, but those basic instincts that helped our ancestors survive can help us thrive. "All these kinds of psychological triggers and just the way we think, I find it really interesting because it all really goes back to human survival. That idea of... the punishment is more important to us than the reward is just basic survival that we as humans have kind of learned over years and years of trying to survive."
A recap of episode 66 of the Cracking Creativity podcast. If you liked it, check out the full episode with Charlotte Eriksson where she talks about facing obstacles, knowing yourself and your fans, and the importance of knowing your why.
Charlotte Eriksson grew up in a house where athletics were emphasized. The arts weren't celebrated and you weren't supposed toe express your feelings. Her family didn't grow up listening to music, so she didn't really discover music until she was 16 years old. That's when a friend introduced her music that touched her life.
From that moment on, she knew she wanted to be a musician. She knew she wanted to spend her life creating that magical feeling for other people. And at the age of 18 Charlotte moved to London to pursue her dream. Since that moment, she has released several albums, toured all over Europe, and has published three books.
In this episode, Charlotte talks about facing obstacles, knowing yourself and your fans, and the importance of knowing your why.
Here are three things you can learn from Charlotte:
Everyone Faces Obstacles
Many of us have this false assumption about people who are successful. We think they don't encounter obstacles just because they're successful. But that's far from the truth. The reality is everyone faces obstacles and challenges along the way, no matter how successful they are.
That's why Charlotte recommends finding heroes who face obstacles and overcomes them. "A hero is not someone who sets out to achieve his dreams and achieves them with no obstacles. A hero is someone who has a dream and everything is working against him. He is running up hill, and it's tough and hard, and no one might believe in him but he makes it to the top anyways. And I'm saying that the hero stands on the top and people only see the glory of him standing up and praise him, but they don't see he had tears in his eyes and he's out of breath and clearly worn out, but he made it."
Charlotte believes these obstacles make us stronger. "It's not about achieving everything you want without any obstacles. It's about having so many obstacles, but pushing through them and learning something in a way that matters."
Know Yourself and Your Fans
A lot of artists and creatives try to build their businesses by selling their work to everyone. They believe the more people they appeal to, the easier it will be to sell their work. But that is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
If you want to build a successful business as an artist, you need to know exactly who you are appealing to. Charlotte believes that begins by knowing who you are as an artist first. Once you know that your audience will become apparent. "Just knowing what you're actually about. Knowing your story, knowing what you're about, knowing your statements, what you want people think about when they hear your name. If you know these things, it will be quite clear who these people are too."
But your work doesn't end there. In order to build and maintain a passionate fanbase, you must build deep connections with your audience. "That's also one thing why I like having really deep connections with fans, because if there are these wide but shallow audiences, they will rarely go and tell their friends that they have found the next amazing thing... but if you build something really really deep, that person will feel such a personal connection and they will go out and tell the rest of their friends too."
This is exactly how Charlotte built her audience. She started with a small and passionate fanbase and grew from there. "I think that's... the best way to start, is to just build something small but really passionate and then let it grow from there."
Know Your Why
Similar to knowing yourself is knowing your why. Knowing your why might be the most important thing you learn in your journey towards building a thriving and successful business. It is the reason you do what you do. Without your why, you lose direction, you lose focus, you stop working on the right things.
Charlotte believes it is absolutely crucial to know your why. They are the reason she does what she does. "For me, everything I'm doing is always about my why, just creating these moments for people, creating belonging, creating community of inspirations. And personally, everything I do I base on the decision of how I want to spend my day to day life. And so everything I do has to match with my values and... I think it all just goes back to knowing why you are doing what you are doing and knowing how you want to spend your life."
She credits knowing her why for keeping her on track. Without her why, she wouldn't be where she is today. "I would never have been able to get to where I am if I didn't know why I did what I did. Embarking on a mission, no matter what you are doing, creating your own business, it's tough, and it's hard, and it's a lot of work, and you will have to go places you didn't want to go, and you will not have time to be with people you might want to be with, and there's a lot of sacrifice. So if you don't have such a deep why, you know exactly why you want this, I don't think you're going to work as hard as you need to work to be able to make it."
Read more shownotes from episode 66 with Charlotte Eriksson
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