The Studio Source.com

Dave J’s comment on The big problem with marketing reminded me of the other big problem with marketing: not doing it is easier.

In fact, not doing just about anything—your workout, bookkeeping, the dishes—is easier, at least in the short term. Watching your income drop? Not so much.

Getting a business started (and keeping it going) is hard work. You set up your website, open a sales gallery in your studio, make a MySpace page, let some people know about it, and hope for the best. A lot of people take that route.

Trouble is, that’s like buying a lottery ticket. You wait for the big payoff, but it rarely comes.

Momentum requires effort. You need to delight your clients so they tell their friends about you. You need to reach new customers, because a person only needs so many paintings, or websites, or quilts. If you have an ongoing relationship with your clients, you need to keep the ideas coming for your next record, standup routine, or blog post. If you’re an artist or designer, you need to keep your work current as technology and tastes change.

It’s enough to make your head hurt.

Except there’s a perfect opportunity in that mire, staring right at you: all the effort you put into keeping your work fresh, all the ideas you have about giving your clients the best possible experience, all that goes into your marketing. It gives you things to talk about and ways to talk about it.

Rethinking your approach to getting your message out can make marketing an integral part of what you do. With practice, it can become almost seamless.

Now if I could just figure out a way to reverse engineer the dirty dishes…

Possibly related posts:

1. The big problem with marketing
2. Forget the textbook stuff – marketing is cool.
3. If you’re a creative, you can craft great marketing materials