Digital Marketing for Creatives

How we doin’? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the grey area where most of us live?

I was thinking about marketing the other day. Specifically, I was thinking about why we all hate it so much. And I don’t mean the concept of it, I mean the experience of being marketed to. That feeling when you open your inbox and it’s just a wasteland of subject lines screaming at you. The DMs from people you don’t know who clearly just copied and pasted the same “Hey love your work!” message to 400 other people.

It’s death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s the digital equivalent of someone shoving a flyer in your face on the sidewalk while you’re just trying to get to the train.

And here’s the thing. If you’re a creative person, a writer, an artist, someone who makes things, you can’t do that. You can’t be that person. It doesn’t work. It feels wrong coming out of you, and it feels wrong coming into someone else. It’s like watching a cat try to bark. It’s just uncomfortable for everyone.

The good news is, you don’t have to. The bad news is, you have to actually be a human being. Which is harder than it sounds. It requires vulnerability. It requires consistency. It requires not being a dick.

So, I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about the people who do it right. The people whose emails I actually open. The people whose Patreon I actually support. And I came up with a list. Ten ways to keep your digital marketing feeling less like a transaction and more like a conversation. Ten ways to connect with people in a way that doesn’t make you want to shower afterward.

Here we go.

1. Stop Selling. Start Talking.

Look, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Gee, I really hope someone tries to sell me something today.” They wake up and think about their problems, their anxieties, their hopes, their kids, their coffee, their existential dread. Meet them there. Your newsletter, your social media, your content, it should sound like you talking to a friend in a coffee shop. Not like you reading from a press release. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t type it.

2. Show the Mess, Not Just the Masterpiece

We spend so much time curating our finished work. The perfect painting. The final draft. The mastered track. But people connect with process. They connect with struggle. Show them the sketch that almost got thrown away. Talk about the paragraph you rewrote seventeen times. Share the voice memo from 3am when the idea first hit. It makes you real. It makes you them. And when people see themselves in you, they root for you. And people buy from people they’re rooting for.

3. Actually Read the Room (and Your Comments)

This is a big one. Digital marketing isn’t a megaphone. It’s a conversation. If someone takes the time to comment on your post, reply. Not with a canned “Thanks!” but with a real thought. If someone replies to your newsletter, write them back. I do this. It takes time. But those one-on-one connections? That’s the bedrock. That’s the shit that actually lasts. It’s the difference between having followers and having a community.

4. Tell Stories, Not Just Facts

People remember stories. They forget features and benefits. Don’t just say “I’m selling a course on watercolor techniques.” Tell the story about the first time you picked up a brush and how frustrated you were. Tell the story about the teacher who told you you’d never make it. Tell the story about the moment it finally clicked. Your product is the solution to a story they’re living. Make them feel seen.

5. Be Generous With the Good Stuff

There’s this fear that if you give too much away for free, people won’t pay. I’ve found the opposite to be true. Give away your best ideas. Give away real value. Show them exactly how you do what you do. The people who just want the information will take it and go. That’s fine. The people who value you, your voice, your perspective, your weird brain, they’ll stick around and they’ll support you because they want more of you, not just the information. Generosity builds trust. Trust builds sales.

6. Use Your Actual Voice

I know, I know. This sounds obvious. But look at your last five social media posts. Look at your last newsletter. Do they sound like you? Or do they sound like some generic, corporate, “professional” version of you? The internet is saturated with generic. The only thing you have that nobody else has is your specific, weird, unique voice. Use it. Swear if you swear. Be funny if you’re funny. Be serious if you’re serious. The right people will find you. The wrong people will leave. That’s a feature, not a bug.

7. Don’t Be a Robot With Automation

Automation is a tool. It’s a hammer. You can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use it to smash your own thumb. Automated welcome sequences? Fine. Automated DMs the second someone follows you? Psychopath behavior. Automated birthday emails? Eh, borderline. The key is to use automation for the boring logistical stuff so you have more time to be human in the places that matter. But if it feels creepy, it probably is.

8. Ask Questions and Actually Listen to the Answers

This is such a simple one. At the end of your newsletter, ask a question. “What’s stressing you out this week?” “What’s the one thing you’re struggling with in your creative practice?” Then, and this is the crucial part, read the replies. Use those answers to inform what you make next. When people tell you what they need, and then you create something that meets that need, you’re not “selling.” You’re serving. And that’s a much better feeling.

9. Make It About Them, Not You

This is the hardest one. Because as a creative, your work is deeply personal. It comes from you. But marketing it effectively means constantly asking, “What’s in it for them?” Why should they care? How does this help them? How does this make them feel? Shift your perspective. You’re not just selling a painting; you’re selling the feeling that painting will give them every time they look at it. You’re not just selling a book; you’re selling the escape, the insight, the validation they’ll feel reading it.

10. Remember That It’s All Just People

At the end of the day, behind every email address, behind every username, behind every credit card transaction, there’s a person. A person with fears and hopes and a bad back and a complicated relationship with their mother. Just like you. If you can keep that one thing in your head at all times, you’ll be fine. You won’t spam them. You won’t be creepy. You’ll just be another human, offering something you made to another human who might need it. That’s not marketing. That’s just connection.

And connection, my friends, is the only thing that actually converts.

Alright. I’m done. Go be a person.

---

I grace the internet twice a week, with some ideas for the creatives who hate to market. It’s ideas, tools, strategies to make you market effectively so you can spend time being creative. That’s what we need right now: less marketers and more creatives.

You can subscribe to the blog and get notifications (that magic box below – no spam), and/or you can do me a solid and buy me a coffee for being here for over two years giving away my pearls of wisdom to all who drift by on their quest to becoming better marketers.