Digital Marketing for Creatives

Why collecting marketing advice isn’t the same as actually marketing your creative work.

Here’s a question. How many marketing tips have you saved this week?

Go on. Have a look.

You’ve probably got a collection of Instagram posts bookmarked somewhere. A YouTube video about SEO that you watched half of. Some bloke on LinkedIn telling you that the secret to selling your work is storytelling. A newsletter explaining why newsletters are the future. And seventeen different people insisting that if you’re not making short-form videos, you’re basically choosing financial ruin.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, there’s you.

An artist. An author. A photographer. A musician. Somebody who actually makes things.

Remember that? Making things?

That activity you used to enjoy before you somehow became the unpaid marketing director of your own increasingly complicated creative enterprise?

Yeah. That.

Because here’s what I think is happening. We’ve become so obsessed with collecting marketing advice that we’ve forgotten what marketing is supposed to accomplish.

We’re drowning in tips. And we’re starving for a system.

The Great Marketing Advice Industrial Complex

There’s an entire industry built around convincing you that you’re one clever trick away from success.

One hashtag strategy. One viral Reel. One perfectly optimised email subject line.

Just one more little adjustment and suddenly the internet will recognise your genius, strangers will start throwing money at you, and you’ll finally be able to afford decent coffee.

It’s BS. Well, mostly.

Some of those tips are genuinely useful. SEO matters. Email marketing matters. Understanding social media matters. Creating engaging content absolutely matters.

But here’s the problem.

A collection of useful marketing tips is not a marketing strategy.

It’s a collection of useful marketing tips.

That’s it.

It’s like buying a hammer, a screwdriver, some timber and a box of nails, then sitting in the middle of your living room wondering why you haven’t got a kitchen.

You’ve got the tools.

You haven’t got a plan.

And every time someone introduces another shiny new tool, you buy that one too.

Congratulations. You’ve now got seventeen hammers and still no bloody kitchen.

Random Marketing Creates Random Results

Let’s say you’re an independent author.

Monday, you post a picture of your book on Instagram.

Tuesday, you read that hashtags are dead, so you spend an hour researching keywords.

Wednesday, someone tells you Pinterest is where the real traffic is, so you create an account.

Thursday, you watch a video explaining why email marketing is the only thing that matters.

Friday, you decide you need to start a podcast.

Saturday, you’re exhausted.

Sunday, you check your sales.

Nothing.

And now you’re wondering whether you should be on TikTok.

Sound familiar?

The problem isn’t necessarily that any of these activities are wrong.

The problem is that none of them are connected.

You’re doing marketing activities without having a marketing system.

And there’s a massive difference.

A system gives each activity a purpose. It connects your audience, your content, your website, your newsletter and your products.

Instead of asking, “What should I post today?”, you start asking, “What am I trying to achieve, and what’s the most effective way to achieve it?”

That’s a much better question.

And, crucially, it doesn’t require you to spend your entire bloody life on Instagram.

You Don’t Need More Advice. You Need to Connect the Advice You’ve Already Got.

This is something I’ve become increasingly convinced of.

Most creatives don’t have an information problem.

They have an organisation problem.

They know they should post content. They know they should build an audience. They’ve heard about email marketing. They understand, vaguely, that SEO is important.

But how does it all fit together?

What comes first?

What actually matters?

What can you ignore?

And when do you get to stop doing marketing and go back to doing the thing you’re supposed to be doing?

Because that last question is rather important.

Marketing should support your creative work. Your creative work shouldn’t exist merely to feed your marketing.

That’s the philosophy behind my book, Digital Marketing for Creatives.

I didn’t want to write another book full of disconnected marketing tricks. There are enough of those floating around already.

I wanted to bring the important elements together into one practical system. Something that helps artists, authors and creatives understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and how the different parts connect.

Not so they can become better marketers for the sake of becoming better marketers.

So they can spend less time marketing and more time creating.

Take a look at the complete approach inside Digital Marketing for Creatives →

Anyway. Back to the problem.

Start With People. Not Platforms.

Here’s where I think a lot of creatives go wrong.

They start with the platform.

“I need to be on Instagram.”

Why?

“Because everyone is on Instagram.”

Right. Well, everyone is also in supermarkets. Doesn’t mean you should set up an easel next to the frozen peas and start trying to sell landscape paintings.

You need to know who you’re trying to reach.

Not vaguely.

Not “people who like art” or “people who enjoy reading”.

Actual people with particular interests, preferences, motivations and reasons for buying things.

This is where audience research and buyer personas become useful.

Yes, buyer personas.

I know. It sounds like something invented by a marketing consultancy charging £900 an hour to tell you that customers enjoy feeling valued.

But the principle is simple.

Who is most likely to appreciate what you create?

What do they care about?

Where do they spend their time?

What influences their purchasing decisions?

What might stop them buying?

Because once you understand those things, your marketing becomes considerably more focused.

You stop trying to reach everyone.

You start trying to connect with the right people.

And that’s when things get interesting.

Then Create Content That Actually Means Something

Here’s another uncomfortable truth.

Nobody owes your content their attention.

I know. Horrible, isn’t it?

You’ve spent six hours painting something beautiful, three years writing a novel, or an entire weekend photographing a ruined abbey in the rain.

And then you post it online.

Seven likes.

One from your mum.

One from someone selling cryptocurrency.

And five from people who appear to like absolutely everything.

Welcome to the internet.

But here’s the thing. Good content isn’t simply content that shows people what you’ve made.

It’s content that gives them a reason to care.

Maybe it tells a story.

Maybe it explains something.

Maybe it makes them laugh.

Maybe it introduces them to an idea they hadn’t considered.

Maybe it helps them understand the thinking, effort or emotion behind your work.

Engaging content creates a connection between what you make and the people who might value it.

And when that content is part of a structured marketing system, it starts doing something beyond collecting likes.

It builds familiarity.

It establishes trust.

It encourages people to visit your website, join your newsletter, explore your work and, eventually, consider buying something.

Not everyone will buy.

Not everyone should buy.

But at least you’re creating a meaningful journey rather than hoping somebody accidentally stumbles across your Amazon page while looking for a replacement kettle.

A Marketing System Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

This is another misconception worth getting rid of.

When people hear the word system, they imagine spreadsheets, automation software, complicated dashboards and some marketing consultant enthusiastically explaining the importance of conversion funnels.

Christ. No wonder creatives run screaming.

But a marketing system can be remarkably straightforward.

For example:

Find your audience → Create relevant content → Bring people to your website → Build a relationship → Offer something worth buying.

That’s the basic idea.

Your blog might attract people through search engines.

Your Instagram might introduce new people to your work.

Your newsletter might build a relationship with those who want to hear more.

Your website might explain what you offer.

Your books, artwork or other products give people the opportunity to buy.

Each element has a job.

Each supports the others.

And you can measure what’s working, improve what isn’t and stop wasting time on activities that accomplish precisely nothing.

You don’t have to do everything.

You have to do the right things, consistently, in a way that works for your circumstances.

Which brings us to the point of all this.

You’re Supposed to Be Creating Things, Remember?

This is what bothers me most about the way marketing is presented to creatives.

Somewhere along the line, we’ve accepted the idea that being an artist, author or musician also means becoming a full-time content producer.

You must post constantly.

You must engage constantly.

You must understand every algorithmic change.

You must produce videos, newsletters, blogs, carousels, stories, podcasts and whatever new format the platforms invent next Tuesday.

And apparently you’re supposed to find time to make something worth selling.

When?

Between editing your fourth Reel and having a minor breakdown over your engagement statistics?

It’s ridiculous.

A good marketing system should reduce that pressure.

It should help you identify the activities that matter, establish repeatable processes, reuse content intelligently and avoid chasing every new trend.

It should make your marketing more manageable.

Because the objective isn’t to become brilliant at spending time on marketing.

The objective is to market effectively enough that you can spend more time doing something else.

Creating.

Writing.

Painting.

Recording.

Making the things that started this whole business in the first place.

Stop Collecting Tips. Start Building Something That Works.

Look, I’m not suggesting you stop learning about marketing.

I’m suggesting you stop treating every new piece of advice as an instruction to immediately change everything you’re doing.

You don’t need another seventeen Instagram hacks.

You don’t need to abandon your strategy because someone on YouTube claims the algorithm has changed.

And you certainly don’t need to become one of those people who uses the phrase “leveraging synergies” without experiencing profound personal shame.

What you need is a clear understanding of who you’re trying to reach, how you’re going to reach them, how you’re going to build relationships and how you’re going to turn some of those relationships into sales.

You need a system.

Something you can understand.

Something you can maintain.

Something that works around your creative life rather than consuming it.

And that’s precisely what I set out to provide in Digital Marketing for Creatives.

One Book. One Marketing System. More Time to Create.

If you’ve been collecting marketing tips, trying different platforms and wondering why none of it seems to come together, this book was written for you.

Digital Marketing for Creatives brings together the essential elements of effective marketing, including finding your audience, understanding buyer personas, creating engaging content, SEO, email marketing and building campaigns.

But more importantly, it explains how these elements work together.

It’s a practical, one-stop guide for artists, authors and creatives who want to stop guessing, start marketing with purpose and give their work a better chance of reaching people who’ll appreciate it.

No magic tricks.

No promises of overnight success.

No requirement to sacrifice your entire creative existence to the gods of engagement.

Just a more structured, manageable way to promote what you make.

Explore Digital Marketing for Creatives and see how the complete system fits together →

Because you didn’t become a creative to spend your life learning marketing.

You became a creative to create.

And it would be nice if marketing remembered that.