I know, I know.
You don’t have time to market your work.
You already post your stuff on social media.
You’re too overwhelmed by everything out there to invest time in marketing.
Or, maybe you just don’t know where to start.
Whatever excuse or fear you have for not spending time on planning and executing the marketing of your work, this interview with Napoleon Gladney will dispel the myths and give your marketing efforts some clarity.
Hell, you might even be excited to get started after reading this!
How Napoleon Went from Successful Artist to Professional Arts Advocate
Napoleon Gladney had always been interested in arts administration and got his start working part time as an arts administrator to financially supplement his dancing, choreographing, and teaching. Arts administrators were very understanding about needing to leave for tours and auditions, etc. However, as Napoleon continued his administrative career, he realized that the administrative side was more empowering to him.
As a dancer, Napoleon spent the majority of his time in front of a mirror being constantly judged by choreographers, directors, and audiences alike, giving everything to choreographers who didn’t always return the generosity. In an administrative position, Napoleon’s ideas and work are truly valued and he gets to have a voice in the production of shows in a new and impactful way.
Now, Napoleon is the audience development manager of the Musco Performing Arts Center and LACDC’s managing director where, as a queer POC (person of color) with experience as an artist, he brings a unique perspective as he advocates for artists within the organization as well as to audiences and media outlets.
As someone who has been on both sides of the table, Napoleon has amazing advice which I’ve organized for you here as a sort of step-by-step marketing plan for your next project. Without further ado, here’s how you can level-up your marketing as a working artist to make more sales, get more gigs, or better establish yourself in the community.
The possibilities are endless!
[All the advice and quotes are from my interview with Napoleon Gladney. Some may be edited slightly, for context.]
Make Your Marketing an Extension Your Work
Before you start marketing, conceptualize your marketing efforts as part of your work rather than an afterthought once the work is finished and ready for an audience.
“Your website, social media, etc., are a part of the show because that’s when people first start interacting with [your] work.”
Essentially, the moment an audience member – or potential audience member – sees anything that has to do with you, your organization, or your work is the second they are engaging with your work. We’ve all heard about how important first impressions are. Well, every social media post, website update, email, etc. is potentially a first impression for a new audience member.
If you only post show flyers, your followers haven’t been given the opportunity to be invested in the work. It’s essentially coming out of nowhere for them. Meanwhile, you’ve been working countless hours behind-the-scenes to get the work to the place where it is. Think about your potential audience like they’re your friends and close colleagues. The friends you’ve been sharing all your ups and downs, revelations, and successes with are the ones that “wouldn’t miss your show for the world.”
Audience members can share this same investment if they’ve had the chance to invest in your ideas, process, and the evolution of your work in a similar way.
“We like to segment the art making from the marketing of it, the selling it, the producing of it, but it’s all connected. Think about it this way: if you’re trying to sell tickets to a show, your audience’s engagement with you and your organization or your work starts with the second they’re looking at anything that has to do with [you, your organization, or your work].”
By letting the audience into your process, you’re setting their expectations for what they will be experiencing at your performance, exhibit, or by reading or listening to your work. If you take the popular principal of the start of your book, performance, album, etc. as setting the tone for your work and take it a step further, you can come to the conclusion that the tone of your work is already being set by what you’re putting forward online.
Start Where You’re Already Spending Your Time
Marketing can feel overwhelming.
There are dozens of social media platforms to choose from, let alone email, in-person events, and so on. So, where do you start? Napoleon recommends starting where you’re already spending most of your time online.
“The best place to start is using the channels that you use yourself all the time… If you’re spending 80% of your [time online] on Instagram, start with Instagram. You’re on it, you understand the platform, you understand what you’re drawn to, so build on that.”
Most of us are already spending time branding and marketing unconsciously. Napoleon encourages us to be conscientious of the fact that social media platforms are branding and marketing tools. Making that shift and investing the time we’re already spending on these platforms more mindfully can make a big difference in more successful marketing.
He also recommends spending some of your scrolling time on your favorite channels noticing what you yourself are drawn to. Next time you’re on your platform/channel of choice, ask yourself:
- What kind of videos or photos make you stop scrolling and want to dive deeper?
- What type of copy (writing), details, and descriptions make you smile or react?
- What makes you want to “click on that link in the bio” (to continue with the Instagram example)?
Set Goals and Decide How You’ll Measure Them
A critical piece of successful marketing is setting goals and tracking them. Napoleon and I talked a lot about adding a marketing plan into the early planning stages of your projects. Content marketing doesn’t always have to be in real-time. You can take behind-the-scenes process footage that can be spread over multiple posts over the course of a month – for instance.
But, before you plan how you’ll create content for your marketing, you have to figure out what your goals are.
Your marketing goals should be an extension of your project goals. Is your goal with your project to sell tickets? Perhaps it’s more concept centric – expressing an artistic vision or political statement. It could be centered around community building or raising awareness around an issue that’s important to you. Or, it could be for personal exposure.
Your goals for your project will directly inform your marketing goals and ultimately the marketing tactics you employ and how you measure your progress against those goals.
If the point of your project is making money, your goal may be to sell a certain amount of tickets or prints and you will measure your progress in terms of meeting those sales goals.
If your project is around communicating a vision, your marketing should align with that vision and your progress may be measured against goals around audience sentiment and engagement or getting the audience to take specific social actions.
If your project is centered around community building, you may make goals around partnering with local organizations and measure your progress against how many events you produce with local community partners and the attendance rates of those events.
Hopefully, you see how the marketing tactics for each of these goals will also differ greatly and how having a way of measuring your progress will help inform changes to your tactics when necessary.
Finding your audience
One more thing on goal setting (I know this section is long, but it’s important!) The other half of goal setting is figuring out who you’re trying to reach with your marketing. This can be a useful way of thinking about your work as well. Who are you trying to reach? Who are you trying to connect with or speak to?
Figuring out who you’re trying to reach will help direct how you get your marketing messages across. If you’re trying to reach investors/patrons your messaging and marketing material will be very different than if you’re trying to support your community or share a political message.
It’s possible you’ll have a few different “targets” and that’s totally fine, just make sure you know who you’re talking to where and with what content.
Invite Others to Share Their Perspectives
Good news… You don’t have to create all your marketing content on your own!
You likely already include colleagues and trusted advisors into your process whether with beta reading your early drafts, using friends as subjects, or getting feedback in rehearsal. Why not leverage these process-related interactions to mine for new perspectives to share with your followers, subscribers, etc.?
We’re often too close to our work to pick up on everything that resonates with audiences. Luckily, bringing others into the process gives us perspective on what’s working. Whether it’s with verbal or written feedback, or by taking pictures and videos of your work, the people you invite in can bring new perspective to your marketing efforts just as it gives you a deeper understanding of your work itself. Leverage it!
Foster Engagement with People Who are Already Interacting with You
Don’t keep chasing down that one person who you really want to collaborate with or get promoted by who just isn’t responding. Leverage the community, people who are already responding to your work, and those that are willing to help you get the word out!
“Work with the people that want to work with you.”
This says it all but if you need a little more of a wakeup call on this one, here’s more from Napoleon delivering the hard truths:
“Don’t pursue community members, or people that don’t like your work, or don’t care because you feel as if they need to be included. If they’re not engaged, move on. Don’t spend your energy there. Spend your energy on the people that are receptive and responsive.”
In fact, Napoleon gives a great piece of advice to not only spend your energy with the people who are engaging with you: go above and beyond for them. For example, if there’s a community member who is advocating for your work but can’t afford to attend your show, give them a damn ticket! Fostering those relationships will ensure you have an advocate in all your future projects because you were willing to help them and meet them where they’re at.
“They will do this work for you.” As Napoleon says.
Don’t be Afraid to Get Scrappy
When you’re just starting out, don’t be above getting scrappy. Especially when it comes to engaging with media for press. I asked Napoleon how and when to approach media representatives about featuring you or your work. His response?
“By any means necessary.”
Back to the planning phase of your next project, it will behoove you to include in that plan a list of media representatives and outlets you want to engage with. This way, you can start building relationships with people before you need to ask them for a favor (specifically the favor of featuring you or sharing your work in some capacity).
“Get them however you can and start the conversation however you can.”
Even if it’s seeing that they’re attending an event on social media and showing up to that event. Do what you need to do to start those relationships because they will be invaluable in the future and could flourish into beautiful, long-term partnerships.
But, remember, if they don’t want to engage with you, move on.
Treat Media People Like Fellow Artists
One more tip about building relationships with media representatives – treat them like fellow artists.
“Writers [YouTubers, etc.] are kind of in the same boat that we are as creatives and as artists. They’re gigging just as much as we are… You never know when someone’s going to change publications, etc. But, if you have the person, you have the relationship.”
Imagine the shoe is on the other foot. Napoleon suggests asking yourself how you might respond to a stranger reaching out to you the way you are to this media representative. Don’t get too frustrated if you don’t hear back or you get a vague response. They’re gigging and managing multiple projects and trying to market themselves and doing all the things you and I are doing as artists.
Change Course When You Need To
A big reason we set goals and ways to measure those goals is so we know when we need to make a shift in our efforts. If you’re not reaching the right people or making significant progress toward your goals you probably need to change what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, or the way you’re doing it.
Maybe if your general aesthetic is very polished and you’re going for a very finished, refined look, those process photos aren’t aligning with your work. That doesn’t necessarily mean process photos have to go entirely, but maybe you need to better align them with your overall aesthetic.
Or perhaps your messaging isn’t speaking in the right tone. Or you need to focus more on connecting with media that reaches your target audience rather than broadcasting on your social channels where your following is largely your friends and colleagues.
Let your goals be the guiding principal for your marketing efforts to get the biggest impact.
Sometimes Changing Course Means Changing Your Goals
Remember when we talked about aligning your marketing goals with your project goals? Well, as you probably know (all too well), your project goals might change as you flesh out your work. And just as your project goals may change, your marketing goals may change as well.
Thought your piece was about community building but turns out to be about a wider societal issue you’d like to convey? This shift in gears in your work should be reflected in your marketing.
“If you’re selling [your audience] something, or telling them a story, or showing them something, that’s completely unrelated [to the outcome of your project] there might be some disappointment down the line when they get to the work and it’s not related.”
This all goes back to the first point of looking at marketing as an extension of your work rather than an afterthought. Your marketing should directly reflect the aesthetic, concepts, medium, and stories inherent in the work itself. This can be a hard reality for both artists and marketers to face. But if you’re willing to make an honest reassessment of your work and marketing efforts and pivot when necessary, your audience will thank you for it and be more engaged and delighted because of it.
Most Importantly…
Above all else, Napoleon shared these four takeaways for a winning marketing mindset:
Be Open and Experiment
Like art, marketing is all about trial and error. You didn’t get to where you are today as an artist by being perfect from the start and you’re marketing won’t get you to where you want to go upon sending out that first IG post. Be open to failing and be ready to experiment with new types of content, messaging, and maybe even channels until you find that sweet spot that resonates with your intended audience.
Time is Your Friend
“There are things that people have been working on for years, but you didn’t see the groundwork. And then they appear and you’re like, ‘oh, they came out of nowhere.’ Actually, they’ve been building this for a long time.”
“Time is your friend, not your enemy.”
In short – be patient and persistent. Don’t expect overnight success.
Trust Your Instincts
“Trust yourself and your instincts and your process.”
Don’t constantly second-guess yourself. Trust your instincts and – as said above – be open to making pivots when it’s not working.
When We Rise, We All Rise Together
Just because you’re not getting the engagement you want doesn’t mean you’re a failure. There are likely thousands of other artists struggling with similar challenges.
“It’s important to not cut people down or even be hard on yourself, or to, you know, play the jealousy game… Give yourself the opportunity to be a human and try things and fail.”
Your Artful Effort
Napoleon encourages everyone reading this to see how you can incorporate marketing into your work and as an extension of your work. I’ll go even further and challenge you to create three social media posts or one email for your list this week. Speak the same language as your work and speak directly to your target audience. Take this action then comment below to let us know how it went!
Further Reading
Capacity Interactive is a marketing firm specifically for arts marketers who puts out amazing, educational content that you should be following. Napoleon suggests getting on their email list, attending their workshops, listening to their podcast, and reading their blog.
