The Manifesto

01.

No Regrets

The goal of marketing is to help people make decisions that—with 20/20 hindsight—they’re glad they made. Under no circumstance should they regret making a purchase, opening an email, listening to a podcast episode, or engaging with you in any other way due to your marketing.

02.

Treat People Like People

Not numbers. Not “leads”. Not faceless, nameless avatars. When you get to know your individual clients, customers, and audience members better, you can market to them with respect, empathy, and generosity. And when you do that, our marketing works better. Whodda thunk?

03.

F*CK The Fine Print

Make it big. Make it bold. Stand behind your decisions and your work. If you promote a sponsor or an affiliate link or store their personal data, make it unmistakably obvious and give them the choice to make educated decisions with all the information.

04.

Frontload Your Effort

The single hardest part of marketing is creating an offer—be it a podcast, product, or anything else—that people can’t help but pay attention to, gobble up, and talk about. Spend the time (certainly months, possibly years) obsessing over this fundamental aspect of marketing upfront and you’ll be rewarded later with an offer that requires less time, effort, and money to market forever. Gloss over this step and you’ll be stuck forever slogging through the hardest, most expensive, most exhausting type of marketing imaginable. Take your pick. 

05.

Tactics Are Amplifiers

Not enablers of growth. Which means if your show (or business) isn’t growing, you’ve got bigger problems than just finding the “right marketing tactic” (see previous step). Collaborations, cross-promos, podcast guesting, SEO, ads and more can amplify existing, consistent growth. But if your show isn’t growing organically, you’re simply pouring gas on a damp pile of logs.

06.

Everything matters

Every touchpoint communicates something about you, your brand, and what people can expect from you. From your audio quality to cover art to episode structure and vocal presentation. From your website to social profiles to emails and Zoom background. From your live interactions to your physical appearance to your clothes and your haircut. Craft your touchpoints with mindfulness and intention.

07.

Nothing Matters

There are very few mistakes so catastrophic as to instantly consign you to failure. Nor any one thing that will lead to singular sweeping victory. Instead, it is the slow, steady accumulation of actions, interactions, and progress—in one direction or the other—that will determine your fate.

08.

Less But Better

Contrary to appearances, you don’t need to do it all to market your work successfully. In fact, there’s no quicker path to mediocrity and frustration than trying to do so. Rather, the shortest path to success is to eschew almost everything people tell you you’re “supposed” to be doing and focus instead on pouring an unreasonable amount of time into a limited number of activities… and becoming truly exceptional at them in the process. Exceptional stands out. Exceptional keeps people coming back. Exceptional gets people talking. Average simply isn’t enough.

09.

Give Everything A Job

Every aspect of your marketing should be in service of something. From your podcast as a whole, to each individual episode, to your newsletter, YouTube channel, lead magnet(s), social media presence, to the cadence and content of all of the above. Effective marketing treats each as a specific means to a specific end. Even better if you can also identify and align each endeavour with a specific job your audience needs done. Why this? Why now? Why in this way? An effective strategy is built by asking and answering these questions regularly.

10.

Longest Game Wins

Good marketing is about building relationships. There’s no better way to ruin a relationship than short-term thinking. Cash grabs, clickbait, and high-pressure sales might work now, but over the long run, they burn your audience… and along with it, you. Remember that any rewards that can be reaped today are dwarfed by potential future rewards that compound when nurtured with patience, trust, and generosity. Act like you’ll be an active participant in your audience’s lives for the next several decades. Because if you play your cards right, you might be.

11.

Cry, Laugh, Live, Feel

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” Robert Frost knew a thing or two about resonating with his readers, and the same principle applies to marketing. Do work and marketing that lights you up. That makes you laugh, cry, and crank up your favourite song to air drum along to. Good marketing makes people feel. And that feeling has to start with you.

12.

The Best Marketer Is You

People connect with people. This is especially true when it comes to podcasting. And while you can certainly outsource some aspects of marketing execution, never forget: You can’t outsource building genuine connections, genuine relationships, and genuine trust with genuine people. Only you can do that. And if you can’t, none of the other stuff will work anyway.

13.

Nobody Knows Anything

“Not one person knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.” So said William Goldman, writer of The Princess Bride (among many other films) of the movie industry. The same applies to marketing. No one has the answers about what will work. So if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. It’s up to you, me, and each of us to try, test, and figure it out for ourselves. This is an encouraging thought.