The Rule of 5 Marketing for Artists

The Rule of 5 Marketing for Artists

Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for Your Soul fame is well-known for having created The Rule of 5.

The concept is simple – do five things per day that help you reach your goal.

Let’s say you were interested in losing weight and getting in shape. So, your five items for the day could look something like this:

  • Get eight hours of sleep
  • Go for a 30-minute walk
  • Make healthy meals for the day
  • Lift weights for 15 minutes
  • Drink apple cider vinegar

It works much the same way with marketing – identify five items you can do today to promote your visual art, music, poetry, or otherwise.

Here we’ll look at how you can apply The Rule of 5 to your promotional work as a creative.

How Does The Rule of 5 Marketing Work?

So, you’ve got a new painting, a piece of music, maybe a book, and you’re interested in promoting it. What next?

It’s amazing how, when an artist shifts from creative activity to marketing activity – even if they have previous experience promoting their works – they stall out and lose sight of the goal.

I’m speaking from personal experience, because this is essentially what happened to me as I went to work on promoting my best-selling book, The Music Entrepreneur Code in 2020.

I’m happy to report that the book became a small success for me despite my initial indecisiveness, but that’s only because of the connections I had built up to that point, and the momentum I’d created with my marketing efforts.

We should be so lucky, but most of the time, we won’t be. Marketing requires intentionality.

Marketing requires intentionality. Click To Tweet

So, we need a framework. Not necessarily a framework as rigid as a checklist (although that can also be helpful), but a starting point for our marketing efforts.

The Rule of 5 Marketing is a great framework to apply. It’s defined without being too rigid, intentional without being too constrained.

I have my five daily tasks stored inside Evernote:

The Rule of 5 to-do list

The act of coming up with five ideas daily focuses the mind on forward momentum. And executing these ideas leads to real results (also see next section).

The act of coming up with five ideas daily focuses the mind on forward momentum. Click To Tweet

Why The Rule of 5 Marketing?

Scope creep is a real thing (it applies to marketing as much as it does to our projects), and it doesn’t just show up in the work we do for others. It can easily creep into our own creative ventures as well.

And scope creep is the biggest enemy of consistency. It will see us executing 11 things one day, one the next day, three the day after. Before we know it, we’ve burned out and lost all momentum.

The Rule of 5 Marketing keeps us in check. It sets in stone what you’re going to be doing today, tomorrow, and the day after.

And the game is about as hard or as easy as you make it, so you may as well make it winnable.

Plus, it works.

While working my Rule of 5 Marketing plan, I recently shared a post on Facebook that got more engagement than anything I’ve recently shared.

Viral Facebook post

32 likes, eight comments, one share.

Now, there are plenty of people that get way more engagement on their posts. I’m not much of a Facebook guy, so for me, the above is the equivalent of going viral.

There’s obviously something to be said for the content (picture of me holding up a scribble) that contributed to the success of this piece (it paves the way for future content pieces too). But if all I got were a few likes on Facebook, it wouldn’t be worthwhile.

These efforts, however, are sending a steady flow of traffic to my new beginner guitar program, Chord King Course. My promotional efforts are producing results!

Create a plan, execute against it, have faith, and you will see results from your efforts.

Create a plan, execute against it, have faith, and you will see results from your efforts. Click To Tweet

I’m Still Having Trouble Coming up with Marketing Ideas – What Should I do?

The beauty of The Rule of 5 Marketing is that you make the commitment first and then follow through with relevant actions. So, that means once you’ve made the commitment, ideas are sure to follow.

That said, I know it’s easy to get stuck. So, here are some free and low-cost ideas you can implement NOW (they will require some elbow grease):

  • Write a blog post and share it on your WordPress blog, Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Steemit, CloutPub, or anywhere lese you can think of
  • Guest post for sites in your niche
  • Record an audio and share it on Anchor
  • Make guest appearances on podcasts
  • Make a video and upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, Odysee, DTube, Rumble, BitChute, Brighteon, or elsewhere
  • Request to appear in other people’s videos to talk about your products
  • Share your works on social media
  • Write a press release and share it for free on PRLog
  • Run a contest or giveaway
  • Send a sample of your product to influencers or experts in your niche (e.g., send your book if you’re an author, CD if you’re a musician, a quick doodle if you’re a visual artist, etc.)
  • Pull a publicity stunt, engage in guerrilla marketing, go on Tweet storms, go live on Instagram, set up a community of independent artists interested in promoting each other’s works, and more

Wait, 5 Things Per Day? Can I Take Weekends off?

That’s up to you.

I’ll be honest in sharing that with my recent promotion of the Chord King Course beginner guitar program, I have been taking weekends off.

That said, there’s no rule saying you can’t promote seven days per week…

And there’s also no rule saying you can’t choose more than five items per day.

I blog daily, so that tends to form the foundation of the various types of content I need to fulfill on to distribute across various social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Medium, Tealfeed, BitClout, Wisdom, and elsewhere.

Although I don’t hesitate in sharing everywhere I possibly can, the biggest movers for me, historically, have been Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, in that order.

And if I were to 80/20 that, Facebook is responsible for more traffic than anything you can name – Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Medium, Pinterest, or otherwise.

Additional Resources

You can also read about The Rule of 5 in Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles.

If you’re stumped for inspiration and real-life examples of marketing in action, my book, The New Music Industry details more options than most people are even aware of, and much of the content is applicable to entrepreneurship, freelancing, and just about any artistic endeavor you can name.

Final Thoughts

If you’d like to work with me to come up with your own The Rule of 5 Marketing plan, get in touch. I don’t come cheap, but I can help you quickly identify activity that’s going to lead to results in your marketing.

What are you taking away from this? How will you be implementing The Rule of 5 Marketing in your artistic career?

My Instagram Accounts

My Instagram Accounts

For today’s Organization Sunday post, I wanted to share my various Instagram accounts with you.

After all, organization often includes grouping things together in a logical, orderly way (which isn’t to say things don’t change or fall back into disorder from time to time).

Are all the following Instagram accounts of equal importance to me? No.

Do I keep all of them updated? No.

Would you even be interested in following all these accounts? Unlikely.

But rest assured, if I have something of especial importance to share (announcement, new product, an exciting opportunity, new collaboration, etc.), I tend to broadcast most everywhere.

For more great updates, be sure to subscribe to my daily blog.

My Instagram Accounts

@davidandrewwiebe – This is my primary Instagram account. Although my posts are mostly focused on the work, I do at Music Entrepreneur HQ, I like to make posts about guitars, podcasts, motivation, books, and food as well.

@musicentrepreneurhq – Most of what I share on @davidandrewwiebe I also share on this account. The @musicentrepreneurhq account doesn’t always get the love it deserves, but I would appreciate your support regardless.

@yourmusicmatterslive – I created the Your Music Matters Instagram account to support the community project endeavors I was undertaking in 2018 / 2019. Today, this Instagram account mostly acts as a broadcasting tool.

@creativeentrepreneurhq – You’ll learn about some of my work with The Indie YYC in a moment, but I used to host a series called Creative Entrepreneur and set up the Creative Entrepreneur HQ website and socials to tie in with the series. Today, this Instagram account is mostly used as a syndication / distribution tool.

@foodiebyrequest – My friends and family requested I create this Instagram account because they wanted to see all the delicious food I was eating. Such adventures, though, have mostly been on hold through the pandemic. But it does go to show just how much of a foodie I am.

@chordkingcourse – The latest Instagram account I created to support the ongoing promotion of my new beginner guitar program, Chord King Course.

Joint Instagram Accounts

@theindieyyc – As a co-founder of The Indie YYC, I’m responsible for a bi-weekly series known as ARTiculate, in which I create provocations and stimulate conversations around topics artists are interested in. The Indie YYC is also home to other great hosts and creative series that will appeal to you as an artist / creative. To find out whether you can participate in our ongoing content creation efforts (we often feature a variety of artists), like our Facebook page.

Weekly Digest: January 29, 2022

Weekly Digest: January 29, 2022

Hey creator!

👉 Friendly reminder… Your week is what you make of it. It doesn’t matter what you’ve encountered this past week, you can get something from everything if you have the right mindset. Just look at me. I had to work until 3:30 AM Thursday night!

📄 What eBooks am I working on in 2022? Which ones have I completed already? Find out here

🖥️ Tired of Facebook? Not seeing any traction on Twitter? YouTube got you down? I’m finding these four platforms are driving higher quality results RIGHT NOW.

🎙️ It was a BIG week for audio content:

(I kept to my promise of publishing three episodes of The New Music Industry Podcast this week! Devour them NOW.)

👩‍💻 Question of the week: “What are you most excited about in your artistic career for 2022?” Go answer it!

✏️ Here’s another scribble for the week:

Changes to Music Entrepreneur HQ in 2022

💻 I’m still having fun on BitClout. When will you be joining me? We can elevate each other by interacting with each other’s content! It really is the better Twitter.

👂 I’ve been going live on Wisdom each week. Download the app, follow me, and let’s interact!

🎸 Did you have high hopes of starting the guitar in 2021, but didn’t get around to it? Don’t let another year slip by. Commit to your dreams by registering with the Chord King Course program immediately.

📘 The Music Entrepreneur Code – 2022 Edition is still staring at you, wondering when you’re planning to pick it up and read it.

👋 Special shoutout to Wolf of Gaki Music!

🙏 Also showing my appreciation for Brian Bob Young today.

And there’s always more where this came from

💪 Thank you for your creativity and generosity, titan. I’m rooting for you.

TIYYC: ARTiculate for January 28, 2022

TIYYC: ARTiculate for January 28, 2022

TIYYC: ARTiculate for January 28, 2022

Today’s ARTiculate question is:

What are you most excited about in your artistic career in 2022?

Share you answer and be a part of the discussion:

We can’t wait to hear from you!

What is The Indie YYC ARTiculate?

I host a bi-weekly series with The Indie YYC called ARTiculate.

Every two weeks, I create a new conversation around topics artists are passionate about and share posts on our Facebook page and Instagram profile.

If you’d like to learn more about The Indie YYC creative community, click on the above link, and don’t forget to follow us on our socials.

TT 002 – Chord King Course Beginner Guitar Program

TT 002 – Chord King Course Beginner Guitar Program

Music by Mepa_ExyZ from Pixabay

Subscribe to the Music Entrepreneur HQ YouTube channel

This week, I launched a beginner guitar program called the Chord King Course, and in this episode of Thought Thursday, I wanted to share why it was created, who it’s for, and what to expect on the inside.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going live on Wisdom, and I wanted to invite you to join the platform and follow me so you can tune in and ask questions.

This week’s episode is short and sweet, and I hope you enjoy it!

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Thanks for listening.