Misadventures in Marketing 🗣️

Note: I am not going to name any specific names to people who I had bad experiences with. I don't want any responsibility or backlash that comes with people raging on the internet. Learning and reading about marketing is one thing, actually doing it is hell. Incredibly boring labor with seemingly small or no return. But that is the cost of learning about it. And the many technologies and methods of it. Whatever you read on marketing maybe outdated.

One thing I learned quickly is that marketing is not for the faint of heart. You have to be the squeaky wheel and put yourself out there. You also have to deal with the fact that people do not like marketers. Here are some of my experiences. Although mostly digital.

My first experiences weren't really marketing for the purpose of selling. Instead I was trying to share my free slideshow application Drawesome with artists. It did not end well. I spent a lot of time on Reddit as it was known for being an art center. I had never really used Reddit. I once had a cousin who introduced me to Reddit around October of 2009. I remember it being mostly for memes.

I wanted to answer art questions of others. To help people who got stuck or needed some advice. I ran into the same question again. It wasn't until my first few issues with admins. I had one good experience in which an admin nicely asked me not to talk about my application going forward. Not sure why. Just a rule. Other admins on different boards had no problem swearing at me then banning me. No warning. Just swearing then ban. I messaged them and they refused to talk back. I then continued to answer questions but had stopped receiving responses. It appears I ran into something I never experienced before. It appears I was shadowbanned across reddit. Shadow banning means that it looks like I can post and interact with others, but the reality is that my questions either have to get approved by an admin or they never appear. Possibly in some cases they will never show up. My weird experience is that in some cases I had admins hint that this was the case. I can't confirm this fact because I don't know how Reddit works on the back end. These days even the r/drawabox is more closed off.

I don't think I will be using Reddit going forward. The experience hurt my perception. I do thank the admin for telling me about this issue via not reddit. I try to help others and I get shadow banned. Reddit appears to have just wasted my time. I believe reddit is only as good as those who run it. I think reddit just wants free labor these days. Most online platforms are like this these days. I still like wetcanvas and certain Discord servers.

Sending emails was another method I used to talk about drawesome. I spent weeks creating an email list and boy did I hear back from people. One teacher actually asked me to print out an advertisement to the free app. So I sent it to her and got some analytics feedback through it. I think Aaron Blaise of creatureartteacher.com may have discussed the app. But I can't tell because I just received some traffic from it. Other than that, I mostly did not hear back.

I heard back from a comic art school and they appeared to be insulted because they appeared to think I knew more than them. I didn't claim that at all. I wish I knew what they did. Oh well... I emailed a few art organizations like places where people go to figure draw and they did not like hearing from me. I mostly got things like never email us again. Museums and art centers I mostly heard the same thing.

I emailed some YouTubers, but they wanted large payments to even review my app. But I mostly got feedback like I only promote what I actually use. Makes sense to me. I had also emailed models, but those appeared to have gone the worst. The art models I emailed were a different breed.

From art models perspective, I understand more now. But only because I talked to a professional art model organizer in New York. The art model experience is difficult labor. Taxing on the body and painful over time. Overall low pay and the work isn't constant. Artists appear to want to draw from women more than men. Models also can't work for long periods of time in a day. Just like a half hour to an hour. Holding poses is difficult.

My other experiences with art models were similar. They wanted to be fully in charge of their work. Makes sense to me. I think the world was a bit different in the early days of the internet. But I feel like a lot of trust was broken down over time.

I feel like most people feel taken advantage of now. I think everyone being connected to the internet all the time has made this more apparent. It is like everyone is trying to screw everyone over. It is a bit of a bad state to be in.

I talked to a art model photographer who had the rights to sell model photos. The idea was that I would bundle my applications with art model photos 18+. I required two things by law, Model release forms and proof of 18 plus years of age. I had so many deals fall through because the provider of the photos could often not provide these. I even had a lawyer write up a contract for me. Thanks to him! It was difficult. I got so far, but often the provider didn't have the model release form. I had another deal fall through because the photographer wasn't interested. Of course I was paying. The guy emailed me often getting my name wrong. Rough world. Haha

When I talked to an art model studio organizer in New York, I learned a lot. I had a phone call. Originally she had thought my apps were bad. Didn't like the digital aspect. Thought learning from anything digital was bad and studying from life is the best way. I think both have ways you can learn. But never copy something and claim it is your work. Not everyone these days has the ability to travel either. It was from talking to her on the phone that I learned a lot about the awful lives art models go through. Models tend not to talk about this. It appears art models have a slew of other issues like facing harassment, payment negotiation, rights to their images, fighting to keep a low body fat amount. Many art models join an organization to act on their behalf as well. To protect them and help them. It makes sense to me to have documentation and ratings as well.

I had many art models reach out to me to be affiliates, but the affiliate marketing structure just doesn't pay well. Even once you have high traffic to your site, you pay your weight in bandwidth costs that it often ends up ruining websites. Why? Because you often have to add more website banner ads to your website. This causes site slowdown and is often just annoying. Although I try to hyper optimize my website for a low footprint. I am also not running this website using a complex architecture. Just html, css, and js. Thanks to those models who reached out, but it just doesn't look like a good model. I feel like using affiliate links is often trying to trick people into buying something. Maybe it works for someone out there, but I think it violates trust. On my website I clearly mark when something is an affiliate or how it supports this website.

I once talked to a guy from the United Kingdom on a Zoom clal who had model photos to sell. I don't believe it went further. We had a long talk. He made fanart for a living. Good for him. Always happy to find an artist that is surviving.

Be aware of the sunk cost fallacy. If something isn't working, maybe a market doesn't exist. Don't get stuck forever trying to sell it. But many people fail many times until any success. Keep on trying as many people give up after their first failure.

I think if you want to succeed in marketing, you should do the following things. Have something that people want to purchase and not find for free. Have a couple channels you want to advertise on and try marketing on them. Find what marketing channels work best and try to focus on one. Having your own website is a must, if selling maybe try Gumroad or Shopify. Building an emailing list is a must as well. Just do it. Make sure you can get a patent on your product as well. But just because you have one doesn't mean you can fight to enact it. Lawyers cost money. Good luck!

About Lars Barnabee 🐝 hey that's me