The Unconventional Marketing Strategy To Getting Noticed

What happens when you create something that you think is great, you put it out into the world, and no one responds to it? Typically, marketers will decide to just throw more money into their marketing efforts in order to get more eyeballs to see their product or to read their article. But when you’re not getting the attention you think your work deserves, it’s important that you do the opposite of this.

Don’t demand people’s attention

When it comes to marketing yourself and your ideas, it’s always better to have others market yourself for you. This means that you have to earn the attention you think your work deserves. If your work is mediocre, then understand that no amount of marketing will fix that. The individuals who demand people's attention by continuously pushing themselves on to people through their marketing won’t last long if their work isn’t good enough. This is because “self-promoters” tend to fade away when put up against those who have an actual message worth spreading.

The question then is, how do you earn people’s attention?

“Seek to be worth knowing rather than be well known”

Well the answer is not to create something and then aggressively put it out into the world. The goal is not to shout louder than everybody else by over promoting yourself and spamming people’s newsfeeds. Doing this consistently fails to work.

If you’re a writer, an entrepreneur, or a marketer, and you have ideas you want to share with the world, then here’s my advice: Say less, not more, because if you create something sub-par and you over promote it, then people will always feel disappointed. However, when you focus on creating something amazing, then when people find it, and they will find it because all great work does eventually get found, they’ll be overjoyed and they’ll want to share it with others.

Learn from Led Zeppelin’s marketing strategy

On November 8, 1971, Led Zeppelin decided to go against conventional marketing wisdom by doing two things: They made the greatest album they could possibly ever make and then they made it extremely hard for people to find by secretly releasing it without putting their name on it.

Why did they do this? Because Led Zeppelin wanted to prove that their music could stand up on its own. They wanted to prove that people would still buy their music even if it didn’t have their name on it.

Despite those that disagreed with the strategy, Led Zeppelin was right. Fans began finding the mysterious album in stores, which was an album that included songs like “Stairway To Heaven,” which is said to be the most requested radio song of all time.

People were so ecstatic about what they had found that they began sharing it with others. The album became an immediate best seller. It became number 1 in the United Kingdom for 62 weeks, it remained in the U.S. Top 40 for three years, and is still considered to be one of the greatest albums ever made.

Parting thoughts

When you have an idea, a message, or a product you want to share, don’t over-promote it. Instead, take your time making it remarkable. This is because if you’re uninteresting, if your product doesn’t solve a problem, or if your content doesn’t resonate with a group of individuals, then people will always ignore you. However, when you’re the opposite of all these things, people will naturally be happy to talk about you with others. If your work is good enough, then you’ll get the explosive word of mouth that your work truly deserves.

Connect Deeper

If you resonated with this article then join thousands of others who have subscribed to my book club where I talk about the best ideas from the books I read.

#StudentVoices

Edited by LinkedIn Campus Editor Miki Ding