What The Cure can teach us about marketing in 2024
Stefan Thomas
Professional Speaker for Business Events and Conferences | Keynote Speaker | Conference Speaker | Leadership & Communication Skills Trainer | Bestselling Author
Hi,
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s been pretty difficult to miss that The Cure have released their long anticipated latest album, sixteen years since their last release.
One of the biggest rock bands in the world, and yet they are out there publicising the album constantly.
It was difficult to switch on BBC TV or Radio last weekend and not hear about it, with a whole evening on BBC2 given over to The Cure, and Radio 2 and 6Music and The Rock Show with Daniel P Carter all heavily featuring live music from The Cure with a reminder that they have a new album out.
The Cure have got quite a few fans worldwide. They could have released this album secretly and still sold millions. Word would have got out, their 6.6 MILLION Facebook followers would have started chatting, and lots and lots and lots of people would have bought the album.
Instead of that, it appears that they’ve been flat out. With media appearances, live appearances (that I’m not at all jealous I didn’t get no, nope, not me
) and the record reviewed in newspapers and music journals all over the world.
A band with a 48 year history, with 6.6 million followers on here alone, who don’t need the sales and would have got the sales even if they’d done nothing at all to promote the record and yet they’ve been flat out.
And small business owners with a couple of hundred followers think they’re going to sell out their course with one Facebook post?
Effort is currency. If you’re not prepared to put the effort in to sell your stuff, why should anyone put the effort in to buy it?
Robert Smith has hardly had time to brush his hair, he’s been so busy promoting this album.
If you’ve got something to promote (and if you’re in business you have) you’re probably not doing enough to promote it. Your fans won’t mind that you’re promoting your stuff really hard, and there are loads of people out there who don’t even know they are your fans yet. When everyone knows you exist, then you’re done, until then, time to promote a little more.
I hope you're having a great networking week,
Stef
PS - I originally published this article over on Facebook, where I publish an awful lot of networking and business advice. If you don't already - you can FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK from this link.
PPS - if you want to work with me, and learn how to win more sales from your networking - including your online networking, The Networking Success Programme is back in December - just in time for you to hit the ground running in 2025, you can sign up here - https://networkingsuccessprogramme.online/
Partner @ Konnect Partnership | Senior Marketing Consultant
1 周Great piece Stef! You're so right, it's elbow grease that brings in the lucca!
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1 周I agree with the point about effort to promote. I think there is also the challenge about how to make that effort achieve the best result. For example, all effort on LinkedIn, split effort across multiple social media platforms, etc.
You’re absolutely right Stefan
Love The Cure. Lots of good stuff now on BBC iplayer. Sawthem a couple of years ago on their last tour
I make sense of the numbers for busy business owners. Top 10 Enterprise Nation Advisor. Multi-Award Winning Kinder Digital Accountants. Xero MVP. Love Zumba ?? Let's Talk!
1 周I've been following everything Stefan, as an original goth (showing my age!) You'll most likely know that they also got everyone involved on Spotify. Releasing just one track "Alone" from the album, and encouraging you to click to get notified when the album was released. Then they released one more track... so tantalising! And then a countdown to the album release, I couldn't wait! Robert Smith still sounds amazing, and he's such a lovely down to earth chap too. They've certainly got their marketing nailed, and know where their fans hang out. Lots to learn from them ??