Stop telling. Start showing. 

If your marketing feels like marketing, you’re probably doing it wrong. 

Telling someone your product, service, or song is “available now” will most likely fall on deaf ears. 

With the exception of the true diehards who look forward to everything you do (always a small percentage), most people aren’t spending their time waiting for you to tell them anything is “ready”. 

No, most everyone is quietly going about their business, responding only to things that add value to their lives. 

If it’s a new product, it has to be something they want or need. 

If it’s a service, it better solve a problem. 

And if it’s a song, first and foremost, it has to entertain. 

So the last thing you want to do is tell someone they can get their hands on that thing they haven’t actually been looking forward to. 

Because odds are they haven’t been looking forward to it at all. 

Instead, try showing them why they should care in the first place. 

The thing isn’t the thing 

If I were trying to sell you a bottle of ketchup, the last thing I would want to talk about is the ketchup itself. 

What I would want to do is show you how much better life can be with ketchup. 

Backyard barbecues, game day, family time, mom’s meatloaf, hot dogs and hamburgers, etc. 

Doesn’t that sound like a life worth living? 

Marketing, at its core, is a game of emotion. 

Someone has to feel something for your product or service before they act on it. 

If a person can’t see themselves experiencing their desired outcome—even if subconsciously—they will never make moves. 

So you have to show them what their world could be like with your product or service in it. 

This is why Coca-Cola commercials always seem to feature people smiling—the message is that they’re happy because of Coke. 

Because Coke makes life better. 

It’s why every Bud Light commercial seems to feature friends hanging out. 

Because Bud Light and friendship go hand in hand. 

If it seems obvious, it is. 

Because it works. 

Entertainment and intent  

The single biggest function of a piece of content or an ad is to get the viewer to stop what they’re doing and pay attention. 

If you can’t accomplish this first step, nothing else matters. 

Same for traditional business, same for art and music. 

And all of it ultimately leads to one thing. 

Emotional resonance. 

Music is first meant to entertain. 

Only once it entertains can it resonate and connect. 

So with marketing, every single piece of content you post and every ad you run should stop someone and entertain them. 

Even if only momentarily. 

Once they are entertained, only then can they be expected to go deeper and find that emotional resonance and connection with the song. 

This is why saying “available now” doesn’t work. 

It presupposes that someone already has an emotional connection to your body of work, which they likely don’t. 

Saying a song or album is “out now” might work for wildly successful bands and artists, but they have a large, built-in group of fans who eagerly await everything they do. 

Their fans have learned that they can depend on their favorite band or artist to deliver that emotional resonance, sight unseen (or unheard, in this case) time and time again. 

For the average independent artist though, this isn’t the case. 

That’s why entertainment is so important. 

You’re working to build a fanbase to start, not nurture one. 

Nurturing comes later. 

You begin by building trust through entertainment. 

So the next time you put out new music (or release a new product or service), start by giving your audience a reason to care rather than just assuming that they do.