Step One Make Noise Step Two Profit

The only marketing strategy that’s ever worked for me is just to make noise continuously. This is not something that comes naturally to me. If I had my way, the world would simply know that I’m a genius, that my writing is spun intellectual sugar-gold, that I’m the greatest writing coach ever, and so on. But unfortunately this element of global telepathy is lacking. So I have to Tweet a lot and post a lot.

My primary piece of evidence for this: my coaching practice went from a side thing to a full-time job after I did thirty posts in thirty days in January. A month of medium-quality writing was enough to get my business off the ground. I still find this crazy in retrospect but it’s what happened.

This is also a good strategy for making friends on the internet, which is something you should want to do. I do both at the same time! Marvel at my efficiency!

Making noise works for two reasons. The first, obviously, is that it gives people more opportunities to find you. But the second—and this is the weird part that I didn’t initially understand—is that it reminds people who already know you exist, that you exist. Somehow this fact becomes more resonant with repetition.

I hear this basic story from clients again and again: “I read something you wrote in February, and I thought about working with you, and then I saw something you wrote later, in June, and then I decided to get in touch with you.” The idea of working with me has just become more palatable over time. Weird, right? And this works on me too, I’ve realized. I’m much more likely to buy a product or service that’s been dangled in front of me multiple times.

Familiarity creates credibility. I don’t quite know what to attribute this to. Perhaps it’s simply that people have a lot of things to remember, and repeating yourself is the only way to provoke further contemplation of your existence. Maybe simple endurance signals that I’m not a total fraud or disaster—I haven’t been sued, or run away with my clients’ money, or whatever. 

Advertisers know this, which is why you tend to see the same ad on Facebook a few time. It’s called retargeting. It’s just a law of human physics. You make peace with it or you don’t. I’ve accepted that it is the cost I must pay to do a job I genuinely love. I don’t have to wake up in the morning when I don’t want to, and I can help my clients achieve spiritual and artistic progress, but I must make noise continuously. This is noise, and tomorrow, there will be more.