Marketing Lessons from Deadmau5

I follow 5 people on Twitter. Troy Aikman, my friend Brad, Matt Smith, Pete Tong, and Joel Zimmerman (aka, Deadmau5).

That last guy’s name is pronounced Deadmouse. He has 5.8 million Facebook “Likes” and over 1.1 million Twitter followers. He’s an artist. Creates music. Wears a mousehead.

You know, normal stuff.

Joel/Deadmau5 also does some pretty cool things.

In addition to the regular ‘rock star stuff’ like touring around the world and posting photos on his FB page, he also personally interacts with his fans (his ‘horde’, as he calls them) via Ustream – that’s where I got the idea to do Facebook QnA sessions on my pages.

Sometimes he even posts relatively insane ramblings on his Twitter, FB, or Tumblr accounts that cause massive amounts of controversy.

One time he sparred with Madonna because he felt she was promoting drug use, and this feud ended up in the mainstream media.

Last week Joel posted an epic article on marketing…and how he doesn’t do it.

But the thing is, he does. And he does it so well that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

In fact, Joel does it better than all the people in Internet Marketing land can do it, even though they’ve paid “gurus” thousands of dollars to learn how to do it.

Joel/DM even does it better than the gurus who teach people how to do it.

Why/How?

Because Joel actually cares.

Here’s his article…I’ve edited it for ‘clarity’ and to remove f-bombs, etc.

What he says is better than what you’d ever get from a so-called ‘social media guru’. Simply because Joel’s cool, and they’re not.

Bottom line of Joel’s ramblings:

Now over to Joel/Deadmau5 (Tip #3 is most important):

Step #1 – Be cool.
Step #2 – Wear mousehead (<=== OPTIONAL)
Step #3 – Create horde and change world.

“Marketing is such a vile term to me for some reason.

In fact, every time I hear it I probably cringe harder than your grandma would if she ever heard the word ‘f***’.

I’m serious.  And yet, upon surfing the interwebs, and reading articles about me…I sometimes stumble across these “music marketing” type blogs that are all about, “oh his marketing is this and that and he does this and that”

The truth is I’m simply following a few simple guidelines really, I’m no marketing genius… at least not deliberately anyway….well, whatever. let me scribble down some thoughts.

If you’re creating things, you need a few things to cement yourself. You’ll have your twitter account, facebook, tumblr, etc etc…

So you have all these little conduits at your disposal to reach out to your followers, whether it’s 10 friends, 100 fans, or a ****ing epic 1 million plus cult following, it really doesn’t matter, it all applies relatively.

Tip #1. You need to make a world.

Yes. I know, that was vague… lemme explain.

Let’s say you have a rollercoaster in your backyard… which is rad, and all the people from around your block want to come and at LEAST check it out – or ride it.

And it’ll be the hot thing in the neighborhood for about a week. But once everyone’s had a go…they’ll lose interest, go home and play Sega instead. I see this happen to SO many people…it’s ridiculous.

Well, what you need then is a @*%#ing theme park… and you AND your content are the theme. You with me here?

Now, people come into your theme park, and holy @*%#, check out all this stuff…lots of rides, no two the same, some merchandise here and there, special events, dolphins through hoops and all that great stuff.

You want people to come to your theme park and feel like they’re a part of this world of yours.

Tip #2. Don’t overkill on the promotional stuff.

I don’t read spam and the type of people I’d like to have in my theme park don’t either.

Nor do I come blaring on the theme parks PA system every 20 seconds hyping the same ride over and over again.

Also a bad look to take flyers to other peoples theme parks and start plastering posters all over the place.

(CB says…I.e. Don’t go spamming other people’s blogs, FB pages, etc…and make sure you deliver great content in your emails, not just pitches.)

3. You are not fictitious.

From what I’ve learned, the best way to make a guest in your theme park feel involved or just as much a part of your world as you are is to avoid being invisible.

Get out there and immerse yourself in the world you created.

You’ll have fun, it’s your theme park for goodness sake.

(CB Note: He did not say ‘goodness’. I edited that.)

If you’re not having fun in the world you created, then you screwed something up and did it wrong.

Go jump on a few rides with your fans.

Sure there are times when you’ll need a little break here and there.

But listen, IU had my 7th birthday at a McDonald’s in Niagara Falls and in my naivety, I honestly and truly believed for a while that Ronald and the Hamburgler would show up.

They didn’t. And i was bummed, but if they did… man, I would have been a fan for life.

Anyway, the short version is basically…

a) Make an entire experience with your work…not just a name and a piece of work.

b) Make an interesting and unique experience, and people will want to come to be a part of it.

c) And the rest will just happen naturally.

Think about it.

The experience that is yours will “market” itself.

***********

Do you get it?

I hope so.

Passion + Content + Value + ‘Creating Your World’ = Success

Don’t hold back.

Deliver the message you were put here to share,

Craig Ballantyne

“If you take action, you will be judged. There’s no way around it. The alternative, of course, is much safer. To be ignored. Up to you.” – Seth Godin