Welcome back to The Club List, a newsletter about making a business out of what you love.

You voted already, yeah? If you didn’t, go do it by Tuesday. People have given a lot to be able to do that over the years.

A SXSW-related PSA is in order! This is the part of the year where I should tell you that if you’re planning to go to SXSW in March, we should talk. If you’re international, you don’t work with anyone US-based, and you are coming to SXSW, we should talk yesterday.

I’ve been to every SXSW repping clients on the ground since 2014, with the exception of this year when I was mid-exit from my agency. I’ve spent 16 hours on my feet producing a SXSW event, worked with too many artists and brands there to count, and consumed a preposterous amount of tacos around Austin. 2025 is the first year in which I have already made plans to be at SXSW, without any of my usual obligations.

If you’ve got work that needs done onsite or are considering it, let’s get creative. And let’s get to it well before January.

Today, we’re getting into one of my least-favorite things to spot in the wild: Bad Marketing Advice. How do you know what that is without being a marketer yourself? We’ll get to that.

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Bad Marketing Advice (and how to spot it)

A lot of times, I find myself stopped in my tracks by what is plainly just Bad Marketing Advice.

Sometimes, it appears in a corner of Reddit I didn’t expect (looking at you, r/musicmarketing - no, spending your entire budget on Meta ads isn’t good marketing, regardless of how effectively you tune it). Other times, it’s embedded in tutorial Reels, scammy ads, or in the comments section of something that wasn’t necessarily bad advice by itself.

And to further confuse anyone who isn’t well-versed in it, most people giving Bad Marketing Advice will insist very stubbornly that they are right. 

Why is this?

Well, the cool thing about marketing is, it’s a craft that can be performed in a few different ways, with a mindful approach. The bad thing about marketing is, it always evolves. A definitive “this is how you do marketing” book would be outdated in a year or two. This makes it rife for abuse by people who know you don’t get it.

So, because it is this breathing, opaque thing, Bad Marketing Advice can take root and spread. Here’s how I define this.

Bad Marketing Advice - as a proper, capitalized noun - tends to be couched in fundamentally correct stuff, but then say something breathtakingly wrong. I find that the worst examples start with a truth that an experienced operator would know, but then gradually veers away from it.

Here’s a real-world example I found the other day: 

“Music PR is not what you need until you have more of a following.”
(True! Demonstrates expertise, and also opens an argument.)

“People read music press now to deepen their relationship with existing artists. This has changed. You don’t really go to it to find new things.”
(Partial truth! While music press isn’t about New All The Time now, I still find new things in music press because I don’t love depending too much on algorithms over my own research. Music press also can urge me out of my comfort zone. I don’t spend 10 hours a day letting radio or a streaming platform run. Do you?)

And then, there it is:

“If you got the cover of Rolling Stone now but don’t have a following, you won’t see a spike from it.”
(Actual Bad Marketing Advice!)

So, let’s break this particular bit of advice down. It fails on a few levels, but that’s because it’s attempting to serve a larger argument.

First of all, yes, you would get “a spike” from being on the cover of Rolling Stone, because something that iconic sends any existing word of mouth into overdrive (and you can post about it, which is insane). Secondly, Rolling Stone is still in print, so that creates general awareness in a way that will boost anything else you do. And you’re right to not myopically chase the cover of a magazine, especially in 2024.

But in this case, Bad Marketing Advice is being dispensed because the person giving it has an agenda. The person giving it wants to challenge your ideas about what is correct, so that you will think you’re out of your depth and eventually hire them to work on building your following further. (“What do you mean I won’t see a spike from this? At all? What do you know that I don’t?”) So, it uses an iconic (if outdated) thing musicians historically want to circle back to their first point, which is roughly: don’t hire a publicist, hire me. And it does so in a way that’s easily put into a 30-second video.

Everyone, to be clear, has an agenda.

But not all agendas require exaggeration to make their core point, in an effort to get you to spend money. This one does. And this type of exaggeration is a good indicator that the “expert” giving it has a loose relationship with the truth.

You cannot trust people who either have a loose relationship with the truth, or who cannot admit they don’t know the answer to a question. Good marketing is this sort of mystery that I feel I am perpetually unpacking and investigating, made both of things that logically work and things that shouldn’t work but do. Cognitive flexibility is a prerequisite. Two truths can exist in marketing that sometimes don’t seem to agree, but do when you get proper context.

Keep that word context in mind. Let’s keep going.

Without cognitive flexibility, marketing is a world where bad actors, or even just charismatic goofs, have lots of room to dish out Bad Marketing Advice without much recourse. They get rewarded from this any time they are hired! And when whatever work you’re doing to promote yourself doesn’t have the results you expect, you need someone around who can help you know it’s time to pivot.

In other words, you need a truth-teller who cares less about being right and more about understanding the context of your situation.

Here’s how I would say what this person said, but without being Bad about it.

“Yes, you might see a spike in awareness from being on the cover of a big magazine. You probably won’t be on one, or even pitchable by a publicist for one, without more of a following. Think of what value your name adds to any partnership, no matter how temporary. Then, consider that publicity is one of several ways to help build and demonstrate that value, as part of a greater plan. Let’s consider some other options you might have.”

See the difference in how this is stated? Good marketing advice uses context to see the path forward, avoiding absolutes. Bad Marketing Advice puts context in the hands of the person talking, only, with plenty of absolutes.

Here’s an example of a Bad Marketing Advice-style argument, from a different industry.

Let’s say you have a savings account you wish to establish, but you want a more aggressive investment strategy. Would you go with a financial advisor who knows the right market funds to suggest and why, with management of your expectations? Or would you go with someone who claims to recognize that being careful with your money is healthy (true), so you should know that the stock market has higher returns than a savings account (partially true with some caveats), and investing in penny stocks gives you more potential for a return than investing in Apple (Bad Investment Advice)?

You may feel a sense of doubt there. A sense of needing to do some research. But consider the format of the argument itself. And then, consider what context you don’t have. Ask questions.

Be wary any time you see this format of advice:

1. Clear truth

2. Then partial or oversimplified truth

3. Then a dramatic analogy that sounds too absolute

What you actually need, always, is what a person giving you Bad Marketing Advice won’t give you: context.

Big analogies leave out context.

And the entire definition of marketing involves using context from what you already have to find, and then grow, an audience.

One Thing You Can Use Today

Zoom out.

When you find yourself in an uncertain professional period of any kind, the best way to dial in what needs to be done and control your emotions in the here and now is not to push your feelings down, or ignore them.

It’s also not to make yourself stressed. Stress greatly limits cognitive flexibility. You should be wary of colleagues who need to see you stressed to know that you’re on the right track.

Instead, the best way is to zoom out.

Don’t just look at this month. Yes, even if you’ve got financial worries looming, or a really big deadline ahead, or something that’s eating at you which can’t quite be solved.

Zoom out.

Don’t just look at this quarter. We have this odd urge in business circles to view everything in 3-month periods, but they are often deceptive in B2B work because you don’t have the context of how others are approaching this quarter. Instead, you can get ahead of their next quarter and have greater control of the agenda.

Zoom out.

You will make better decisions today if you know what your goals are 6 months from now, 3 months from now, and also this month. You can leave 12 months and more to larger business development planning. You don’t have to know everything you wish to do in a granular way, but you should be able to envision where you want to be, at the very least. Review this for yourself every week or two.

I find that any strategy where you’re only planning for this week, or even this month, has a tendency to take the shape of its container. But thinking two quarters into the future opens you up to determine how the container is shaped.

Track of the Week

Dictator - “HL7”

Think something kind of like, “Fontaines DC but having more fun with it,” and you’re halfway to what Dictator is. The Edinburgh-based band takes post-punk delivery and puts enormous grooves under it, all with an approach that’s a little lighter-hearted than that often over-serious scene I love in spite of itself. Another early gem from the upcoming New Colossus lineup for 2025, and a name I’ll be watching closely.

Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

List of Clubs

These are the kinds of clubs I’d like to be in around NYC! Wherever you might find music, art, or a compelling experience under one roof, that’s a club to me. I only list clubs I’d enjoy going to. If I list a client, you’ll know.

Friday, November 1 - Tassel, Balvanera @ Union Pool
I talk up plenty of Synthicide gigs, but it’s rare to see them doing anything at Union Pool, which is a true Brooklyn institution at this point. I’d like to see them have many more reasons to make Williamsburg a fresh place for danceable shows.

Saturday, November 2 - Toribio @ Gabriela
It’s just Toribio the whole night, of BDA renown. Nobody else. Just this guy, one of the best in the city, til last call. I’m telling you, Williamsburg is showing real signs of being a place to get down these days.

Wednesday, November 6 - Jamila Woods, Tasha, McKinley Dixon @ BAM 
Jamila Woods is one of the best performers I’ve seen at an NPR-sponsored event in recent years, which was a night that stands in an odd place in my memory for also having involved Mitski, Carly Rae Jepsen, and a known-but-not-yet-like-that Phoebe Bridgers. McKinley Dixon is one of hip-hop’s finest lesser-known talents right now. You might want somewhere to go the night after Election Day, and this would be a very good selection.

Thanks for reading! And now, an image of me in the club…

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