This is a business of relationships. Staying in touch with your maintenance list, and consistently maintaining that connection, is vital to your growth and career trajectory.
I get it: The thought of continually marketing to a list of people becomes overwhelming. You start to feel crazy as you continue to put postcards or newsletters or emails or social media posts out in the world and potentially never hear any response in return.
This feeling can stall you out and cause you to retreat from all the marketing you’re doing. You give up and blame the industry, blame your contacts, and blame yourself.
When this happens, please remember this one thing:
Your job is not to figure out what seeds will grow and what seeds will die. You must water them all.
You have no idea which casting director just looked at your headshot.
You have no idea which producer just watched your reel.
You have no idea what director just looked at your website.
It is not your job to know.
It is your job to water all your seeds. Constantly.
Some will die and that is OK. Some will grow and that will be amazing! There is no way you can know one from the other.
So, do yourself a favor—in this crazy business and on your marketing journey—have faith.
When I was living in NYC and transitioning from musical theater to television, I decided to create a list of TV casting directors that I would target. Lamont Craig from “As the World Turns” was on that list. I was tweaking and refining my 7-Week Marketing Strategy at the time and had mailed to Lamont for seven weeks straight. I then dropped him into my Maintenance List. I then sent him a postcard every six weeks. Every six weeks.
I did this for FIVE years. Yes, five years! That’s not a typo. I went through periods of thinking I was crazy and cursing myself for wasting my money. And then I would remind myself that this is what I chose to do, to plant these seeds.
After five years, I got a call from Lamont directly asking if I was available to come in to audition for a role. Of course, I said yes! When I walked into his office, he gushed about how he felt he knew me and that if he saw me on the street he would say, “Hey, Jodie, what’s up?!”
Come to find out he read EVERY single postcard I sent him. He even asked me about a couple of commercials I booked. I read for him in his office and booked the role on the spot. As he was walking me to wardrobe, he told me that if I ended up booking another commercial, and couldn’t make the shoot, he would call me in again. I was floored. Five years of faith had paid off! I got to be on the show before it went off the air.
Have faith in yourself, your talent, your business savvy and your marketing.
Have faith that you will find your people.
Have faith that when the opportunity arises you will be remembered.
Have faith that you are enough.
So create your maintenance list of people and stay in touch. Decide who gets postcards, or your newsletter or who you add to a List on Twitter or Instagram, or who gets a quarterly email. If you don’t maintain relationships, they will fizzle out.
Know that when you do the work and you put in the time and effort, results will come.
Why wouldn’t they? You deserve it.
