Free Marketing “Baby”

Yesterday I lied in my bed like a starfish for 2 hours.

In all honesty I did this to myself. I hosted Plunge Party (round 3) that morning and then took a yoga class to top off the day. I was completely cooked. (yes im using “cooked” now)

After the 3rd event, I still haven’t made any money off this. Who said being pre-revenue was reserved for tech companies only? This time I dropped an extra $500 on the event due to the extra ice. I have 2 plunge tubs now. That’s a story for later though 😉

I see a path to profitability. The biggest thing I need right now is space at a low cost, and distribution.

Which is getting better. Which brings me to todays topic….

They say you learn by doing. I say it all the time but I now I get it.

Let me explain.

I’ve met John Summit’s managers before: Parker Cohen and Holt Harmon. I doubt they remember me at all. But it happened. Back in my DJ days, one of the artists they managed, Freakon, played at a hotel pool party put on by my friends that were the DJ duo formerly known as Swingers (great name, even better parties). Now it’s just Shane going as Bully System. Go check his stuff out by the way. Super unique sound combining house and grungy alternative rock influence.

Anyways…

Like I said this was back in my DJ days. Why is that important? Well, in San Diego, or any place where DJing is plentiful, DJs are a dime-a-dozen. That means there’s no way in hell you’re going to get a chance to play on someones else’s DJ decks at a party unless you are extremely close with the hosts of the party and they explicitly say you're going to be jumping on that night.

Behind the decks at a SoCal party full of DJs might be more hostile than a Trader Joes parking lot on a Sunday. Guys are nudging each other left and right asking if they can plug their USB in. They’re point their USBs in the air like a prepubescent boy trying to sell newspapers in the middle of downtown NYC.

It’s hilariously embarrassing.

Knowing this I brought my own DJ decks to DJ the night before in my Airbnb. The day I arrived, I saw the people who got the Airbnb above me. I introduced myself and said hi, and it turns out it was Parker Cohen and Freakon. I didn't know who these people were at the time, but I invited them for later that night as I was planning to host a pre-party-night-before spin session. It was a low key party. 50 some people smushed into an airbnb with DJ decks on a glass table and one loud PA in the corner.

I DJed for about two hours, and guess who decided to jump on with me? Freakon jumped on and DJed for an hour. I was that good yet, and girls said they liked him better. But who’s keeping score? Later that night I went back-to-back (b2b as they say) with Parker.

What's the long story short of this? I met Parker. Fast forward to me sitting at work seeing that John Summit is going to be in San Francisco this weekend. I decided, hey I'm gonna cold email Parker and Holt. Let’s see if they wanted to come to my cold plunge event. I didn't know if this was even their thing, but I said hey why not? Maybe they'll find this interesting. They post a lot of pictures of them going to the gym when they travel. Let’s see if they actually do care about their health. (We both know the answer to that one)

That's when I had this idea.

Twitter's a funny place, especially for the DJ scene. I knew John Summit was pretty active on Twitter. I’ve stumbled across his profile a couple of times here and there. He's actually pretty funny. He's a little degenerate to on Twitter, and it makes me laugh because I feel like people aren't normally themselves on the Internet. So shoutout to him for being raunchy.

From a digging through his posts, I knew John reads most of his comments based on how much he engages. I think this also plays into why he got so big and so popular. He basically was (is) an internet troll. He posted really dumb stuff on Instagram and people ate it up. They thought it was hilarious. He also does the same thing on Twitter. I see him respond to most of his comments, and I thought, "Hey, maybe I can respond to one of his posts."

Hours earlier he teased doing a 360 set at Cow Palace this weekend. He was definitely going to be keeping an eye on a “teaser tweet.” I thought: I’ll tell him to come to my cold plunge party the day after his show. What a better way to recover from a standard John Summit bender?

I didn't know what he was going to do with it, but I had a hunch that he was probably going to see it.

He saw it.

I'm going to be honest. I didn't know he was going to quote tweet this, but I had high confidence he was going to see it at the least. This is why I did what I did. I'm not going to take a bunch of credit for being really smart, but I will take credit for knowing who I'm talking to and noticing how they behave.

I know John's a little bit of… one could say a “bro-y” persona. But I thought it was worth a shot inviting him to the Plunge Party. I thought the biggest upside was him seeing it and coming.

Not exactly. He made fun of me. And I got free marketing

He quote tweeted it and roasting it for being the most SF tech bro shit.

Jokes on him, I know exactly what I'm doing here. That’s why this works. I know that what I do is pretty weird to most people. Heck, I was at a Founders event two weeks ago and I told people I throw cold plunge parties. They all had the same response. They tilt their head 45 degree, "what the heck did you just say?"

I get it. What I do isn't for everyone, that's the point. I'm not trying to do something that satisfies everyone. That’s a loosing battle. I look to attract my kind of people - that are weird just like me, or as I say, my kind of freaks.

Doing something on the edge and fringy is definitely up my alley. If someone doesn't like it, I don’t care.

I showed my friends that John Summit just roasted me on the internet. I thought it was amazing. I had friend's friends go "Hey, did I just see John Summit post about my friends roommate?"

People asked me how did I get John Summit to quote tweet me. I just commented on one of his posts. That's the point. I knew he reads all of his comments, and there was a high likelihood that he was going to see it. Honestly, the biggest upside I thought at that point was just him saying "sure" or "that's stupid". Him pointing fun at me was 154k free media impressions that I didn’t have had to pay for.

At that point my goal was to get eyeballs on this thing. That’s all I was going for. I know that this thing works, and I know people love it. Every single person that walks away leaves saying "I want to come back and do that again. That was so much fun."

I just need to figure out how to get this in front of many more people so they can actually come pay to do this. That was my biggest choke point, and I know that if I open up the top of the funnel, people will pay for this.

That's what I'm getting at here. You need to get creative and learn how to get free distribution when you don't have the budget or means to do it.

That's what I told my friend that I met, Scott Hickle, that's starting this company Throne. It's a poop analyzer. But gosh dang it, I think this is going to be one of the coolest freaking products. I think it's going to blow up (financially, not a poop joke). If I had the money I would honestly invest in this company right now.

The point of me saying that is, if you know how to distribute your product, you're going to get more eyeballs on it, and that's what the game is about: getting creative when you have limited resources and finding a way to get yourself in front of people.

I know what you're gonna ask. Okay Jared, did that event sell out because you got 154,000 impressions on that tweet?

The truth is no one bought a single ticket from that tweet.

That’s marketing baby!

My point is, you gotta know how to get your product in front of other people. I got the most responses I've ever gotten in my entire life from one Instagram story. Yeah, an Instagram story not a post. That's marketing. It's not just about converting, it's about being top of mind. This made me top of mind for 154,000 people for at least 5 seconds and over 500 people on Instagram who thought this was the funniest thing they've seen that week.

That's why I do this blog. That's why I post on Twitter. That's why I post on Instagram. It's not because I want to be perceived a certain way or because I want to look cool or I'm seeking validation. It's a way for people to know what kind of person I am, what I believe in, and what I find fun.

I do cool shit and then post it on the internet.

Then I come to mind for them when they want to do stuff that seems edgy or weird or out there. They know who to ask, who to turn to, or who to invite when they don’t want to do it alone.

If you're afraid of posting on the internet because you might get roasted or made fun. Remember no one cares. There's people making thousands of dollars acting like NPCs on TikTok, and you're afraid what someone's going to think of you when you wear a wrinkled t-shirt.

The worst that can happen is someone knows you better.

Be yourself, be unique.

Let your freak flag fly.

You’re Awesome,

Jared

I Dig So You Don’t Have To

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Gentlemen’s Agreement 🤝🏻

I need a favor from you. Every week I spend several hours crafting this email to give you entirely for free. Banger, after banger. Except it’s not actually free.

I love doing this, but I also love seeing this grow (You might say I’m flawed. But you’re not my therapist). To keep this free it would mean the world to me, and my ego, if you shared this with just 1 person who you think would also like this.

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