How to Build Reddit and Discord Communities That Drive Sales: Music industry secrets that work for any business (podcast episode #146)

Action Box: Connect your product to your customer’s story

People don't just buy products; they buy into narratives. A powerful value proposition taps into this emotional connection. Quickly discover if your value prop resonates deeply enough using this MeclabsAI workflow – Is your value prop (really) strong enough? (from MeclabsAI, MarketingSherpa’s parent company).

Instead of burning budgets on Facebook ads, Talya Elitzer, CEO, Overmind Merchandise, grows global merch sales with just seven employees by building worlds, not products.

In this episode, she reveals the underground community-building strategies that transformed grassroots buzz into international demand.

Hear her playbook using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

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Lessons from the things she made

Culture moves in different ways

One of the biggest lessons Elitzer learned is that momentum doesn’t always show up where or how you expect. She once worked on a project that found traction in international markets before it ever landed in the U.S. Instead of forcing a domestic push, they leaned into the unexpected growth. That taught her to pay attention to where energy naturally builds and to let culture lead instead of trying to control it.

For example, when she collaborated with rapper JPEGMAFIA, she seeded exclusive merch to a niche Discord community of music-production fans first – letting that grassroots buzz ignite broader interest.

Some of the most successful outcomes have come from following the signal, not the strategy.

Build a world, not just a product

Whether it’s merch, music, or a consumer product, Elitzer found that people aren’t just buying an item. They’re buying into a narrative. The most successful things she’s launched have felt like extensions of an identity or worldview. They’ve created merch that sells out not because of the artist’s name on it, but because it captures a feeling fans already hold. That’s the shift: from transactional product to emotional artifact.

Scale is a strategy, not a starting point

In today’s landscape, it’s easy to get obsessed with rapid growth. But Elitzer has seen firsthand that trying to scale too early can dilute what makes a brand or artist special. Some of the best decisions she’s made involved waiting. Holding off on marketing spend or not chasing virality too soon. Building resonance before reach often creates more sustainable long-term momentum.

Lessons from the people she made it with

Confidence clears confusion

via Katy Perry, global artist, Capitol Records

When Elitzer worked with Perry, she saw how decisiveness shaped everything around Perry. If something didn’t feel right, she didn’t need a committee to confirm it. She trusted her gut and moved on. That kind of clarity simplifies complex decisions. It reminded Elitzer that the strongest creative visions often come from people who don’t dilute their instincts to be more palatable.

Vulnerability builds loyalty

via Sam Smith, Grammy-winning artist, Capitol Records

During a project rollout, Smith shared a personal story that wasn’t part of the official campaign. It was just something honest and emotionally grounded. It ended up becoming the most impactful part of the release in terms of fan engagement. That moment reinforced that audiences respond deeply to what’s human, even when it’s not the most polished or planned.

Let instincts override the brief

via Dom Dolla, Producer and DJ

While working on a merch drop with Dolla, Elitzer’s team noticed a late-stage design that wasn’t even part of the original plan was connecting with fans in real time. Dolla immediately pivoted and prioritized it. That responsiveness paid off with a sellout item and huge momentum. It was a reminder that when you’re close to your audience, real-time intuition often outperforms the plan.

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Transcript

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Talya Elitzer: Very much varies depending on the artist, but it's that show. That show is like a benign version of what actually happens. But I think, I think actors are probably better behaved and music artists. But, but yeah, I mean, artists are not business, most artists are not business people. And so a lot of what my job has been in a variety of roles over the years is kind of toeing that line between art and commerce and making, you know, bringing someone saying, okay, I hear that this is your version.

Now, how do we make that into a business? And, you know, it's not always a business. And not all artists understand, that. Yeah, they don't ever want to post on Instagram ever again. But, like, that's probably not a business.

Intro: Welcome to how I made it in marketing. From marketing Sherpa, we scour pitches from hundreds of creative leaders and uncover specific examples, not just trending ideas or buzzword laden schmaltz. Real world examples to help you transform yourself as a marketer. Now here's your host, the senior director of Content and Marketing at Marketing Sherpa, Daniel Bernstein, to tell you about today's guest and.

Daniel Burstein: In the business world, we almost fetishize growth. You hear these buzzwords all the time scale ten x growth hacking. But when the same kind of unchecked growth happens in you and body, do you know what it's called? It's called cancer. That's why I want you to hear this lesson from my next guest, to help keep all that business hype in check for you.

She says scale is a strategy, not a starting point. Here to share the story behind that lesson, along with many more insightful stories, is Talia Elixir, a CEO of Over Mind merchandise? Thank you for joining me, Talia.

Talya Elitzer: Thanks for having me.

Daniel Burstein: So quick. Your background. So I guess who I'm talking to. Talia has been a booking agent for William Morris Endeavor and A&R Capitol Records, the founder of God Mode. And for the past 18 months, CEO of Over Mind merchandise over mine fulfills its e-commerce sales out of 15 countries, and elixir manages a staff of seven. But she said she's hoping to get that down to one with AI.

So give us a sense tell you, what's your day like as CEO?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. Honestly, it's it's I I'm officially a fully remote, fully remote company as of about a week ago, and which feels great. And, I usually wake up and I try to not answer too many emails from bed, and try to, you know, eat some breakfast, drink some tea. And then I actually, I'm, I'm still old school, and I have an office that I go to, and I like sitting at my office desk.

And so I come to the office, and I'm usually in meetings, call it, like, pretty, pretty usual boring stuff. Meetings call zooms, until, you know, until the end of the day.

Daniel Burstein: So we went remote during Covid. Maybe I'm on to Larry David, but I can now. I know some people go to like Courtney Space or still have an office. I'm like, if you don't have to leave your house, why would you play with the traffic?

Talya Elitzer: I actually have figured out la I r I have like figured out. The way to do it is I can actually walk to my office from my house. Oh, nice.

Daniel Burstein: Okay.

Talya Elitzer: So it's not too bad. And it's. I actually own this building, so it feels like it's a happy place for me to come to. And I have my whole set up, and, you know, my mind and you know, the work.

Daniel Burstein: The works and some pretty cool looking posters. All right. Well, I often say in marketing and business, you know, marketing is great because we get to make things like, I've never been an actuary or the I've never anything else but to make things, we get to make things also the other industries that you've worked and they make things.

So let's talk about some of things you made. The first lesson you said was culture moves in different ways. So what does that mean? How do you learn that?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. I mean, so basically, you know, in in my past, I was an artist manager and I still own this record label called God Mode. And a lot of the artists that I worked with, I really started from the ground up, and I started with them from their very first song to them, you know, getting Grammy nominated or playing Coachella or whatever.

And, you know, a lot of the thinking behind music market marketing specifically is really about paying attention to how culture moves in general. And if you think about it like if somebody tells you about a song you're going to like, you're really going to pay attention to who that person is. If your mom tells you about a song versus like, you know, your cool nephew, you're probably you might pay more attention to what your cool nephew is saying versus your mom.

Or maybe not, I don't know, but, but I pay attention to a lot of that, and that can work, you know, both on a literal level like that, but also just from a geographic point of view. A lot of times, specific genres of music do well in other territories worldwide. So sometimes I would think about starting a project, maybe in Australia, because they have a big dance music market.

It's also easier for, independent artists to kind of break through over there because of how their radio works and, or maybe in the UK or, you know, just it depends on the specific project. But that's a lot of the thinking that I do, whether that's about an art breaking an artist or about breaking a product, it's really all the same.

And really thinking about, okay, there are these different communities, you know, where kind of who are these people, where do they spend their time? And it's it's not always about getting it to the most people, which I'll discuss later too. It's about getting it to the right people and in the right order.

Daniel Burstein: Can you give us a specific example of how you use that to market a product or an artist? Because, for example, when I hear you say this, I mean, I kind of love this too. Like the way I live it is we're always looking at social media channels as marketers, right? And so what I turn to sometimes is my daughters, young adults, teenagers.

I'm like, how are using TikTok? Why are you using Instagram that way? Because I'm not personally doing it right. It's totally I'm doing that cultural research to. But for you, how have you use this to market a product or brand of an artist?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I mean, it's really thinking about, I manage this artist named Jpegmafia for many years, and I and his merch as well, and it's thinking about like, where do those bands live? And there's obviously the, there's the obvious channels of like, you know, his communities on Reddit and, you know, his social media, but also how do we get those kids in different places, like, how do we create a world around that and create, like, where do they live and where do they spend their time on the internet and or, you know, at IRL events too?

So, it could be about, you know, like, okay, we're going to tackle this weird discord Reddit or like sort of this weird Reddit community that's about music production because a lot of his fans love music production and are nerdy about that. So maybe we're going to do a special job just for that community to ignite them. Start it.

They're not even give it to the core fans and then have let people hear about it and create hype that way. So just thinking about it like that.

Daniel Burstein: And then so you seem pretty cool, even way cool. I mean, by the way.

Talya Elitzer: But I don't know about that.

Daniel Burstein: And then but is it like, how do you approach them to say, okay, you found them that community? Because one thing I've definitely seen in Reddit or in some of those communities, like, boy, you go about it the wrong way. You just shot yourself. Yeah, but how do you how do you figure out, like, do you have a sounding board?

You just know yourself. Do you talk to Jpegmafia? Like what?

Talya Elitzer: What do you do? Depends on the it depends on the client or the situation. I've done both versions of campaigns where it's like, hey, I am an official or I am a or like I am jpegmafia, or I am a representative of this person. This is what we're doing. You guys get it first or I've done a more subversive version too, which is a little harder when you're selling a product because then people don't know it's legit.

But but for other things, it could be a service or, you know, an album or something that a little bit different. You, I, I've also done that subversively for many years and, you know, get buying, buying some, you know, old Reddit accounts and getting in there and talking as if I'm just a fan.

Daniel Burstein: Right. Another thing you lesson you learned, you mentioned build a world, not just a product. So how do you learn this lesson?

Talya Elitzer: I mean, I think as I think everyone or most people would agree, you know, social media and the internet is just so it's it's so saturate ated and we're inundated by products and, you know, services and whatever it is, people selling us shit, promoting shit. Sorry. Am I allowed to curse on this podcast?

Daniel Burstein: You can. I will just let Apple know that this is explicit. But go on.

Talya Elitzer: Okay I can I'll try to control myself. But like we're inundated all day by people promoting and selling us stuff and, you know, there's it's really hard to stand out. And in my experience, the only way to actually stand out is to build a community around the thing that you are trying to promote or sell, and that can mean a lot of different things.

That could mean, you know, like finding a finding an existing community and really just sort of like taking the reins there a bit or just really making a splash in an existing community or, you know, a lot of that. What I mean by that, too, is building out a real visual identity around something in a creative direction, so that when you're looking at it, it's not just like a shitty, you know, Shopify template, though.

I love a I love Shopify templates. I thought maybe, you know, bashing them, but it's like it's a fully thought out world that when you go to that brand or to that service, it's like, oh, this couldn't be. This is immediately recognizable and immediately something that people are like, oh, I love this whole vibe, this whole, you know, and I'm very attracted to brands or services that do a good job of that.

I think people are very subconsciously attracted to that as well.

Daniel Burstein: Can you walk us through a specific story of how you did that and how you know you're able to mark that? Because when you're saying this to I know we're talking about like, again, this is more the music industry, but I had an interview, recently with someone in the B2B software industry, and they were telling a story.

I think it's very similar. It's like, I think a software testing product or something. And, and like the company I've been working with, all this data about their software testing and then they came in, did like all these vision exercises and they came through and they said basically it came to like software runs the world. You guys are so important making software.

We make the thing so you can make great software because without it, planes crash and brakes don't work. And all this stuff. Right. And it was kind of like world building, like you talk about like instead of a B2B software day to day to day to it was, here's this world that you're in. Let's talk about it. We understand you.

We make things for people. How you done this?

Talya Elitzer: I mean, in many different ways. I can talk about, you know, on the merch side of things and the ecom e-commerce side of things. It's like, what is what do you whether it's a specific narrative you're trying to or a feeling you're trying to evoke, like what you just described. Or it could be a specific visual identity.

I'm trying to think of a good example. I mean, for every artist I've ever worked with, you know, we would really we would literally put together like a brand book and certain phrases that we use and stuff like that. And same with in the e-commerce space, too. You know, really making sure that the store fits with the social media fits with the everything else.

And it feels unique enough. And and I'm not saying like rewrite the book here, but just something that feels cohesive and consistent across all platforms so that anytime you encounter that brand or that product, that it feels like it all goes together.

Daniel Burstein: Do you have a process for how you do that with an artist to make sure it's like organic or true to them? Because like for us, we have one thing we do is like value proposition workshops in the marketing space, right? Something we've done before, and it's a matter of like sitting down with all the value creators, getting them in the room and not kind of imposing on them.

Here's your value proposition, kind of pulling them out with the right questions of how they are.

Talya Elitzer: Totally, totally. And I think oftentimes artists or brands don't necessarily know what's right for it. Like they won't know it until they see it too. Which can be a frustrating process at times. But, but it's, you know, so it's a, it's a usually a combination. Sometimes people have the full package ready to go off and usually they don't.

And a lot of my job is to help with and my team's job is to help with the creative direction of that.

Daniel Burstein: All right. You, this was something I mentioned in the opening. You said scale is a strategy, not a starting point. So have you learned this lesson?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I think like, as as I've been more and more tapped into, like, you know, business Twitter or, you know, like how people talk about business online. As you said, there's so much emphasis on like I made ten x this or 100 x this. Like, you know, it. It's just I don't think that's necessarily what it's like. That's not how I look at things obviously.

Sure. It's great if you want to like brag to your friends about something, but I think it honestly goes back to the building community aspect because I, I think to build a consistent business over time, it's really about building something that, has weight to it, whether that's, you know, an e-commerce store, whether that's a SaaS, whether that's anything that makes people want to come back.

And I think I would rather have, you know, 2000 people like being obsessed with the thing I'm making than 100,000 passive people, because the passive people aren't coming back.

Daniel Burstein: Can you tell us a story of how you did that and like the trade offs you had to make? Because there's this push for growth in our society, like the place I saw it most is early in my career. I work with public companies. One of the things I did is I worked on what the analyst calls, where they present the earnings to the analysts, and basically the analysts said it's going to grow 12% or whatever you know, which is good.

And then when it grows 11%, they're like beating everyone up on the phone. And I'm thinking like that made not only billions of dollars and billions of extra dollars, you know, hard time. But it's that public, you know, public markets, public push, grow, grow, grow. Yeah. So, you know, and seeing these executives, I'd feel for it would have to shape the decisions they made.

They would need to get that sale, that order instead of pushing it off and stuff to, you know, maybe improve the experience. So can you take us through like, what are some when you've done this before, some trade offs you made or how how you did this?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I'm trying to think of a good example. I mean, I don't I almost I definitely lean towards making the thing great rather than pushing growth more immediately. And because I think, if something's not ready for market or if something's not, you know, just fully there yet, it's not going to perform as well. And, obviously there's a balance to that.

You can't, you can't wait forever and tweak and tweak and tweak and otherwise you'll never go live. But, but yeah, I'm trying to think of a, of a good example of this. Yeah. I just think it's, you know, I think the mentality changed with people even with, you know, like when crypto first started and NFTs and it was like, okay, we only need to sell 2000 of these, or instead of like, trying to sell, you know, hundreds of thousands of something.

But, you.

Daniel Burstein: Know, you're thinking what a great book I read, If You're at Small Giants is a great book about this. And then of the it talks about, the author goes through each of these companies and talks about how, like, these companies could have rapidly, you know, grown in certain ways. And that's why I call it a small giant. There's still a lot of small companies, but they were so focused on the customer experience that they would constantly take those trade offs as not scaling up.

And some, some things they did was like, not take the VC money, are not go public or not open, you know, the extra franchises or the extra stores.

Talya Elitzer: Totally. And honestly, I think that's a lot of my mentality is like, I, I'm very allergic to the idea of taking other people's money, and I don't know why. It's just something in my bones. I can't, I can't do I want it to be a viable business. And I think that's just important to me. It doesn't, like, compute in my mind.

But I think, yeah, I would almost. I would rather, you know, I think I almost look at it more like a luxury brand rather than, you know, Walmart and, you know, I'm sure Chanel sells a lot fewer pieces than Walmart does. But the products, you know, or maybe Chanel's the wrong sample, I'll say, like Hermes or something.

You know, but the product is, like, perfect and ready to go.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I love what you say about not pushing rapid growth, but do you have any examples of how you've used that patient approach yet still learned quickly? Because, for example, when I interviewed Tiffany Grinstead, she's the vice president of personalized marketing at nationwide, one of her lessons was make your mistakes as fast as you can. And she told the story of how her team reports, test and learns on their monthly score scorecard to the wider organization.

Right? So go slow with growth, I hear you, but do you have an example of how you you still learn rapidly, even if you're if you're growing slow?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. I mean, like when I first started over, my and the reason I started it was really because, as an artist manager, they're sort of like the same five merch companies that people work with, and they all are not great and they're all not great at, like, doing the basic, you know, operations and a lot of them are just like, kind of old.

And they're owned by the major company, the major record labels. And, you know, they're they have different websites for different countries. It feels like it's like, you know, 2008, working with them. And I had that frustration as a manager. So I was like, oh, I'm just going to do this myself. I'm going to fix it. And I was like, you know, we live in a world of, you know, three pills and, you know, drop shipping.

None of this should be that hard. And, and so I think I over promised and, moved a little. I was like, yes, of course we could have a, we can have fulfillment in Japan and without AI, without having that ready to go. And, you know, definitely started working, made the mistake of started working with, some partners that were not up to our standards, just for the sake of getting there quickly and getting our clients what they needed.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. Well, those are some lessons from some of the things that Talia made. In just a moment, we'll talk about some of the lessons from some of the people she made it with. But first, I should mention that the how I made it a marketing podcast is written by MC labs AI, the parent company of marketing Sherpa.

You can get conversion focused training from the lab that helped pioneer the conversion industry in our AI Guild and a community to collaborate with. Grab your free three month scholarship to the AI Guild at Joint McLeod's ai.com, and to join that Mech Labs ai.com to get artificial intelligence working for you. All right, let's talk about some of the people you collaborated with.

You learn from, the first person you mention is Katy Perry. We've all heard of her, a global artist at Capitol Records. You said from her you learn that confidence clears confusion. How'd you learn that from Katy Perry?

Talya Elitzer: I worked at Capitol Records, sort of. When, she had that, it wasn't the. Now I have to remember all the albums. It was sort of like her last big album. And, you know, she's really had an incredible career where she had been basically shelved at the label for years. And then the album started taking off, and she had some of the biggest hits in the last, you know, 50 years from it.

And I think she really, just like she had to have a clear vision on what she wanted. And her team did as well, and kind of had to put blinders on in order to reach that goal and to continue to reach that goal, because a lot of being an artist at that level is, you know, you have to get these major record companies behind you to spend the money and to prove them, give them a reason to spend that.

You know, however many tens of millions of dollars to promote your album. And she really persevered there and really didn't care about what other people, had to say or doubted her and killed it. So that was a big that was a big an incredible thing to watch. As that was happening.

Daniel Burstein: So when you're working with artists, creative people, you know, that have that kind of vision, is there anything specifically you do to get them aligned to how they should go? Branding, value proposition, marketing, messaging, kind of getting that all on board. Have you found a way to win them over? Because what I've seen the creative people and okay, little I know is, what's that show with, on HBO?

That's like Ari Emanuel.

Talya Elitzer: Entourage.

Daniel Burstein: Entourage. Yeah. That's it. It's I see the whole kind of plot of that show is. Yeah. Sorry. Emmanuel or Ari, whatever they call him in the show is like, yeah, he's got his foibles, but he's dealing with these, like, creative people that are just off, you know, here and there. And you can see how, like, messes with his, his personal life and stuff like that.

So, you know, I think I would assume you're coming at it from that business. Mind your positioning, value proposition, marketing, whatever. The stuff we talk about in the marketing industry, it's the same kind of stuff. You're still selling stuff? Is there anything you've learned to get that confidence? Artists. But kind of get them on board with a vision?

Talya Elitzer: It's honestly, I mean, it very much varies depending on the artist, but it's that show that show is like a benign version of what actually happens. But I think, I think actors are probably better behaved than music artists. But, but yeah, I mean, artists are not business. Most artists are not business people. And so a lot of what my job has been in a variety of roles over the years is kind of toeing that line between art and commerce and making, you know, bringing someone's saying, okay, I hear that this is your version.

Now, how do we make that into a business? And, you know, it's not always a business and not all artists understand, that. Yeah, they don't ever want to post on Instagram ever again. But, like, that's probably not a business model. And, or whatever the, you know, whatever the thing is. And, and so it depends.

Some artists don't care. Some artists, are, you know, very interested to learn about different ways to do that. I think the artists that are successful at the highest level, people like a Katy Perry or a Taylor Swift or, Harry styles are business people before they're artists. And, not that they're not also talented artists, but they put business before the art and that's a big distinction.

Daniel Burstein: Right. And what and how have you worked with artists on brand partnerships and finding the right brand match, both for, you know, the company and the artist? You know, for example, I interviewed someone who's more of a, an agent for influencers. And something he talked about was, you know, a lot of influencers, they think, I guess they see, whatever that guy, Mr. Beast or whatever, and they think, okay, we're going to just have all of our own products and stuff.

And he said, you don't know how hard it is. Have your own products. He's running a business. And he's like, I always wanted to start them with brand partnerships, because brand partnerships is how they kind of learn the business and get rolling. But the challenge is finding the right match, selling the brand and then selling the artist. So do you have any stories of how you've kind of figured that out?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I mean, that's also very dependent on each artist. Every artist has, you know, a different perspective on that. Some artists don't want to work with brands that make them. Some artists are very aware of, like selling out. I'm putting that in air quotes. And some artists don't care. Some artists just want the money, regardless of what the what the brand is.

And, you know, or I work with artists, I work with, a rapper named Jpegmafia, who I mentioned before, who raps using a lot of explicit language and talks about controversial stuff and politics. And no brand wants to come near him. So, so, yeah, it just depends. And I've had, you know, I've worked with brands, big and small.

And to be honest, it's often no artist is excited about it is usually the case they're excited about the money. Maybe. But it's it is usually a tedious process because the brands don't know how to work with artists and their teams. And so it can be a lot of education on, you know, the brand will be like, I want six grid posts on the Instagram or six TikToks, and we're like, no, we're never going to do that.

But how about this? And that is always, you know, and there's a whole process of sending copy, you know, the caption copy back and forth and get it getting approved by the brand. And, that can be quite a challenging process as well.

Daniel Burstein: As you mentioned, another lesson you learned was vulnerability builds loyalty from Sam Smith, Grammy winning artist at Capital Records. How did you learn this from Sam Smith?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I think Sam's honestly another great example of of, I think he did a great, like, a lot of community building. And I think he was a really an artist like Sam Smith is it's really hard to break through, as like a kind of classic singer songwriter. Obviously, he's since pivoted out of that type of music.

He's doing something else now. But when he started, he was almost like a crooner type. And he broke through on the mainstream because he featured on a disclosure record, which is like a big dance record. And everyone was sort of like, wow, what's that? What's that voice? And but yeah, I think people were really intrigued.

I think he was very authentic to who he was and really, you know, wore his heart on his sleeve. And instead of playing a character which I think a lot of artists do or a lot of celebrities generally do, they're almost playing a role. And I think it was very clear with him, you know, you could see his vulnerability just seeping through even as he was standing in the room or on stage or whatever.

And I think people really and this is something I say to all my, in e-commerce as well that, you know, people, fans or, you know, consumers can really tell when something is authentic or not. People have a really low bullshit detector. And so when someone's real and living their truth. Not to be corny, I think that really resonates with people.

And people are attracted to that. And I think that very much worked for him. And I can think of, you know, other artists, but also like, you know, when you're when you think about marketing, people can tell, like if you're being too salesy or if you're being, you know, whatever. All that stuff really impacts sort of like the character of your brand.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So when you talk about vulnerability, have you ever used that to help you when you're choosing to hire, hire someone, partner with someone, sign an artist, something like that. Because, for example, I interviewed Rebecca Eastman, the chief marketing officer at Guild, and one of her lessons was the best candidate for a role isn't always the one who has done it before.

And I think when it comes to hiring, a lot of times we focus on just the skills like, do they know the CRM or GA or whatever these things are, but those are pretty easy things to learn, and they're not normally the big things that make you successful, and hiring people or partnering with them, sign them. I mean, it is that vulnerability and that those relationships that are ultimately can make things successful.

The rest we can learn, right? So I don't know if you've figured out, I know you talked about using this kind of in marketing and in the branding in e-commerce. Have you figured this out in who you hire, who you work with, who you partner with?

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. I mean, hiring people is so hard and it's really hard. And I think particularly for me, we have a lot of, employees overseas and we have, and then we have some people here who have more experience, sort of like in the industry, I would say. But it's really hard to find people. I agree that it's not necessarily about knowing a skill set.

I think it's about finding a person who is excited and inspired by the work. And I think that's the part that's really hard to find. And I won't.

Daniel Burstein: It's hard to find people that are excited.

Talya Elitzer: About the work. There's a lot of people who want to do the they want to do the cool, the cool stuff, and they don't want to do the work, and they want to go to the parties. They want to go to the they want the access to the festivals. They want to go back hanging backstage at a show and, especially younger people, you know, and, and I think there are plenty of those people and I've hired many of those people over the years, and they're the worst workers, you know, and being able to hang and I'm putting that in quotes again, is definitely important for the business because that is

how we network. And that is, you know, whatever. But it's, it's really somebody who wants to do the work. And I think that goes for artists, too. I, I made the mistake of I managed a number of artists over the years who wanted to do it for similar reasons to like for the hang, to have a reason to go and party, you know, for their for their lifestyle and, you know, but when they are actually on a, you know, on a photo shoot or a video shoot, they're like, I'm tired after an hour and don't want to actually do the hard work.

So, it's yeah, it's really I don't know that I have wisdom there, but but I think I'm definitely, I'm definitely looking for someone who, like, I agree that experience is important to a degree, but it's more about finding someone who is really excited to, to do the actual job.

Daniel Burstein: Right. Here's one more lesson you mentioned. Let instincts override the brief. You learned this from Dom Dalla, producer and DJ. How did you learn this from Dom?

Talya Elitzer: What did I say again? Sorry. Tell me.

Daniel Burstein: Let instincts override the brief.

Talya Elitzer: Yeah, I think that's a really great example of it. Kind of touches on something I said earlier, which is a lot of times clients don't know what they need until they see it. And I think Dom has great taste. He actually used to be, he's an Australian DJ. He just played two sold out nights at Madison Square Garden and is a very big artist right now.

And he has really, really good instincts and he has a really big team around him who are, you know, saying, hey, like, let's how about this? Or how about this? How about this? But I think he knows what's correct. And I think that's a lot of what my team does as well. We do a lot of that R&D going into it, really picking out, you know, creative inspiration that makes sense for him or could be sort of like a bigger, better version of what we can build.

And, you know, just making sure just just getting that in front of him. But no, he he's a great example of someone who follows his instincts. Kind of regardless of the noise.

Daniel Burstein: Do you have any specific examples or stories of when you had a brief you're working on, but you're like, hey, this doesn't feel right? And then how you made sure it worked because, you know, a lot of people will hear that, and we all think we've got a golden glove, but we don't all have a golden gate for sure.

Not testing or data that, you know, we do need some of these things to back up and think, hey, this is the right thing to do. So do you have any example if you had this brief? But it's like, hey, let me, you know, we got to go a different direction. How you made sure you're right.

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. I mean, what's really speaking on artists being challenging. What's really challenging with artists is sometimes what they like isn't necessarily what the what their fans like. And so, I'm working with a metal band right now. I don't want to say the name necessarily, because I don't want to expose their, their, their, issue, their dealing with, but their taste is like real.

It's like kind of what you would expect from a metal band, like, really intense, you know, black, scary looking stuff. But their fans are actually a lot of younger women and like, a lot of their merch right now is like these thing, like boxy t shirts and like, just stuff that a woman would never wear or most women would never wear.

And so their merch business is probably like, I don't know, a quarter of what it should be. And they're a really big, a big band. And so a lot of the work that we've had to do is we show them briefs and we're like, hey, this is I think would be better for for your audience. And they're like, no, no, we don't like that.

And it took like probably six months of us having to push and say, this is your demographic. These are the other places they occupy online. This is what they look like, like go to a show. I even had one of my staff go to one of their shows and just photograph the women in the audience, and to really get them on board to make different skews.

Because they were so gung ho on making a certain thing, and not that we couldn't do a little bit of both, you know, if they still wanted to do that. But it's really it kind of harkens back to like, what does this look like as a cohesive brand? And a lot of what I try to do in a lot of some of the backend systems we're building right now and have built are like having that data to pull across our roster to say, hey, this is what women ages 18 to 24 are wearing that listen to this kind of music and to just like, have that ready to go to show them.

And like, these are our most successful skews for that demo.

Daniel Burstein: And so and is there like other show research you do to understand like how would you even know that it was young women that wear like attacking that metal band because it's interesting. You I mean, from rap to metal, that's you're probably not the target audience for all these. We have this challenge market.

Talya Elitzer: I'm certainly not the target audience for most. I don't personally listen to most of the music that I work with. So, but we.

Daniel Burstein: Have a challenge in marketing. I've had so many graphic designers tell me, like, I would never read this. And it's like, well, you're not the customer. You're not the purchasing of quickly.

Talya Elitzer: Exactly.

Daniel Burstein: So we had you get in there and do that research.

Talya Elitzer: I mean, we get a lot of the demographic info from socials and from, as much it depends on, you know, how they sell tickets, but sometimes you can get that from, ticketing companies. And, and also just like the sounds very analog I guess at this point, but like going to some of their shows and seeing who's there.

And and so it's really a lot of that work that that's the essential work. It's just like, who are these people? And it's crazy to me. I mean, the music industry is always kind of like, not, not necessarily the most modern industry. We still there's still a lot of, like, very archaic ways. I can't get any of my clients to use slack.

It drives me crazy. And they all text me. It's really, really a lot. I'm on this group text with like 30 people, that goes that into my CRM. But anyways, it's, it's, you know, a lot of that versus some of the brands that I work with, that are like, I work with this very large Instagram account.

I think they have like 15 million followers called Hood Ville. And it's really all these, like, really dumb memes that they post, and they're a massive Instagram page and they have a very big merch business. And, and so they're very aware of who their fans are and are really dialed in. But artists a lot of times aren't and are other like less.

That's not what's driving them in the same way.

Daniel Burstein: What we talked a lot about the different kind of campaigns you work on, but part of it too, I wonder you personally in your journey, have you figured anything out on how to be a corporate creative? Because that's the same challenge we have in marketing. Like you're a writer, but you're writing copy on like a milk carton or something, right?

Right. That trying to figure out that balance. So I dunno if there's anything that's kind of worked well in in your career. I mean, for me, I try to take things in stride and never try to take it personally. When someone is writing or something, you know, and just focus on like, okay, it's about serving customer side about this creative thing or that creative thing.

But my gosh, I've worked in ad agency and people are punching walls because they're corporate creatives, and it's like you're trying to fit this box, although creatives supposed to color outside the line. So if you know something, how that works for you.

Talya Elitzer: It's really hard. I had one artist shout at me years ago. She's like, you're a suit, you're a suit. You don't know. And for the.

Daniel Burstein: Record, Todd is not wearing a suit now, but, you.

Talya Elitzer: Know, but yeah, it's I think it's honestly like some of, some of my biggest successes in my career have come from moments that it was a true collaboration between me and the artist, because I, you know, a lot of the consideration, like, I am a creative person, artists, I think artists, particularly of the younger generation, want people to, you know, think that it all came from them.

And they'll, you know, they want to hide all the credits on their albums to say nobody helped them and they did it all themselves. Which is, that's a whole other, rabbit hole I can go down. But, but no, it's really hard because artists think that every. And I think it's also too much pressure for an artist that it should all come from them.

But no, for me, it's been very frustrating over the years, which is, maybe we can talk again in six months because I have a new a new venture that's just mine, that's coming soon, where I get to control all the creative. And I don't have to answer to anyone. But, but, yeah, it's really challenging because I think, you know, I don't always agree, but if it's the client, ultimately it's not my business.

So, but, yeah, I, I have not yet punched a wall, but I probably would like to.

Daniel Burstein: Or trash the hotel room, I hope. Like the rocks.

Talya Elitzer: Yeah. No, no.

Daniel Burstein: All right, so if you had to break it down, we talked about all these different lesson stories from your career. What are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Talya Elitzer: I think the key qualities are of an effective marketer are really thinking out of the box. And it's interesting. I'm in like a few groups, you know, business groups or entrepreneur groups, and so many people just kind of use the same playbook over and over again. They're like, yeah, we'll run some meta ads. And you know what?

They didn't work. It's not working. And I just don't think that's how you really sell products or sell whatever service, whatever thing you're selling. It's it's I just don't think that's very creative or innovative. And I mean, if I, if we could all sell stuff with meta ads like I, you know, that sounds great, but, I just don't think the world works that way.

And so I think it's really about, you know, like I said in the beginning, it's about how culture moves or how information moves and really just getting in the head of, of your customer and thinking about, you know, like the internet is a vast place and there are a lot of different ways that people get information. And I think just really, really, really thinking out of the box.

I always like to personally, when everyone's obsessed with one thing, I like to look at the thing that nobody's paying attention to, and that's that's driven a lot of how I've marketed things over the years.

Daniel Burstein: That's why I see so many of these. Oh, let's look at this real successful software company. What was their strategy? And, like, copy it. You know, it's like there's first of all.

Talya Elitzer: You can't. Yeah.

Daniel Burstein: There was a billion little nuances internally that you don't understand. I remember once we, had these marketing Sherpa conferences and I loved it. I would ask this person how they like the conference at the end and like, oh, was great. And that was because the content I put on stage like that was fine, too. But here's why it's so valuable to me.

Our biggest competitor was at the bar, and I was talking to them and I said, I don't get it. We're copying all your ads and they're not working. And he said, yeah, they're not working for us either.

Talya Elitzer: Hilarious fact. Exactly. And that is interesting. Like, I want to I don't want to I'm not going to name the company because I'm not trying to call anybody out. But I went to hear, the founder of a very large apparel e-commerce brand, like a $250 million a year e-commerce brand. I heard him speak a couple of weeks ago, and he was very cocky and was just like, you know, if he's like, if you're not spending at least, you know, $30 million, a year on meta ads, like, we shouldn't even talk about meta ads.

And I was like, what are you saying? Like this isn't, and I think, you know, to be honest, probably the best marketers aren't sharing their secrets, unfortunately. But I think it's about I think it goes back to, like, creating a compelling story and thinking about the why, like, why are we selling this product? Like, why is this something that people should buy?

And really getting in in the weeds on that?

Daniel Burstein: Well, thank you for sharing your secrets with us here and how I'm marketing. Talia, thank you very much.

Talya Elitzer: Tell all my secret settlement.

Daniel Burstein: Well, thank you for joining us today.

Talya Elitzer: Thank you so much for having me.

Daniel Burstein: Thanks to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've got an inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas extensive library of free case studies at Marketing sherpa.com. That's marketing rpa.com and.