The 50/50 Rule - The Reason You Keep Feeling Disappointed in Your Reach

We've all been there. You pour your heart and soul into a new project. The creative process was super rewarding, but also extremely grueling. Finally, it's complete and you're thrilled to share it with the world. You can barely contain your excitement in anticipation for your audience’s reactions. But when launch day arrives, crickets. Your project falls flat. Through my experience as a marketing consultant, I’ve seen many a client fall into this seemingly unpreventable pitfall. The problem? An unbalanced budget. Most creators invest heavily in the product (which is great!), then scrape together pennies for marketing (which is not so great). This extreme budget imbalance sets your project up for guaranteed disappointment.

Let’s say you have $5,000 to spend on your next project. You’re excited to get right into the project and utilize your capital to do some awesome things in the creative process. Although this budget may spark some inspiration in your creative mind, we need to slow down. This is where the 50/50 rule comes into play.

The 50/50 rule is a great reminder to keep your focus honed in on the latter parts of the creative process. Instead of finishing your project and immediately switching into panic mode, your budget and time management will have already been fully prepared, allowing you to achieve the highest level of success your project deserves.

Let’s take your hypothetical $5,000 project budget. Where does that money go? All into the creative phase? What about the marketing? Instead of throwing as much money as you can at the creation phase, I want you to match your production budget to your marketing budget. So, is your goal to spend $5,000 toward the creation of your next EP? Match that same production budget to your marketing budget. So, with our hypothetical budget, that leaves us with $2,500 for the creation phase and $2,500 for the marketing of our product.

This goes beyond just money. Apply the 50/50 rule to your time management as well. Planning on spending 20 hours a week on the creation of your project? Make sure you spend a relative amount of time brainstorming how you’ll market your project. This doesn’t have to be during the same stage, but make sure you cumulatively spend an equal amount of time on the marketing phase. Believe me, with this kind of intentionality, I guarantee you’ll see results.

Try the 50/50 rule for your next project. Develop an intentional marketing budget upfront that matches production costs and do the same with your time management. You'll be amazed by the increased exposure and engagement. So, I encourage you, stop leaving promotion as an afterthought! Work with a marketing expert to build your 50/50 roadmap and book a strategy session now to learn how to plan for marketing success from day one.

Wisdom Moon
CEO/Founder of Christian Music Marketing