Amy Schumer the Hilarious Marketing Guru
Amy Schumer is a charismatic comedian known for breaking down boundaries and gender stereotypes. You probably know her for Inside Amy Schumer, which debuted in 2013.
Her success didn’t come easy. She struggled during the early years while actively taking part in stand-up competitions. In 2007, she came in 4th place in the fifth season of Last Comic Standing. She also participated in Comedy Central’s Reality Bites Back in 2008, where she was the runner up.
Having had stints here and there on Comedy Central, she eventually got her own show in April 2013. And she has never looked back. The second season of Inside Amy Schumer was a major success, as were the subsequent seasons. High-profile guests such as Tina Fey, Patricia Arquette, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus have guest-starred in her show.
She’s no stranger to accolades either. In 2015, the comedian accepted the Peabody Award – the most prestigious award in television – and she was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards.
In the world of comedy, a major part of success always comes down to marketing. Through content, comedians can market themselves and gain a ton of followers. Content plays a huge role, but there are other collaborative efforts where Schumer has shown she’s marketing savvy.
Let’s dig deeper into her marketing strategies.
Content Marketing Guru
1. Being her true authentic self
This is what her fans love her for. She’s not afraid to show who she really is – her bold, outspoken, and somewhat awkward personality. She’s so comfortable with herself and doesn’t care about the way others think she should be.
In recent years, you may have heard the words “You have to be authentic” way too often. But what does it exactly mean?
For your company’s brand and marketing, being authentic is about being comfortable with who you are and not being afraid to express it. All the content you publish in each and every marketing campaign should reflect your voice and style. It should also be very consistent with your company’s values. For example, you can’t be telling your customers that you love the environment if you’re using products that harm them. There’s just no consistency there.
When planning your content, give it careful thought to make sure it’s on point. Here are some tips:
- Be clear about your values
- Be consistent with your brand (style and tone of your writing)
- Be responsible for your own actions
2. She produces her own content
Many actors and actresses often engage the help of producers and writers to create content. However, for Schumer, she prefers to write and produce her own content. This relates to point number 1, which is being her true authentic self. When you create your own content, your audience gets to see the real you, which is why they came in the first place.
So how do you create content like Schumer? Here are some ideas:
- Write a list: Every time an idea pops up for your content, list it down.
- Just do it: You might hesitate at times, but there’s no harm trying and testing it out. Don’t waste too much time, though. If you want to see if the content idea resonates with your audience, test it out through writing a blog or something that isn’t too time-consuming.
- Add something new and valuable: Your content should provide new information and be different from any content in the past. For example, with every new blog you publish, it should be centering around a different idea.
3. Her fans love her!
By connecting with the public and surprising them, you’ll be able to create a lot of buzz for your brand. Marketing is not just about closing your customers. It’s not about getting the sale. It’s about consistently offering them things that they love.
Check out some content marketing tips:
- Prioritize your customer: Your content should focus on your customers, not on you. Avoid creating content that only talks about your business goals. Create content that is beneficial to your customers.
- Do the unexpected: A nice surprise is often delightful. Sometimes, it’s not about creating buzz. It’s about putting a smile on someone’s face and expecting nothing in return. It’s simply goodwill. Some examples could be sending your customers random thank you cards for being loyal or sending small gifts for a contract renewal. These actions are small gestures but very personal. If done with genuine intentions, it could bring your business relationship to a personal level.
4. She’s not afraid of being bold
In much of her content, Schumer often portrays her feminist side. Her content tackles tough topics, such as gender inequality and taboos. Through her comedy shows, she uses humor to shed light on these controversies. She educates her audience with her courage.
If she thinks that something is important, she’ll cover it in her show. Even if she faces some opposition, she doesn’t care. She rolls along with it. From the beginning, she’s been extremely bold, fearless, and provocative. For example, in her Netflix show The Leather Special, the comedian talks about how men and women act during sex.
What can we learn from here in terms of content marketing? If you what to put content out there that might face opposition, don’t hesitate. If you believe in it, go for it. But do it in a way that doesn’t piss off your audience. Here are some tips:
- Use facts: if you state the facts, there’s not much for people to say.
- Be open-minded: you shouldn’t be afraid to present your views and state your opinion and allow your audience to provide feedback. It can’t just be one-way communication.
- Being bold, fearless, and provocative doesn’t mean you have to go to the extreme: your content shouldn’t be over the top, but do something different from your past. Be brave, but not too brave.
5. She knows who to collaborate with and when
Most of the time, she chooses to work alone, but she’s also a team player. Her end goal is always to produce the best product, and if it means teaming up with other people, so be it. In general, these are the main ingredients for putting a show together: writers, producers, and actors. They all work together to produce a show. Schumer often collaborates with others to make her content better. She understands that others might be more talented than her in a certain area.
Diversity is important when it comes to TEAM. When you work with someone who has different skills and talents from yours, you’re able to produce better content. It will end up being different and more exciting. When you’re planning content marketing for your brand, here are some ideas for collaborations:
- Webinars and courses
- Podcasts
- Blogging
Collaborating with Youtube Stars
Reaching Millennials through Youtube Stars
In July 2015, the action movie Ant-Man and comedy Trainwreck were released on the same day. On top of the usual advertising and promotion efforts, Marvel and Universal also looked to Youtube stars to expand their reach. Also, to create buzz and engagement.
More and more brands hope to lure the subscribers of top YouTube stars, often in the millions. They have massive followings. In doing so, these major brands created sponsored content to fit this platform. The stars are sought after for collaboration to produce creative content and distribute information to their fan base.
Instead of showing the same content on TV and on YouTube, which was the case in the past, brands customize specifically for the streaming platform. As for movies, the themes and characters are mixed into storylines and tailored especially for YouTube users.
For Schumer’s comedy Trainwreck, she decided to team up with YouTuber Flula. Check out the content here:
Trainwreck Marketing With Flula
In the YouTube video “Not Sex Questions”, Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, and Flula sit down for a Q&A session. They discuss some topics related to the movie casually and humorously. The content is tailored according to Flula’s existing theme as well as his fan base. And it also matches the type of humor generated from the comedy Trainwreck. This YouTube video was carefully thought out to spark interest for his 600k followers (at the time) to watch the movie at the cinema.
Getting the MTV Movie Awards to Hand Over Social Media Control
In 2015, the MTV Movie Awards was hosted by Anna Kendrick and Amy Schumer. Over the years, it can be said that MTV typically engages two hosts for the annual event. You’ll notice that one host is the joke and the other one is quite serious. Take Justin Timberlake and Sean William Scott, for example.
In this case, Schumer is the one popping jokes, while Kendrick always keeps a straight face. Check out the trailer for the MTV Movie Awards here:
“We’re gonna be friends forever. Can you, like, feel it?” Schumer says as she strokes Kendrick’s hair and asks if she’s related to Kendrick Lamar.
She jokes around in the video and asks such ridiculous questions. About Kendrick’s last name, she wonders if Anna is related to rapper Kendrick Lamar. Anna responds with her eyes rolling.
Tom Fishman, Vice President of Connected Marketing & Fan Engagement at MTV, talked about its decision to bring Schumer on as a host. He also shares that MTV started collaborating with her across multiple platforms as soon as she got the gig.
As of 2015, Schumer had close to 1 million Twitter followers (4.5 million today). Therefore, MTV’s strategy was to work with Schumer’s strongest platforms and their own and build their outreach from there.
For the first time ever in history, MTV gave ultimate control of their social media to a host. They handed everything to her so she could announce herself as the 2015 host. All of their social media existence was in the hands of a single person.
The bold and fearless comedian has been known to post outrageous and controversial content. Some love her, and some feel offended. When many brands would be very cautious about handing over social media control to Schumer, MTV was not afraid. And their strategy worked!
As the social media boom becomes more apparent, MTV hopes to focus on its “social first” philosophy. They hope to be able to create buzz and engage with fans across multiple social media platforms. With Schumer on board, MTV’s objective was to attract a large viewership and be the talk of town.
“It’s in our DNA to always be reaching out to new audiences as new generations take over,” says Fishman. “With social media we’re seeing different generations of apps and app users, and Facebook and Twitter have [users] from eight to eighty.”
MTV didn’t only focus on the largest platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Schumer also graced other audiences with her presence as she looked to Tumblr, Instagram, and Snapchat.
“Something like Snapchat is a little younger,” Fishman says. “That’s a place where we’re looking to make a statement. With her star shining as bright as it is right now, that’s somebody you want to give a general idea of what we want to do and then hand over the reins and let her do what she does best which is: be hilarious,” says Fishman.
Adopting the element of surprise on Netflix
According to the research conducted by Ampere Analysis, 19% of Netflix’s original TV shows are announced and then released two months after the initial announcement. However, recently, we’ve seen the adoption of the ‘surprise drop’ marketing strategy. From blockbusters to A-list comedies such as Amy Schumer and Trevor Noah’s shows, audiences are not made aware of releases until the day itself!
It’s definitely a huge change and a completely different approach. In the past, Netflix has always employed the slow-burn release strategy. The streaming service usually makes the announcement ahead of time and informs audiences of the release date.
Fred Black, an analyst at Ampere, believes that Netflix has decided to use the quick-release strategy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it gives the service an edge over its competitors. Secondly, it means that their content cannot be copied before it is even released.
There is no doubt that Amy Schumer is a hilarious lady. It is in the comedy world that she found huge success. Despite being a funny entertainer, she also possesses a deep knowledge of marketing. Her strategies mainly center around content marketing, social media marketing, and collaborations. She’s also not afraid to implement new strategies such as the surprise drop strategy with Netflix.
Ultimately, she believes in being herself off-screen and on-screen. She believes in educating people and fighting for causes, which she communicates through her content. And what better way to spread her messages through various social media platforms and collabs. Don’t forget that her social media expertise convinced MTV to hand over all of their social media accounts to her in 2015. How do you get a powerhouse to even do that?!
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