Who is Zach Bryan?

Breaking into the music world without major backing is nearly impossible. Yet Zach Bryan, a Navy veteran armed only with a cracked iPhone, broke through.

Frustrated by the manufactured sounds dominating the country charts, Zach started recording simple acoustic tracks straight from his heart. With no studio, no label, and no marketing team.

Since then, he's released multiple projects (DeAnn, American Heartbreak, Zach Bryan) and sold out arenas nationwide. But how did he do it? Let’s dive in.

Zach Bryan’s Blueprint (1/3)

Authenticity

I never start a blueprint with anything other than target audience, but for Zach, this felt more applicable. People don't buy products, they buy your belief in them. One thing I urge all my clients to establish is why they are making their content? I often ask, “Are you doing it because you want to be famous?” If they say yes, oh boy.

Authenticity is a skill. It is not something assigned at birth. Which is why I hate the phrase: “be yourself.” Instead, we should say, “What do you enjoy?” So we can truly get to know ourselves.

Zach Bryan loves unfiltered music. He loves to sit with a guitar and jam his heart out for hours on end. He created his empire by not caring about fame or money, just jams.

Target Audience

Whiskey. Guitars. Cigarettes. The Navy. If that doesn’t scream country, what does? But, similar to my last article (Carpe), that is too broad of a target audience making it impossible to tame.

Instead, Zach leans into the age that craves authenticity over polish. The people that don’t care about fancy video editing or psychological tactics. The slightly older folks. Success on that large of a scale obviously requires a larger scope, but every creator must start small. Remember, Amazon started as an online library.

Approximate age range for Zach: 30-55 (people who grew up without fancy media)

The golden people:

• A 40-year-old veteran whose looking for someone for motivation and relatability

• A 32-year-old searching for something real to blast during long late-night drives

• A 55-year-old who's searching for something that reminds him where he came from and who he still is

Engagement Tactics

As we know, the best strategies are always tailored to the audience. Zach Bryan understands his audience doesn’t want overproduced content. Instead the emotions he needs to evoke is rawness and a sense of "this could be me."

Instead of hiring professional videographers or crafting viral marketing schemes, Zach kept it simple. He barely edits his videos. Most of the time, it’s just him, a tripod, a microphone, and a guitar. Sometimes he sings on the back of a truck bed.

It’s important to note:

I would rarely recommend this strategy for most brands.
Unless you are speaking directly to an audience that values grit over glamor, unedited content can come across as lazy instead of authentic.

For Zach’s audience: veterans, long-haul drivers, people looking for meaning at 2AM; this approach was the strategy. The lack of editing became the feature, not the bug.

He built a brand without trying to build one - the ultimate paradox.

Exercise (2/3)

I want you to answer each of these questions in the exact order - even if you have no intention of starting anything:

1. What is something that you absolutely love - even if it’s so random and makes no sense?

2. Now if you had to put your life on the line to meet someone who loves that same thing, who would it be? Be specific.

3. Finally, What are the perfect ways to engage that crowd?

Here is my shortened response:

I love drawing on whiteboards. There is something so satisfying about grazing a marker softly across a board. Here is someone that would love whiteboards: A 19-year-old scrolling at home waiting to see something that satisfies her eyes. More specifically, someone who is a neat freak. The perfect way to engage that person is to make a zoom in on the whiteboard and draw/write things in a smooth and careful way. This allows me to create content that I absolutely love myself.

Final Takeaways (3/3)

• Authenticity is something you build up, not something determined at birth

• Choose something you are extremely passionate about

• The best way to engage your target audience is by being part of your target audience

Whats next

A female influencer that is a master at excel sheets! She’s killing it and we need to know why…

Thank you so much for reading. I know how busy all your lives are and appreciate you giving me the time of your day.