You know what?
Often times when I mentor people in marketing, they end up sweating it TOO much. Trying to reinvent the wheel. Trying all too hard, to begin with.
But if you talk to experienced marketers, they will tell you their very first successes came from modeling already successful marketers.
Modeling, mind you, not copying. Taking cues from them, not plagiarizing.
You see, there IS definite comfort in doing “PART PROVEN, PART YOURS”.
As a result, you’ll have much greater CONFIDENCE in knowing it will work for you! And confidence in marketing… means a LOT to the bottom line.
Now, copying other people’s promotions outright is stupid because then you’re not learning at all, it’s not ethical and so on.
Then again, doing it ALL your own way is taking on too much risk for no discernible reason. It becomes testing at random.
However: DO trust what is proven to work, MODEL it for your purposes, then add your own flavor to it.
The CONTENT can and should be all yours, though. Do NOT copy a word from someone else – that’s not what copywriting means. Learn to see the mindset behind successful marketing, and then apply THAT to your work.
The business model and so on… Is very likely something someone’s already done VERY successfully. Fair game.
Model it, vary it, adapt it… But have the comfort of KNOWING it will work for you.
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsI agree that you need to be the student of your trade first. You need to see what is out there, what works and what failed. Then you need to add your own flavor. If you have nothing to add and you rely on copying other people’s work you have hardly any chance of success.