Why You Shouldn’t Copy Someone Else’s Marketing | Ep. #418

In Episode #418, Eric and Neil discuss why you shouldn’t copy someone else’s marketing. Tune in to discover if replicating other’s marketing techniques actually works for you OR if you’re better off creating your own marketing strategy.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 00:27 – Today’s topic: Why You Shouldn’t Copy Someone Else’s Marketing
  • 00:58 – When given a template, figure out how you can change it and make it your own
  • 01:06 – Some marketing tactics that work for others does not mean it will work for you
  • 01:27 – Eric has tried different techniques and not all of them have worked
  • 01:45 – Learn from others, but don’t copy them
  • 02:22 – Figure out what will work for you and your audience
  • 02:30 – Neil was advised that if you’re doing something that moves away from your personality, the tactic won’t convert
  • 02:50 – There’s NO best tactic for everyone, it will depend on your business and audience
  • 03:34 – Learn everything that you can, but eventually you’ll have to create your own style
  • 03:44 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool
  • 04:05 – That’s it for today’s episode!

3 Key Points:

  1. While known marketers share their techniques for marketing, you do NOT and should not copy it cover to cover.
  2. Learn different marketing tactics, then tailor a strategy for your audience.
  3. There’s no best tactic for everyone—what works for one doesn’t mean it will work for the other.

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Full Transcript of The Episode

Speaker 1: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics, from entrepreneurs with the [gaile 00:00:08] and experience, to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You’re listening to Marketing School with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu.

Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I’m Eric Siu.

Neil Patel: I’m Neil Patel.

Eric Siu: Today we’re going to talk about why you shouldn’t copy someone else’s marketing. This is something that hits home … I think you know it’s … Neil and I we both study a lot of different people around the marketing space. Just to give you an example, a couple years ago when I first started to learn how to do webinars, a friend sent me the Russell Brunson perfect webinar formula. It’s a great video. I still have it. It’s still in my Dropbox and I still watch it a couple of times actually because it’s that good. Just keep in mind, sometimes someone will give you a script, you need to figure out how you can take that template and make it your own.
You shouldn’t think about following it 100%, because sometimes things that work well for somebody else, like let’s say their … They have a more [stalzy 00:01:10] voice, or they’re just good at persuading people … Not that that can't be taught, sometimes your personality is just different. For example, the way I sell is a lot more consultative. I could give a lot more value upfront and then that way eventually people just buy from me. The one technique that I did try, which is stacking a bunch of, stacking a bunch of features that actually didn’t work out well for me. I found out my conversion rate went up when I was just myself more, but that’s not to say I didn’t take certain percentage of tactics from Russell Brunson’s perfect webinar and make it into my own, so think about that.

Neil Patel: The point Eric is trying to make is, when other people are using specific marketing tactics such as webinars, SEO, pay per click, whatever it maybe, you should learn from them. You should look at what they’re doing and of course you should consider replicating some of their strategies, but you shouldn’t blindly copy it. One they may get upset but two, the more important reason is, just because you copy someone, and I’ve paid people and they’ve helped me copy them. What ends up happening is, it doesn’t necessarily work. Your visitor base even though you could be in the same competitive market as someone else, like the same sector, it doesn’t mean what works for them will work for you.
You have to figure out what works for you and your audience, and you need to slowly adapt things to be your own. The other thing that I quickly learned too and this was from a gentleman named Jermaine [Greggs 00:02:32], who does really well with webinars, he was telling me, he’s like, “People like Frank [inaudible 00:02:36] and him and maybe Russell Brunson,” they do things a certain way because it works for them but he’s just like, “If you’re going to be doing things that go away from your personality and doesn’t seem natural, it just won't convert as well.”
I learned something at that moment in which, it’s necessarily that his tactics are wrong or mine are better or mine are worse, it’s more so you have to figure out what works with you, your personality, your company culture. Once you find what works for you, it will tend to work better for your visitors, for your customers as well because it will be more natural.

Eric Siu: Great. I don’t have really … There’s not much more to add around this. Think about this from a marketing perspective, even from sales, if any of you have done sales in the past, when you were given a sales script eventually you made it into your own, or same thing when you train other people on your team, when you give them a call script, whether it’s in order to help clients or to close a deal. Eventually they might copy in the beginning, but they’ll know some parts aren’t natural to them and they’ll make it into their own, right? You’ve got to give them the freedom for that.
Same thing goes for marketing as well. Definitely learn from everywhere that you can, but eventually you have to add … Basically create your own style. Just like the same thing with writing, you have to have your own voice. That’s it for today, but before we go we have a one year annual subscription of Crazy Egg, which is a heat mapping analytics tool that is from Neil Patel and his partner Hiten Shah. What we’re doing here is we’re giving away one of these every single week for the next year, and you can actually get multiple entries, so just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. Once again, singlegrain.com/giveaway to learn more and we will see you tomorrow.

Speaker 1: This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics, to help you find the success you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t forget to rate and review, so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We’ll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.

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