Be Inspired, but Don't Copy

It can be frustrating when you're following someone else's tactics, which doesn't work for you as they claimed.

Look, I've been lucky enough to be part of a team that achieved an incredible milestone, like having the largest permission-based email list in Portuguese and Spanish in the world back in the day.

Would I be able to do it again? 🤔

Possibly, but not by copycatting the exact same strategy. 

Why?

Because the context changed, our audience's habits and the scenario changed.

I keep sharing what works for our campaigns and projects over time. Are we using the exact same marketing recipes every single time?

Some we do, and most of them we don't.

So why share what worked and create case studies?

Because it creates a repository of knowledge from which it can inspire you to adapt to your reality.

Every single brand and business model is different from the rest. If it's not, that's a problem right there. 

For a brand to stand out, they need to differentiate somehow. 

Uber and Lyft have basically the same business model for the end user. Or are they? What are the nuances that make you choose one over the other?

Strategies and tactics can be similar in some ways, but if you make the same market approach that Uber did back in the day, I could almost guarantee that it wouldn't work as it did for them.  

Knowledge has never been easier to spread and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It means that if it were as easy as to copycat some brand's approach, everyone would create massive brands everywhere.  

Let me break it to you: it isn't!

So, what's the secret sauce that makes big brands and marketing successful?

Let me tell you what's the secret recipe right here. 

List of Ingredients:

• 900gr of Product-Market Fit;
• 1.2kg of Right Time to Market;
• 600gr Experienced and Talented Marketers;
• 300gr of Martech;
• 50gr of the Right Connections;
• 650dl Category Disruptive;
• 43gr of pure luck and serendipity;
• A bowl of testing;
• A tray of channels and tactics.

Recipe: 

Grab your 600gr of Experienced and Talented Marketers and start stirring until you develop a brand strategy, positioning and messaging that fits your ideal market oven and product. Use your bowl of testing to make sure it doesn't spill over.

It's time to add the 900gr of Product-Market Fit, not forgetting the 1.2kg of Right Time to Market and mix that with the 300gr of Martech to make sure you have eyes on the dough. Beat that really well to build your bicep. 

Place it on the Channels and Tactics tray, cover it with the 650dl of Category Disruptiveness, sprinkle with 50gr of the Right Connections, and take it to the ideal market oven to see if it grows.

At this moment, you think I've forgotten about the 43gr of luck of serendipity, am I right? Nope. This is for you to bite while waiting for the experiment to be ready. 😅

From time to time, you check on cooking and see if it's growing, if you need to add a few more ingredients, or if it's burning. 

The outcome

Now that you have followed this recipe, I can tell you that I won't guarantee an extraordinary result because I just made it up as I was writing. 🤷

The thing is, we can't make a recipe that will work for everyone. Even frameworks that are so trendy don't work for every case. 

I'm not trying to make you sad and negative about it. 

It's just how things are.

But now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about what's true, and you can count on it.

Simple Truths for any Marketer

1️⃣ The more you work and test ideas, the better you become at it;

2️⃣ Always keep studying and learn from others' experiences to jumpstart your progress;

3️⃣ As you become more experient, you become better at filtering what is good of what's not;

4️⃣ If you take advice and teachings with a grain of salt and do your experiments, you become wiser and more selective;

5️⃣ Learning from other niches and markets can give you ideas for yours.

6️⃣ Two 👂 and one 👄 is for a reason; Apply it!

7️⃣ Technology doesn't make any difference without people who take the best advantage of that;

8️⃣ Surround yourself or create a circle of people who are more brilliant, more experient and better than you in other things.

9️⃣ Data-driven decisions are better than guessing, but it's your assessment and educated instinct that makes all the difference;

🔟 Having a round 10 listicle seems better than a 9. 😂

What other truth that works for everyone, would you add?

Copying won't take you anywhere.

Yes, you might argue that copying from your colleagues at school and tests has made you save a few grades. 😅

It might give you a few highlights and fame by copying some of the tactics some gurus use, but you'll always be under their shadow. You won't evolve beyond that, and your market will eventually catch up with the fact that you're copying somebody else.

The same happens with brands and marketing. If you copy exactly what the big dog of your market niche is doing, you won't stand out, and some of the things that work for them won't work for you the same way. 

I'll give you another example. 

Hundreds of people on LinkedIn share their templates of cold emailing, ad copy, posts, carousels, whatever. What will happen when thousands of people replicate the same template with their network?

Soon enough, they will identify you as someone using the same copy-paste method as the first 10 they got.

If Pepsi copies the exact same ad as Coca-Cola, it won't work for them. 

So my bottom line is that their strategies, methods and tactics can inspire you, but you need to make your own marketing strategy, tactic and method to fit your brand. 

Please let me know what you think. 

If you disagree with me, please let me learn from your perspective. 

I'm always happy to learn!

Have a great week, BTW!

P.S: Oh, if you want to get one case study, one insight and one actionable idea every Monday, don't forget to subscribe to sendXmail's newsletter right here: https://zly.pt/sendxmail-newsletter

I previously published this content here.