I wrote recently about copycat marketing. That’s where someone copies the marketing of someone else, hoping that it will work.
After writing that post, I received a lot of email and comments, from people who had personal experience of copycat marketing going wrong.
Here’s one email, which I would like to share with you and hear your thoughts on.
“Here’s what happened to me, Jim. Please share it with your readers to avoid them making the same mistake.
I found a local guy last year; with a well ranked, well read blog. He blogs and teaches people how to make money and generate business from social media. So, in view of his huge readership and massive following, I decided to copy what he did and apply it to my web design business. Sure enough, his ideas were interesting, but after wasting months doing what he said, I had still not generated a single, tangible asset. Nothing. Zip.
So last month he emailed me, to ask a favor. We’d met at a tweet up and we got on real well hes a great guy. Anyhow, he emailed to ask me if I could loan him a monitor as his was screwed and HE COULDN’T AFFORD TO REPLACE OR REPAIR IT! I did have a spare, which I dropped off for him. Over a coffee, this likeable guy confessed that he was unable to monetize what he did and that he didn’t even have a marketing or business plan in place.
Here’s the thing Jim. This guy has thousands of RSS subscribers and followers and a kick-ass blog plus a whole bunch of very well known buddies. I was copy cat marketing someone who looked like he was doing great, but wasn’t making a dime. Its set my marketing back like 6 months. Ive been a jerk for sure but want others to avoid making the same dumbass mistake as me so that my experience wasn’t a total waste of time. Check people out. Followers or reader numbers don’t always equal $$”