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Imitation Is Flattery

How many great ideas that are making money for other people could imitated?

Steal, borrow, highjack, or whatever you want to call it; imitation is not just a form of flattery. It is very smart business! “Borrowing” tried, tested, and proven business and marketing ideas can save you an immeasurable amount of money. And what’s even better, it can save you a lot of time because you don’t have to start from scratch.


“To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.”
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

It’s very easy to retrofit someone else’s marketing success to make it fit your business. You could remodel a headline or an offer to fit your products/services. You could use a successful order form or a closing sentence to improve your marketing effort. You can lift almost every element of your marketing effort from somebody else’s successful marketing campaigns. “Collect” the things you see that are working.

Many ideas have been borrowed from old business, marketing and advertising books. You could lift ideas out of your competitors marketing efforts. You can even find things you want to copy or use from other industries, or from successful advertisements in the newspaper. Very often you can improve on an old idea, or create a new spin on a tried and true tactic to increase sales and profits for your business.

You may not like the idea of imitation. You may even think it is unethical - but it works and it can save you a lot of time and money.


“Confusion is always the most honest response.”
- Marty Indik
 

If you want your marketing effort to be successful, you need to make sales and profits your primary concern. The old saying goes: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” It is flattery because it proves that the idea that is being imitated works. Use what works!

What ideas can you imitate that have worked (and are working) for other businesses?