Copycat Marketing 101 Pdf Free Download

[Sear Sommerfeldt]

I love black cats. In fact, I own two of them. I adopted them from the local animal shelter after we lost two black kittens to a disease called FIP. My current felines are black cats number five and six. Yes I have really owned that many.

When I first launched our business I looked around at other firms and tried to learn from them. I tried to figure out what marketing tactics were successful and I used this as a guide to help me get my feet wet.

Had I continued to rely on copycat marketing efforts, I would have prevented our firm from finding our own brand and our own identity. I would never have discovered our sweet spot and I would have lost the opportunity for growth.

What I find painful is the inquiries we receive for website design that are entirely based on copycat marketing tactics. So many people want to be make millions from the internet, but they plan on doing so by copying someone else. They want the exact same WordPress theme or website design as another company or blogger. All so they can follow behind their competition and not really compete with it.

Rebecca is the founder and president of Web Savvy Marketing, a Michigan digital marketing agency. She has a well-rounded business background within SMB and enterprise organizations, as well as over fifteen years of experience in sales and online marketing. She provides SEO consulting services for clients and provides SEO coaching on Clarity.fm. Learn more at RebeccaGill.com.

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Dr. Paul Johnston, Stacey Danheiser, and I have researched marketing communication in sectors as diverse as Telecoms, Data Centre, and Higher education and found organisations saying almost the exact same things as competitors, leaving customers swimming in a sea of sameness. This sameness pervades the whole marketing and sales process and makes it very difficult for customers to choose between one supplier and another. Very often they choose to do nothing, 58% of B2b deals end in no deal because insufficient value was presented to persuade the customer to change.

In our upcoming book Stand-out Marketing we talk in depth about why the Sea of Sameness happens as organizations struggle to either make themselves distinctive or meaningfully different in the eyes of the customer. My co-author, Dr. Paul Johnston talks about some of the key contributors to sameness in his recent article 94% of b2b value propositions worldwide are un-differentiated LinkedIn.

What do you think are the common threads coming through the 4 real-life examples? They have little to do with technical marketing skills like copywriting and digital campaigns. The real life examples seem to be about human choices and decisions on what marketing is and how it should be done: just throw something out there on the website, talk about ourselves in an outside-in way, recruit people based on a technical knowledge of the product, be dishonest if you must, as your job is just getting the message out. All of them show a complete lack of strategic competencies: where were the decisions taken about competitive positioning, the discussions about customer value, the dot connecting between customer issues and company solutions?

In Standout Marketing we reveal the 5 competencies required by Business leaders, Marketing, and Salespeople to help them stand out in a sea of sameness. You can read an overview in an article by co-author Stacey Danheiser 5-competencies to differentiate yourself. You do not have to be like Mr. Cellophane, if you read the book and develop these competencies customers will not see right through you or walk on by you. They may even tell others your name.

Copycat marketing is expensive and ineffective at best and can actually be counterproductive and damaging. This weekend I received a piece of copycat marketing category, and I think it demonstrates these points.

To recap, someone spent a lot of money to send out a message that was anonymous, confusing, dishonest. In my case, they received the extra bonus of negative word of mouth. Hardly a recipe for success. Make sure that the tactics that you choose flow from your marketing strategy and help your ideal customers to know, like, trust, buy from, and refer others to you.

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When researching our book, my co-authors and I conducted extensive research where we compared the websites and social media feeds of some of the largest organizations in industry sectors, from telecoms to higher education, conducted interviews with sales and marketing leaders whose experience spanned 119 companies and 54 industry sectors and launched a global online survey. The result? That organizations say the exact same things as their competitors.

A January 2021 survey of 350 to marketers in US companies, found that over 72% of respondents said the role of marketing had increased in importance during the last year, which is perhaps not surprising given the COVID 19 pandemic. Customers have had to rely much more on company marketing channels to help make decisions, so having clearly differentiated offers that resonate with customers is more important than ever.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. Well, that may be true but it can get you into a heap of legal trouble if it is plagiarism. And it is downright dishonest. However, when it comes to MLM product development, marketing ideas and compensation plan strategy, being a creative copycat could be a legal and ethical shortcut to achieving your business goals for your new MLM, party plan or direct selling company. (This is one in a series of articles by MLM consultants expert Michael L. Sheffield on this and related topics.)

Why? Because everyone knows that Rich DeVoss and Jay Van Andle invented the MLM compensation system. As Wayne and Garth would say, Not! Rich and Jay would be the first to tell you that they proudly borrowed the concept from their first network marketing experience as distributors for Nutrilite, the California Vitamin Company that originated the MLM compensation plan concept. Or did they? Some think the MLM compensation concept was invented by another MLM company launched before Nutrilite called Wachters. Whatever our roots, our industry has continued to creatively reinvent itself and enhance the proven concepts of the past adjusting them to present day needs.

Bursting with fresh greens, fruits, and veggies, this paleo Copy-Cat Chick-fil-A market salad is a wonderful at-home option for salad lovers who need to stay away from sugars, dairy, and other unnecessary ingredients.

If you need a delicious and easy dressing to go on your copycat Chick-Fil-A Market Salad, try my version of their zesty apple cider vinaigrette! Instead of topping your salad with things like soybean oil, sugar, xanthan gum, and calcium disodium EDTA, you can just use simple healthy ingredients.

Copycat marketing is not likely to bring you long-term success, even if you have tons of money to inject into your marketing budget to overpower your competition. For many startups, having a ton of money is unlikely, so you can try marketing on a shoestring budget.

Copycat marketing is the practice by one trader (the copycat) of designing, marketing, or presenting its product in such a way as to closely resemble the product of another (the original). This often results in a consumer either buying the copycat product believing it to be the original (mistaken purchase), or understanding that the products are made by different traders, but believing that because they are so similar they must be related in some way (mistaken attribution).

This can create problems for brand-owners, as this type of activity may not always lend itself to the forms of enforcement which are available to them. The relevant provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1994 (TMA) and the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) are not always appropriate for dealing with copycat marketing, as copycat brands do not typically seek to infringe a trade mark or a copyright-protected piece of art or copy; rather, they aim to create an overall impression, or get-up, that is close enough to that of the original to cause a mistaken-purchase or mistaken-attribution situation to arise.

On the face of it, the tort of passing off might seem more suited to this type of activity. However, it sets a high bar for claimants to clear, and case law has made it difficult to prove. In order for a claim to be successful, the claimant must plead and prove the three classical elements of the tort:

Problems of proof

The need to prove the existence of goodwill can cause issues in copycat cases. In Moroccanoil Israel Ltd v Aldi Stores Ltd [2014] EWHC 1686 (IPEC), HHJ Hacon found that while the claimant had goodwill in its brand name, there was none in the get-up. Very few brands will be able to establish goodwill in relation to get-up, as opposed to their brand names, making this element hard to prove.

Finally, passing off requires proof of loss. This means that a claimant must prove that as a result of the copycat activity it has lost money or had its reputation damaged. That is not always easy or possible to do. In Moroccanoil the claimant could not prove that consumers who bought the copycat product would otherwise have bought the original, or that consumer dissatisfaction with the copycat was being wrongly attributed to the original.

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