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HOW TO FIND YOUR BIG MARKETING IDEA

Standout & Grab Attention With Your Marketing Message In A Crowded Marketplace

By Todd Brown

Copyright © Todd Brown ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner and publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2018 ISBN 978-0-578-20040-8 www.MarketingFunnelAutomation.com

How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

Preface In early 2006 I was given a twenty-five page document that has since been worth several million dollars to me personally. And has been worth tens of millions to my clients and students. What this document revealed I had never seen before in any of the marketing courses, books, or trainings I had invested in. And, believe me, I invested in a lot! Thanks to what I found inside this document — and a handful of additional meetings about it — my income catapulted, my reputation soared and swept across the marketing industry, and… more importantly… the profits generated by the new marketing campaigns I set-up went through the roof. The entire game had changed for me. Prior to 2006, or what I like to refer to as B.D. — Before Document — my story was fairly consistent with most decently successful online entrepreneurs. I had marketed and sold a variety of products. Put up landing pages and sales pages. Had a few email autoresponder sequences set up. And was generating between ten to twelve thousand dollars a month. Sometimes more. Sometimes less.

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And, of course, I was consistently buying something new every month — a new marketing course or training or something — searching for the one “magic bullet” to help me produce more profitable marketing. But, I could never seem to breakthrough to what I considered the “big money”. What I was hunting for at the time was the secret to cracking the $100,000.00 a month sales mark. The soughtafter one million dollar a year business. But no matter what I bought… no matter what I learned… and no matter what I tried… I could never seem to make it happen. Until I was given that document! It was the first time I was introduced to Mark Ford. You may know Mark under his pen name, Michael Masterson. Mark has written over a dozen books on entrepreneurship, personal productivity, and wealth building. Three of which were New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. He’s been the mastermind behind the development of dozens of multimillion-dollar businesses, including Agora Inc., a direct response publishing company whose annual revenues now surpass 5

How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

the billion dollar mark. He’s trained some of the highest paid advertising copywriters in the world. And, on the rare occasion when he takes on a private mentoring or consulting client, he commands a hefty up-front fee in the tens of thousands and a performance royalty of one million dollars. So, whenever I was lucky enough to get around Mark… and he spoke about marketing or business… I listened. Intently. We were introduced by my good buddy, and then business partner at Strategic Profits, Rich Schefren. At the time, our Strategic Profits offices — in Downtown Delray Beach, Florida — were right around the corner from the popular cigar bar and lounge Cigar Connoisseur. For whatever reason, Cigar Connoisseur was a hotspot for local, established copywriters, marketers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. I have no idea why. But, it seemed like dozens of meetings, brainstorming sessions, and even multi-million-dollar joint venture deals were brokered and took place there on a weekly basis. And, at least once a week it’s where you’d find 6

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Mark… sitting at the bar… smoking a Padron 1926 Serie… sipping on some Patron Silver tequila on the rocks… pecking away on his laptop. Usually, working on either a new book or an essay for one of his newsletters. On this particular night, Rich and I were sitting a couple of stools over from Mark with a couple of empty seats separating us. Rich and I were discussing what we saw as the commonalities in the most profitable advertising promotions and marketing campaigns, that we didn’t see in the average, typical campaigns. That’s when Mark — having obviously overheard our conversation — stopped typing, picked up his head, and looked over at us and said: “Most if not all of the stuff you guys are talking about is only marginally responsible for the really big winners. It’s the stuff entrepreneurs and marketers are taught to focus on. But, it’s not what makes an advertising promotion a grand-slam home run. Do you guys want to know what is chiefly responsible for making the big winners the big winners?” “Yeah, definitely. Please!”, Rich and I both responded in unison. And… so… Mark began to explain to us…

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The Real Secret Behind The Biggest, Most Profitable Marketing Campaigns Ever Created! He said it was the true secret behind how many of the biggest direct response companies and entrepreneurs are able to produce millions of dollars from their marketing promotions. And… that… it was the one single thing which has created more millionaires and multi-millionaires in directresponse-driven businesses than any other single strategy or tactic. And… that… if we really, truly wanted to make the “big money”… we needed to learn it, master it, and implement it with every marketing campaign we rolled out. He even recommended we download (from a private website) a little twenty-five page report written by one of his — now wealthy — proteges, if we wanted to learn more. Which, of course, I downloaded immediately when I got home that night. And it was downloading and devouring that little report… and, of course, having that first discussion with Mark… that was the genesis of my six-year journey into learning and mastering how to harness… The Incredible Sales Generating Power Of 8

How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

“The Big Marketing Idea” Over the course of the next six years, I went on a life-changing exploration… investing well over 1500 hours… researching and studying the “Big Marketing Idea”. I went through and analyzed everything I could get my hands on about it. Even going as far as to scrutinize and dissect over 92 individual million-dollar-plus marketing campaigns and sales promotions. (I won’t even tell you what I had to go through to get those, let alone go over every detail of them with a fine tooth comb.) I questioned every top advertising copywriter I could get access to… including, Mike Palmer, the guy who wrote the End Of America — the most successful marketing promotion ever to come out of the financial newsletter publishing industry. And, as I routinely saw Mark over those next six years at Cigar Connoisseur, I picked his brain relentlessly about the “Big Marketing Idea”. I fired dozens of questions at him like: how is a “Big Marketing Idea” discovered, how do you know when you have a “Big Marketing Idea”, how do you turn ordinary marketing ideas into “Big Marketing Ideas”, how do you communicate the “Big Marketing Idea” throughout a marketing campaign, how do you know when you’ve chosen 9

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the correct “Big Marketing Idea”, and on and on. And… frankly… it was… The Most Profitable And Eye-Opening Journey Of My Life! Now, look: Before going any further, I need to make sure you understand something. This is critical. So, please pay close attention. When I say “Big Marketing Idea”… I’m NOT talking about the typical marketing “hook”, “promise”, “premise”, “theme, or “benefit-driven headline”. Nor am I talking about the “idea” behind your product, your Unique Selling Proposition, your positioning statement, or your string of marketing claims. No. Those are all valuable. Sure. And those are all taught by most marketing experts. Absolutely. As they should be. But… as you’re about to discover… those are not responsible for why some marketing campaigns produce millions a year while most others don’t even come close. Those, in fact, are the exact things Mark dismissed when he said, “It’s the stuff marketers are taught to focus on. But, it’s not what makes an advertising promotion a grand-

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slam home run”. And, it was only until I was knee-deep into my sixyear journey of mastering the use of the “Big Marketing Idea” that I came to the startling realization - even though the “Big Marketing Idea” was almost never taught or talked about publicly by marketing experts… it was acknowledged by almost all of the best marketers on the planet as… The Real Secret Weapon Behind Their Marketing Success & Wealth! They almost all said, it wasn’t their copy… their headlines… products… or offers. No. It was the “Big Marketing Idea” they credited. For example: Take legendary copywriter, Gary Halbert. Most students of marketing think Gary’s monster success as a copywriter came from his sales chops and writing skills. That’s what I thought. But that’s not what Gary said. In fact, listen to what his son, Bond Halbert, shared (when being interviewed) about the most valuable marketing lesson Gary ever taught him:

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HOST: “You mentioned right before we jumped on the phone how one of the things your dad, he's known for copywriting and whatnot, but what he always thought was the most important thing, the thing that he felt biggest about and you agreed as well is The Big Marketing Idea.” BOND: “People would come to my dad and try and learn copywriting and he would give them a wordsmithing lesson and tell them how to begin their copy and how to close, and stuff like that. Pretty quickly when they felt like, "Okay, I am getting some of that," he would start to teach them what was important. What was important was not that, it was The Big Marketing Idea.” And, even Gary himself, when writing (on one rare occasion) about how powerful the “Big Marketing Idea” is… and why it needs to be the foundation of every marketing campaign… said… “It’s so damn valuable!” And Gary is just the beginning. Clayton Makepeace, the highest-paid active copywriter today, says his biggest winners in terms of his copywriting and his promotions were all based on “Big Marketing Ideas”. “It’s from your marketing’s Big Marketing Ideas 12

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that accelerated growth in your business happens”. How much growth? Well… Look at what Mark Ford wrote in one of his newsletters about the money produced thanks to the “Big Marketing Idea”: “I have learned many valuable lessons from my 15year partnership with Agora’s legendary CEO, marketing genius Bill Bonner. None is more important than The Big Marketing Idea. Bill is widely recognized as the man who brought The Big Marketing Idea into consumer direct marketing and sold more than a billion dollars’ worth of publications by doing so.” And how about, John Forde (no relation to Mark), Bill Bonner’s most famous copywriting protege - here’s what he said: “For all the great tips and tricks that can make an ad look slick, you'll fail if you don't have a "Big Marketing Idea”. I can tell you personally, every winning ad I've ever written has had a Big Marketing Idea at the core.” Even legendary ad man and copywriting giant, David Ogilvy, championed the necessity of having a “Big Marketing Idea”:

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"You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent Big Marketing Ideas. It takes a Big Marketing Idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a Big Marketing Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.” And I could go on and on listing out a string of world-class entrepreneurs, marketers, and copywriters who all attribute their monster success to their understanding of — and ability to find and develop — “Big Marketing Ideas” for their marketing promotions. Many credit their first “Big Marketing Idea” campaign for the point in their careers when their income and reputation shot into the stratosphere. A true transformational event. Which is why… One “Big Marketing Idea” For One Marketing Campaign Can Change Your Business (and Life) Forever! Just one “Big Marketing Idea” for one marketing campaign can bring in more sales for your business than most entrepreneurs will make in their entire lifetime. Seriously. For example: With one marketing campaign built on one Big 14

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Marketing Idea… my good friend and former business partner, Rich Schefren, created one twenty-nine page report… and generated over three million dollars in sales in 7 days! With another seven million dollars in sales comingin over the next year. With one marketing campaign built on one Big Marketing Idea… Porter Stansberry launched S&A Investment Research… which today is the largest investment advisory in the world… generating over a hundred million dollars a year. With one marketing campaign built on one Big Marketing Idea… marketing wizard, Frank Kern, helped his client, Neil Strauss, sell a product in the dating market… and generated over $1.4 million dollars in just four hours! And, with one marketing campaign built on one Big Marketing Idea… Mark Ford, at the age of just 33, launched his first financial newsletter subscription, The Oxford Club, which generated over 30,000 customers, was later sold to Agora, and allowed Mark to retire… financially-free… before turning 40! All… from… just… one Big Marketing Idea. See: A Big Marketing Idea is a way of crafting a marketing message which your prospects see as new, unique, and different. As something fresh and timely. As 15

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something exciting and beneficial. As something they want to engage with because it promises to open their eyes to something they haven't been exposed to before. And because of that, when your marketing is built with a Big Marketing Idea, it stands-out, gets attention, and compels prospects to consume your message. Ultimately, leading to greater sales. And that’s why I've become absolutely convinced it’s more crucial for you to focus your attention on learning how to develop Big Marketing Ideas for your marketing promotions, than on any other single advertising strategy or tactic — regardless of what business you’re in, what you sell, and what marketing campaigns you may currently have in place. That’s why I decided to publish this book. Because, when you learn and use the formula I discovered for developing Big Marketing Ideas… you’ll possess the knowledge and ability to crank-out marketing campaigns that bring more leads, more new customers, and more sales than you can imagine. And when that happens… everything changes for you.

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Introduction It’s a foundational marketing lesson which changed my whole perspective. And it should for you as well. I was chatting with Mark Ford. And asked about the secret behind Agora’s growth. “How has Agora been able to grow so big and so fast?” I fully expected Mark to say something about Agora’s list size or the amount they invest into advertising or the quality of their copywriters. But that’s not at all what Mark said. “We recognized early on, when it comes to marketing, we’re really in the idea business. We're in the business of developing interesting, arresting, and captivating ideas.” It took a bit for me to fully digest what Mark was saying. But, once I did, it made complete sense. Everything we do as marketers is built on top of some idea. Whether we're publishing a blog post, creating a

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video for YouTube, doing a Facebook Live, or creating a landing page, a sales page, or a full-blown marketing campaign… behind each of those is an idea. That idea can be new and novel. Or it can be old and run-of-the-mill. The idea behind what you’re saying could be a plain vanilla, average idea which rolls off the back of your prospects as something they've seen or heard before. Or, it could be a Big Marketing Idea that strikes your prospects as new, unique, and different. As something they find startling, arresting, and compelling. Something they have to stop and hear more about. Now, please understand: In this context, I’m not talking about the idea behind your product or service. I’m not talking about you coming-up with the latest and greatest idea for some new app, new technology, or new biotech breakthrough. No. I’m talking about the idea behind your marketing message. The idea behind what you’re saying in your ad, your headline, and your campaign. See: the quality of the marketing idea determines the success of the marketing campaign — and ultimately how well it converts prospects into buyers. Because the quality of the idea is what determines whether prospects 18

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will take notice, stop what they’re doing, and engage with your marketing message. A Big Marketing Idea will cut through the noise and clutter and make your message stand-out from all of the others. It will grab attention, engage prospects, and compel them to want to hear more about the idea. Think of it like this: The Big Marketing Idea is really the advertisement for your marketing campaign. It’s the hook for your marketing message. Again, it's not the hook for your product. And it's not the hook for your offer. It's the advertisement and hook for your marketing message itself. It’s the idea behind what you’re presenting to prospects. And that idea goes way beyond just your copy and simple wording of a headline. See: The idea and the headline are not the same. A headline is simply an expression of the underlying marketing idea. Every headline, just like every book title, is there to communicate an idea. And every marketing idea can be presented a number of different ways with a number

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of different words. Simply changing the copy, adding a word, or replacing a word with a more descriptive word in a headline, doesn’t necessarily change the underlying idea. Changing “How To Grow Big Tomatoes” to “How To Grow Monster-Sized, Juicy, Red Tomatoes” doesn’t make the idea behind the headline better. It may make the copy behind the headline better. But the idea behind the headline is still the same. What we’re talking about is the underlying idea behind the headline. For example, take a look at this book:

You can see from the title it’s, obviously, all about how to outsource your business. I don't know who

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published this. I don't know the author behind this. I don't know where this came from, but it’s crystal clear what this book is about. It's a simple, straight-forward, ordinary idea: how to outsource. I have no idea if this book sold well or not at all. If I was a betting man, I would bet a stack of chips it did not. Now I want you to compare it to this book:

The 4-Hour Work Week. It was on the New York Times' Bestseller List for over four years. Translated into 35 languages. Sold over 1.3 million copies. And put the author, Tim Ferriss, on the map. What’s the difference between the content, the

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material covered in The 4-Hour Work Week and the first book, How to Outsource? Really, there is no difference. Both are about outsourcing for your business. The difference is not in the content. The difference is not in the essence of the material. The difference is in the idea behind how the content is being presented. Tim Ferriss took the ordinary and common idea of outsourcing, and turned it into something new, unique, and different. Into, a Big Marketing Idea — you can work a fourhour week, escape the 9-to-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich. And that one shift — that one Big Marketing Idea — was enough to propel Tim Ferris on to super-stardom in the publishing world. That's the power of a Big Marketing Idea.

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Chapter One Why A Big Marketing Idea Today? One thing is for sure… It’s getting harder and harder to get people’s attention. Today, because people have been exposed to more and more marketing, they’ve become more skeptical and guarded than ever. Many, reluctant and jaded. Every day people are bombarded with thousands of marketing campaigns, marketing messages, advertisements, benefit statements, claims, and promises. Online, television, radio, billboards, direct mail, email, magazines, flyers, you name it. Many filled to the brim with hype. So typical marketing messages no longer make an impact. They’re dismissed or ignored. They roll off the back of prospects. And that’s why trying to “scream a louder promise” in your marketing, or making a bigger, bolder claim or using one of the common hype-style headlines to power your marketing is no longer effective.

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Your prospects have already been exposed to these type of claims over and over again. They’ve heard it. They’ve seen it. It’s nothing new. So today it takes a Big Marketing Idea to penetrate your prospects’ armor and get them excited about what you have to offer. Ordinary no longer cuts it. It takes something bigger, something bolder. As well, many of your prospects have responded to advertisements with bogus claims, exaggerated promises, and outright scams. So, many, have become cynical when it comes to marketing. This is especially true online. Because it's viewed as the Wild West where anybody can put up a website today, the internet is the least trusted of all advertising mediums. It’s not nearly as trusted as newspaper or print or direct mail, because prospects understand these mediums are governed. There are laws regarding what advertisers can and can not say. But not so — at least not to the same extent — with the internet. So with this heightened level of consumer skepticism online, it takes even more extraordinary measures to grab attention and engage prospects. The ordinary marketing approach of extreme 24

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promises and claims is simply no longer adequate. Prospects are also bored. They've been exposed to so much of the same, so often, they're now constantly on the lookout for something new, something different. Your prospects are not interested in what’s old or in more of the same. They’re interested in what’s new. Your prospects don't even want old techniques or methods even if they know those techniques and methods work. No. Your prospects want the new stuff. The new methods. The new techniques. And that's why you need to use the power of a Big Marketing Idea to avoid the Proliferation Of The Formulaic. More and more within the marketing world, we're seeing the use of these so-called plug-and-play, fill-in-theblank templates and formulas for advertising headlines. Prospects are seeing marketing built with these “formulas” more and more… especially the claim-based or promised-based formulas behind much of direct marketing. And as they’re seeing this type of marketing message more and more, they’re tuning out even more and more. Why? Because, again, they've seen it all already.

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They've heard it all. And when your prospects are exposed to something that they've seen and heard, they tune out. They ignore it. They experience Mental Opt-Out. Mental Opt-Out is when your prospects see a marketing claim and say, "Oh, that. I've heard that. I've seen that. Oh, there's a book on that. There's a YouTube video on that." And then they immediately bounce from your website to go elsewhere. Today, you have to avoid seeming and looking and feeling like what your prospects have already been exposed to. So you need to avoid "formulaic" marketing. With a Big Marketing Idea you not only avoid the Proliferation Of The Formulaic and prevent Mental OptOut, you also overcome something called the Categorical Imperative — a term I first learned from Bill Bonner, the founder of Agora. The Categorical Imperative is a principle which demonstrates that individuals subconsciously look for ways to immediately categorize information. If they see something which looks like, sounds like, or feels like something else they’ve already seen, they place the new information into the same mental category.

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So, for example, if something looks, sounds, and feels like the prior marketing they’ve seen before, it triggers the Categorical Imperative… and it automatically gets placed in the same “sales pitch” category or mental bucket. This is yet another reason why you want to avoid the common marketing approach. When your prospects come across a marketing campaign or advertisement that has the same feel, the same vibe, the same style of messaging as what they’ve encountered before, they instantly recognize it for what it is — a sales message. They recognize it as a marketing campaign or a marketing piece. So they immediately categorize it as a commercial message and their filter immediately goes up. A Big Marketing Idea overcomes that Categorical Imperative because it serves as a pattern interrupt. It’s not what prospects expect or anticipate. So it doesn’t get categorized. Which means, it doesn’t trigger the same feelings of skepticism or reluctance. It doesn’t trigger the same sales filter. So it gives your marketing message the opportunity to do its job. All that being said: We could really sum up why a Big Marketing Idea is so critical today with one word: differentiation. Bringing something different to the market is critical 27

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to get attention — a different message, a different angle, a different idea. Remember, better doesn’t always get attention. Better doesn’t always stand-out. Different does. You need to differentiate your marketing message from all the others. You need to differentiate the idea, so your prospects say, "Wow, I've never heard that. What's that about? I want to know more." That’s why a Big Marketing Idea is essential today. And that’s what a Big Marketing Idea does for you.

Get The Full Version Of The Book HERE.

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