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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 sought-
after 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

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 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

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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 direct-
response-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

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 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

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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

slam home run”.

And, it was only until I was knee-deep into my six-

year 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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 word-
smithing 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

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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 15-

year 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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

"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

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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 coming-
in 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

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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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

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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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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 four-
hour 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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 How To Find Your Big Marketing Idea

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

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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-the-
blank 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 Opt-
Out, 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

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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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