I spy on other marketers and writers. Why?

Now don’t take me the wrong way here… I don’t mean I take pictures of their license plates, or slip twenty dollar bills to bartenders to get them to share what they’ve heard.

But since I’ve decided to get serious about writing and marketing on the internet, I’ve noticed myself dissecting other bloggers and marketers to determine why they’re doing what they’re doing. I devour blogs and articles about search engine optimization, writing, and marketing. I study advertisements to see how they’re placed and how well they’re supported by site content. I even bookmark product sales pages so I can quiz myself on triggers and headline techniques.

Does that seem a little contrary to anyone’s idea of a normal web surfing experience?

I have a hit list

There are probably about two dozen products or blogs I regularly look to when I need to get inspired. Of course, the usual suspects are there… Yaro, John, Darren, and other bloggers who you’ve probably heard me mention. I also admire Jeff Walker, a successful internet marketer, and Jay Conrad Levinson, who is the grandfather of guerilla marketing. I subscribe to “Revenue” and “Dot Com Secrets”, both of which are monthly print publications. Finally, I keep a separate email address which I use specifically to subscribe to newsletters of other marketers and bloggers that I come across so that I can study their processes and sales funnel tactics.

I work out of a dossier

It’s a good move to be bookmarking pages and ideas that you find exciting so that you can come back to them later and study them when you need.

I’ve recently developed a fetish for del.icio.us, which is a popular social bookmarking site that lets you store your bookmarks online. Your browser gets cluttered, anyways, when you bookmark locally… plus, your browser doesn’t support bookmark tagging, which is a critical function that del.icio.us offers so that you can sort and find your bookmarks easily.

You can create a free account at del.icio.us and use your newly organized and effective bookmarking system as a swipe file where you can access your greatest inspirations in the click (or three) of a mouse.

Great input creates great output (or, garbage in, garbage out!)

Great content and product producers need inspiration! The quality of your input will be immediately apparent when you produce your own material. Ripping off content and copying someone else’s work is a definite no-no, but don’t be shy when your creative mind kicks in after you encounter someone else’s good idea… you’re bound to be inspired by other people’s work as you research and gather material for your own writing.

I get my fill of quality input by reading books, listening to audio seminars and interviews, and attending networking functions and industry events.

What do you think?

Should you spy in your industry? I believe that it’s important to keep up with what your competitors and peers are doing, and I also think that people are naturally aware that “keeping up” is crucial in today’s competitive business world. I’m sure that if executives at large companies, like Coca Cola or McDonalds, didn’t have any idea of what the other team was up to, then they simply wouldn’t be doing their jobs!

Let’s have a conversation about it. Tell everyone about what spy tactics and secret tools you use, or share your thoughts in the comments!