Years ago, when I first started out as a copywriter, started rewriting the great sales letters in my own handwriting, spending every spare moment reading another piece of sales copy… I found that something strange occurred…
When I was working on a piece of copy, I’d start getting ideas while I was in the shower, lying in bed at night, and basically while I was focusing on things other than writing.
This happened intuitively. But since then, I’ve learned that dozens of other leading copywriters… from Gary Halbert to Joe Sugarman…do exactly the same thing.
They incubate.
What the heck is incubation? Basically, it’s the process of taking a break from your work and doing something pleasurable while your brain sorts the information around and comes up with a solution.
So let’s say you’re writing a sales letter for your business.
The first thing you should do is go over all the material about your subject, ask yourself a series of questions about your business to get your brain ticking.
Questions like: What are the benefits? What are the features?
What’s unique about my product or service?
Think about what you want to write. The angle. The ideas.
Jot down a few headlines and some of the main points you want to cover.
Jot it all down on paper. Visualise the end result you’re aiming for. And then…
Go To The Beach
Or take a shower. Or go and have a cup of coffee, a jog around the block, put on some music. Whatever.
Don’t think about writing copy.
It’s time for your subconscious mind to get busy and come up with a solution. You don’t need to do anything about it.
Of course, you could also switch to another project, and come back to the sales copy once your subconscious mind has had time to sort through the various solutions to your marketing problem.
The point is: get out of your own way and just allow it to happen.
Remember, your mind will take everything you know about your product or service, copywriting, advertising, marketing and psychology and come up with the appropriate solution.