The late copywriter Jim Rutz once told a story about how something he wrote accidentally went viral.
He said he’d write a financial promo and put one of his own opinions in almost as a throw-away thought… and suddenly it sails through the process of approval from the client, the legal department, and the editors and is being quoted as fact in the financial news, even though it was an opinion from a copywriter who is admittedly not an expert at all on the subject.
Christopher Nolan said the same happened when Batman Begins came out.
There is a scene where Bruce Wayne falls through some ice.
Next he’s in front of fire freezing being told:
“Rub your chest, your arms will take care of themselves”
Sounds legit? Maybe it is, maybe not. But Nolan said it was a bit hair-raising when he noticed suddenly it was being taught to boy scouts or whatever as some kind of survival tip even though he basically pulled the line out of his arse.
Another example:
Many years ago I decided to probe around in the prostate problem niche.
I wrote an eBook with a backend offer in place, started generating traffic via a particularly aggressive kind of SEO (that briefly worked in the early 2010’s, does not work anymore) that was getting me sales and things were looking pretty good. So good, something I said as a throwaway opinion was suddenly popping up in a bunch of forums, etc, that while was not something that would hurt anyone (it was not a health tip, just a tip about an obscure kind of doctor people might want to get an opinion from that had nothing to do with urology)… it was being quoted as some kind of breakthrough for a couple days before petering out.
Related to this:
I have lost count how many times I’ve been given credit (or blame) for things I did not say by people on social media by both friend and foe alike. But eventually, at some point when you are enough of a threat to certain competitors or annoying enough to jealous losers who follow you… you will have people writing emails and posts about you, with or without mentioning you, lying through their teeth for clout or sympathy or God-only-knows.
And when that happens?
The last thing you should do is get defensive or attack whoever it is.
Instead, turn it into an email to sell something.
You will not only do your own business a favor, but probably the people on your email list who know, like, and trust you will find it amusing and good sport, too. And if you are selling something they want, then many of them will probably even buy from you, of course.
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Ben Settle
