{"id":1215,"date":"2008-12-15T15:54:49","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T15:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2008-12-15T15:54:49","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T15:54:49","slug":"couch-potato-copywriting-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/couch-potato-copywriting-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Couch Potato Copywriting Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday’s email about 24’s copywriting secrets<\/strong> struck a small nerve.<\/p>\n

Been getting emails from lots of 24 fans (yep, the Tony Almada thing shocked me, too)…<\/p>\n

… as well as from people saying how dumb I am for wasting my time watching the “boob tube” at all.<\/p>\n

In fact, some people are all but telling me my TV is the devil, and if I unplugged it, threw it out the window and got back to work, I’d make much more moolah.<\/p>\n

Well, I ain’t so sure about that.<\/p>\n

I agree TV can be a vicious “IQ killer.”<\/p>\n

I agree watching a bunch of TV’ll dull your brain.<\/p>\n

And I agree a LOT of TV has become a moral swamp<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What I DON’T agree with is not watching TV at all.<\/p>\n

In fact, I think people who take this “TV is the devil” attitude are shooting themselves in the pinkie toe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Well, for one thing, there’s a LOT of idea “fodder” on TV.<\/p>\n

I’ve batted out some of my best ideas for headlines, sales letter themes and specific ways of describing things after watching shows like 24, Prison Break, Smallville, Supernatural, Lost, etc.<\/p>\n

Something happens when watching certain shows that keep you engaged that lets your subconscious “slip” you ideas.<\/p>\n

Eugene Schwartz talked about this in his famous Rodale speech.<\/p>\n

How your conscious mind can only hold a few memory “bytes”…<\/p>\n

… and the billions of other “bytes” in your subconscious (which constantly soaks up information through your 5 senses) will give you all kinds of inspiration and ideas and solutions if you let it.<\/p>\n

This happens to me a LOT when watching certain shows.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And I highly enjoy having marathon<\/em> weekends watching this stuff.<\/p>\n

Usually I end up with a whole arsenal of fresh new ideas for my ads, sales letters, newsletters, products and anything else I’m working on.<\/p>\n

I also get a sense of what words, phrases, and ideas people are using so I can harness them for my stuff.<\/p>\n

Look, I’m not saying to glue yourself to the TV 24\/7.<\/p>\n

That would be a nuts-o thing to do.<\/p>\n

All I’m saying is use the idiot-box as a “power tool” for writing better copy.<\/p>\n

It’s no different than the Internet (an even BIGGER wasteland than the boob tube), reading popular magazines or going to blockbuster movies.<\/p>\n

These things let you see what ideas people are responding to.<\/p>\n

And if you know how to use them… you’ll get almost unlimited<\/em> ideas for your ads.<\/p>\n

Ben Settle<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/strong> If you find this subject interesting, then be sure to check out “The Copywriting Grab Bag”<\/a><\/strong> when it’s released. Chapter 2 covers another way of getting almost unlimited ideas for your projects that’s actually more<\/em> entertaining and fun than watching movies or TV. <\/p>\n

A way I actually used an hour ago to write this email.<\/p>\n

To be notified when it’s ready, go to:<\/p>\n

www.CopywritingGrabBag.com<\/a><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday’s email about 24’s copywriting secrets struck a small nerve. Been getting emails from lots of 24 fans (yep, the Tony Almada thing shocked me, too)… … as well as from people saying how dumb I am for wasting my time watching the “boob tube” at all. In fact, some people are all but telling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}