In order to see this the right way we first need to make a few things perfectly clear.
1. Copywriting is marketing.
2. Marketing – the best marketing – is nothing more than a great idea put visually (possibly audibly).
3. Words are visual.
So…where do great ideas come from? Often copywriters, much like traditional marketers, treat their trade as nothing more than a business. They start the day at 8 or 9 in the morning and end it an around 5 pm, structuring their business around a schedule and avoiding the idea of work once the time card has been punched.
Are you restricting your great ideas to eight hours a day – 40 hours a week?
Ideas come when you least expect them. They come while your sipping your coffee at breakfast, while you are getting your tire changed – they even come while you are sitting on the toilet.
When a great idea strikes it is important to run with it…or at least make notes so you can run with it later. Unfortunately, ideas are not concrete. Ideas do not get stuck in your subconscious where you can retrieve them later. Sometimes I wonder how many great ideas have been lost only because the person didn’t have a pen and paper handy.
Be ready when an idea strikes.
Don’t dwell on it. This can have a reverse effect – much like trying to find the perfect marketing plan before lunch.
Just be ready.