Copywriting for marketing in a Covid-19 world

11th June 2020 | Posted in copywriting

In the UK we’re just emerging from lockdown after the first wave of coronavirus prompted the government to urge us to stay at home if possible, and social distance while we were out and about.

This has had a profound effect on every aspect of business and community. Organisations of every size have suspended marketing activities while staff are furloughed or working from home, and the future is too uncertain to know the best way forward.

Changing marketing strategies in larger businesses

Marketers in large organisations are busy re-evaluating their strategies as best they can. B2C know that consumers in the last few months have shifted their focus from buying ‘things’ to healthy living and buying in the essentials for a locked down world. Now they need to know how much that changed emphasis will remain as we move to what is being termed a ‘new normal’. They also have to take on board that the shift from high street shopping, which was already happening, has vastly accelerated and is likely to be the model for the future.

For the B2B suppliers, the chains have been affected from production through distribution to delivery to customers. Now providers need to look at how priorities have changed for current and potential customers, and what will entice them back into the buying process again.

Smaller businesses are adapting too

It’s not just the corporates and mid-sized organisations that have been affected. Many smaller businesses, like personal trainers, have found a way to transfer their businesses online. Others have found it harder to follow that path.

There will, I trust, come a time when the corporates have their new strategies in place, and will be calling on their external marketing and copywriting resources to help move their businesses forward. The crisis is not yet over, and organisations will need to be flexible and quick to adapt to changing demands. They’ll need partner resources that can work with them to make that process successful.

There will also be a renewed drive for smaller businesses to refresh their views on who their target markets are, and what they are looking for in a post-Covid world. That’s an exercise that I can help them through, to get to the heart of what customers really want. And in the light of our recent experiences, that could be very different to the world we’ve left behind.

How I work with clients today and for the future

On a day-to-day practical note, as a freelance copywriter I’ve worked from a home/office for most of my professional career. Face-to-face meetings have become rare over the years, and during the pandemic it has been easy to liaise with clients through telephone calls and videoconferencing. That’s an approach that I expect to continue, whatever the future holds.