A smart copywriting system means that no matter what unforeseen challenges come your way, you’ll never have any gaps in content production. We bring this up because a copywriter on our team recently took medical leave for surgery, leaving her with an arm that didn’t work and clients who still had deadlines to meet.
It’s a common scenario: Employees get sick, need to take parental leave, or worse—they take permanent leave for a new job or career change.
You need a “What if” plan in your back pocket.
Without a plan, companies scramble to keep up. Some hire a backfill. But if you’ve ever been in that position, you know how much time and effort it takes to recruit, interview, hire, and onboard a new writer. Still others hire a freelancer, which takes just as much effort and comes with the added uncertainty of whether the writer will be a good fit.
Some companies “borrow” a copywriter from a different team, but that’s a temporary solution that doesn’t lend itself to a true commitment to the brand. And finally, some executives just decide to DIY it and write the copy themselves. (You know who you are.) That might work for a week or so, but it can have a detrimental effect in the long term—especially if it’s at the expense of voice and tone, branding, or other responsibilities.
That way, you’re prepared for the inevitable.
Now, what if you lose a writer at the start of a crucial initiative? It happens all the time. The answer, all too often, is to push off the project. This knee-jerk reaction can lead to a domino effect that starts with adjusting timelines and ends with postponing even more initiatives in order to get the first one out the door. Delays can eventually bring the entire system to a screeching halt. And these days, brands can’t afford to be absent from the public discourse for very long.
The other option—plowing through with the writers you have left—isn’t likely to end well, either. Before you alert your remaining staff members that they’ll be working around the clock to meet a deadline, consider the potential impact that would have on cost, morale, and productivity.
Losing a copywriter doesn’t have to mean losing momentum.
At MarketSmiths, copywriter gaps are never an issue. We have a solid “What if” plan already in place (we call it the Unified Content Workflow), that keeps the work on track, no matter what.
Here’s how it works: A MarketSmiths writer needs surgery and will be out for two weeks. When the Unified Content Workflow kicks in, we shuffle workloads as necessary to close the gap. All the onboarding and assignments are handled internally, our experienced writers get up to speed in a jiffy, and work carries on as usual.
Our clients? They feel no pain.
Does the idea of having high-quality writing talent on tap at all times sound appealing? Talk to us.
