Crafting a tone appropriate and empathetic marketing message during this time can feel incredibly intimidating

especially if you don’t have the support of a public relations professional on your team.

Getting the message right and letting your customers know that you see them is extremely important now more than ever.

So it’s time for brands big and small to don their PR and marketing hats to create marketing campaigns and messages that will not only resonate with their clientele but draw them nearer in a time when people are looking to brands to create safe havens of understanding.

Let’s start right there, UNDERSTANDING. That word in itself should be a guiding force for us all. If we start with the goal of creating a message or theme that is rooted in understanding, our work is made that much easier.

Being understanding is next door to empathy, it means you have taken time to truly identify what experience someone is having and you are doing the work of aligning with them.

Understanding someone’s situation often requires a bit of digging so that you can fully grasp the brevity of their plight or battle. Basically you have to step into their shoes to get where they’re truly coming from.

When marketing is approached from this particular purview, we are able to transition

from talking AT our consumers to talking WITH our consumers.

We want to ENGAGE in meaningful, heartfelt ways so that our communities expand and grow during this time instead of recede and retract from us due to feeling disenfranchised.

Now that you’ve done the work of understanding your consumer, it’s time to put on your copywriting hat. You’re going to have imagine that you are a copywriter on a 5 star public relations team because your copy matters now more than it ever has before.

That’s okay though, winners are made under pressure and you were built for such a time as this, so no fear.

Copy has to feel personal and almost as organic as a message between friends depending on what type of brand you’re building.

Right now your goal should be to simulate a hug with your words. Imagine that when your consumer reads your captions or emails that they suddenly feel consoled and better yet SEEN.

Empathetic messages create LOYALTY.

They make consumers say, “you know what, that’s why I shop with this brand, they get me”

We are going for the “They Get Me” reaction. If your copy doesn’t give that feeling, it ain’t right. You know how to determine if you’ve achieved that moment? Test your copy with a trusted group of team members or even family/friends.

Challenge them to read your message as if they were a customer. Challenge them to really reflect on how your copy made them feel, also ask them to unpack how the copy could have unintentionally made them feel so you can gauge if there will be unintended backlash due to people taking your message the wrong way or just simply missing the mark.

Remember the stakes are a bit higher when people are more volatile or easily riled so double and triple check your work to be sure you’re walking into a fire storm.

Brand trust can be destroyed in an instant if you’re not careful and wise with your efforts. But as I said earlier, the stakes are high, but the potential to win is amplified so you could unexpectedly go viral for getting the message so right that people totally fall in love with you and your message and ultimately feel compelled to share you with the world.

Let’s recap our 3 tips

• Start from a place of true informed non-judgemental understanding

• Take your copy serious, words have POWER

• Vet your statements like a pro.