The news has been bad lately… the US seems to be headed into a recession. For reasons that are a bit beyond me, Congress’ answer is to create a package that will give us all checks for $600 in May. I don’t understand much about how governmental budgets work, but haven’t they been reading the newspapers? Why didn’t they work on a long-term goal to fix this instead of tossing $600 into everyone’s pockets so we can go buy the Wii we always wanted?

Err… anyway. This is not a political blog.

So, the country’s economy is unstable, and people are worried. I just started a business as a freelance copywriter, and I’m not sure whether this trend is going to be good or bad for my business.

It could be bad
If companies lock down marketing budgets, cut off advertising, hunker down and refuse to produce any more eNewsletters, make do with last year’s  brochures… my business will suffer. My existing clients will say, “Beth, we just can’t afford to keep the newsletter going right now.” Potential clients will say, “Sorry — we’ve cut our budget for marketing. Call us when we’re in the black again.”  People will simply not produce the things I write.

It could be good
I see two potential trends that might make someone in my position very happy.  First, businesses could decide to cut their internal communications and marketing staffs. They’ll turn to contractors to do specific projects instead of having a person or department always on call. Second, businesses will realize that they have to do more marketing and outreach to keep their clients. They’ll need more newsletters, marketing campaigns, tip sheets, etc.

I’m going to stick with the optimism and guess that freelance writers will be fine during the recession, but I’m not going to stop my own marketing and outreach efforts, even when I’m busy and can’t really take on much more work.