Sometimes you need a copywriter to work in your office…

• If you work better face-to-face.
• If your subject matter is very complex or subtle, or it’s absolutely top secret.
• If you can’t explain everything in writing or on the phone.
• If 3 drafts is never enough.
• If you want to help draft the copy.
• If you want your team to have more ownership of your marketing materials.
• If you have a lot of stakeholders, so questionnaires and phone interviews are impractical.
• If your stakeholders need to bounce off or approve each other’s ideas.
• If you need everyone in the same room, with me facilitating, so we can cut to the chase and find common ground quickly.
• If the discussion about what needs to be said is as important as the decision, and I need to witness it and be a part of it.

If you need me to come to you, for any reason, I can. Whether you’re in Sydney or anywhere else in the world.

Stakeholder interviews and facilitation

When I work from my own office, I send a questionnaire to get the info I need. And I follow up with phone calls and emails if necessary. But that doesn’t work for everyone. Or for every product or service.

Sometimes it’s a personality thing, sometimes something specific to your offering. But whatever it is, I’ve dealt with it before. I’ve been a freelance copywriter since 2002, and I was a technical writer in the software industry for 9 years before that. So I’ve interviewed more than my fair share of clients, subject-matter experts and stakeholders.

I understand that they don’t always know exactly what your marketing material needs to say, why it’s important, why they should help and why everyone doesn’t just ‘get it’ the moment they look at it. I also understand that stakeholders don’t always (often) agree, and politics is often at play in those disagreements. And I understand that they sometimes don’t even know exactly what they know, much less how to express it.

But I’m able to get the information I need, regardless. You don’t survive as a full-time professional writer for more than 2 decades if you can’t. I know a lot already, I learn fast, I ask the right questions, I deal with everyone differently, and I give everyone the opportunity they need to make the contribution they’re capable of.

Watch me write – Or even help!

If you have some particularly important copy you need written, get me to write it while you watch. I’ll walk you through what I’m doing, as I’m doing it, too. And I’ll ask questions as I go to make sure we’re getting the details and tone of voice right.

We can even collaborate on it. Anything from simple wording suggestions to writing whole passages yourself.

For example, you might write a sentence or two, and say, “This is what I’m trying to say here”. Then I can rewrite it, and ask, “What about this?” Then you can explain why it’s not quite right or why some readers might take it the wrong way. How it needs just a bit more emphasis here, or how this particular word has the wrong connotations, and maybe we should try this…

In reality, this is what usually ends up happening anyway.  I think out loud, as I write, and actively engage you on all sorts of things. And I encourage feedback.

This sort of approach gives you and your team an opportunity to play a much bigger part in how the copy comes together.

Below are some screenshots of some copy and wireframes I created like this for Australian Ethical Investment. They knew from the outset that they wanted the copy to be a collaborative effort, and they booked a meeting room at Crown Plaza Terrigal, so we could write some of their trickiest pages together. We worked on my laptop (in Balsamiq), so we could plan the entire user experience of the page – both the user interaction design and the copywriting. And here’s what their Marketing Manager thought:

“Glenn was great to work with and he had some really good ideas for improving how we communicate complex concepts on our website. The copy we developed together at his copywriting workshop in Terrigal was perfect. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him.”

Andrew Sellen, Marketing Manager, Australian Ethical Investment Ltd

Contact me to chat about getting me to work in your office

If you’d like to chat about some on-site copywriting or collaborative copywriting, call Glenn in Sydney Australia on (02) 9121 6211 or email me for a quote.