Copywriting is about words that inspire action. Brochures, newsletters, billboards, web pages, social posts, and advertising copy are just some of the channels I’ve helped clients with. By mixing in my SEO know-how, words on the page also have an impact on search results. Win-win.
Memorable words to drive online action
Client: Travellers Aid
Travellers Aid is a Melbourne-based not-for-profit supporting people to connect, engage and participate, predominantly through public transport. Travellers experiencing permanent, temporary and situational disability can access supports including transport connection services, companion services, personal care, transport disruption services, and access and inclusion services at events.
Brief
When a supporter generously donated prominent outdoor advertising space on 9 billboards for one month, Travellers Aid decided to use this opportunity to call for volunteers in the lead-up to its busy events season. The charity asked me to develop three variations of copy to run on the selected billboards.
Approach
When volunteers come on board to help at only one event, it is costly for a charity organisation. To better manage the cost of training new people, Travellers Aid hoped to inspire people to sign up to help out at multiple events across the year. We developed the idea of inviting people to join a dedicated events volunteer team to provide access and inclusion services at some of Melbourne’s biggest events.
I did keyword research to explore the ways potential event volunteers might search for opportunities and built this into tagline variations to use on the billboards.
I then used this research to create and optimise an Events Volunteering page on Travellers Aid’s website, with consistent headings and imagery that mirrored the billboard’s design. I updated other potential landing pages – including the home page and main volunteering page – to include campaign-aligned imagery and links to the Events Volunteering page.
A paid social media campaign ran alongside the billboard campaign to further promote the message.
Results
Initially scheduled to run 46 days, the social media campaign exceeded its volunteer registration goals in just 2 weeks.
Over the course of the billboard campaign, visitor traffic to the client’s website rose 30% on the month prior to the campaign’s start. Traffic was also 128% higher than for the same time the previous year.
The client reported that they filled enough volunteer roles to support almost 6 times as many people as they had in the previous year.
Engaging copy to leverage ad space
Client: Gateways Support Services
Gateways Support Services is a not-for-profit, NDIS service provider specialising in supporting children and adults with intellectual disability and autism. Gateways operates in Geelong, Warrnambool, Werribee and Footscray.
Brief
After booking advertising space in various newspaper ‘special features’, the client had an opportunity to submit editorial copy to run alongside their ads. To leverage the opportunity, the client had to submit copy in the publication’s tone and style, and that met the required word count. They also needed to submit a quality photograph to accompany the copy.
Approach
The idea of an advertorial is that it looks like a typical news article. While it is paid space and does not need to adhere to the usual requirement for balanced reporting, the more it resembles a legitimate news article in content, the more likely the audience will read it.
When constructing advertorial content, I take my cues from my journalistic training and experience to create articles that deliver value and share human stories that will stay with the reader.
Another approach I have used is to ghostwrite for a service area expert, incorporating their knowledge with a participant case study to highlight the service in action.
Each story involved finding a relevant participant case study, interviewing them and any staff involved in the service delivery, and arranging relevant photography or imagery that supports the news value of the story.
Results
By writing strong human interest stories in the tone and style of each publication, and within the word limit, my copy is rarely edited. This maintains the integrity of the client’s message while delivering engaging content that audiences enjoy reading.
Work completed while leading marketing communications in-house at Gateways Support Services.
