Virgin Media – Digital Copywriter

From October 2011 to April 2012, I’ve been writing copy for Virgin Media’s Ecommerce team on a major website redesign project. There was the whole spectrum to write – banners, short copy and long copy and lovely legal stuff plus lots of UAT and a fair bit of editing. The sleek new website has just gone live, with some pretty awesome copy that I’m very proud of.

I’m also still working on copy for some other innovative, high profile Virgin Media projects, which I’ll reveal when they’re live in the coming months.

Spotless Organic – Website copy optimisation

Spotless Organic is a green cleaning business run with passion and enthusiasm by director and founder, Hannah. Hannah also poured forth all her enthusiastic ideas onto the the pages of her website. Unfortunately it was very hard to understand what the business was and what it offered to customers.

It needed direction, focus and some serious web optimisation. So I got to work, and turned website content that was pretty much stream of consciousness words into copy that clearly explained the business and what it offers to customers. I also fixed all the internal links and added calls to action in all the right places.

SapientNitro – Telecomms copywriting project

This was a secret digital project for a telecomms company…that never got off the ground during my tenure. One of those ones that got away. But – of course – it was a useful learning experience.

I worked with the agency team on a new customer-facing area of the website – online and mobile – requiring a very clearly defined tone of voice to help convey an important message.

The real challenge was that this was a website the business did not want customers to spend very much time on. Designing the UX went against all user experience principles, and the same goes for the copy. The tone of voice needed to be unengaging, uninviting and unenticing. Nice.

It’s actually a refreshing change to deliberately work against everything you’ve learnt and to create copy principles that contradict all your copywriting instincts. It’s good to flip things sometimes.

Discover Explore – Content review

I’ve just reviewed the content for a new project called Discover Explore.

The project required a full review of the whole site’s user experience, then a detailed review of the content itself. I submitted a detailed report with my recommendations of how to optimise both the copy and the experience. This included suggested amendments to the copy itself, picking up any typos, and recommending new features to enhance the whole experience.

The website’s still being built, but here’s a link to Discover Explore, it should be live in the autumn.

T-Mobile UK – Digital Copywriter

As Digital Copywriter for three years, I wrote all the copy for T-Mobile.co.uk, and all these words spoke in the very clearly defined brand tone of voice.

Here are a few of my favourite pages:

When we launched a very popular and iconic smartphone into a highly competitive market, I really needed to make T-Mobile’s unique benefits stand out. Read more.

Working with such a powerful brand also brought challenges as to how to maintain T-Mobile’s own tone of voice. This apps page was one way to do that. Read more.

This smartphone landing page is there to give potential customers an idea of what these clever little devices can do for them. Read more.

The Nokia X6 page highlights the benefits of this latest phone:

My T-Mobile is where customers can manage their account online:

She likes her food – Food blog

I’ve been writing my food blog, featuring my recipes and restaurant reviews, www.shelikesherfood.com since February 2007.

What’s Up Information – Editorial Consultant & Mentor

I was a founding volunteer member of this social enterprise focussing on giving young people information on training and things to do in London.

I developed a brand tone of voice and style guide for contributors to use and wrote the majority of the website copy for launch. I then stayed on to edit copy and give feedback and advice to young writers.

Read a glowing testimonial from Lucy Ferguson, founder of What’s Up Information.

Corporate entertainment website – Web content

I wrote the copy for this four-page corporate entertainment website, ready for the company’s launch. The details remain confidential, but please contact me for more details on the brief and how I compiled the content.

Viewlondon.co.uk – Freelance reviewer

I spent a fun year or so writing reviews for Viewlondon.co.uk. Read my reviews.

Marketing brochure – Proofreading

An eyecare business in North London had recently drafted a brochure explaining their services. I proofread the brochure for typos and errors, and also suggested ways to tidy up the copy and make the message as clear as possible for the customer.