What’s the mystery? Well, sometimes you do work that it’s not easy – and in some cases impossible – to share. Most of the paid Leeds-List content? It disappears after the six weeks the client has paid for. Stuff that lives behind paywalls? Sometimes the writer never gets so much as a screengrab. And then there’s the stuff that you do for an agency that never sees the light of day because their client pulls the plug or the contract expires. Also in content limbo: Bits you wrote for sites that no longer exist. Blame the pandemic and economic strife, not the copywriter. Here are some things I’ve done in the last few years that exist, but in the same may the multiverse does…
Pareto Law – A B2B project where I wrote articles about the Apprenticeship Levy for Pareto Law for a variety of trade publications. Some of which are now dead in the water. But at least this one isn’t – it might say Jonathan Fitchew, CEO, on the piece, but it’s all my work.
Zen Auto – This was a massive project in late 2017, early 2018, to increase search visibility for the car leasing firm Zen Auto. I wrote loads of car brand guides – a tall order as a man who has failed his driving test twice and counting – as did some other fine writers, but they never went live. As a copywriter for hire, it’s ours not to reason why. Still, I got work and I got to learn about all the Skodas and Kias you could ever wish to drive. May come in handy one day…
FESPA – If you are a member of the Federation of European Screen Printers Associations – and shouldn’t we all be? – then you will be able to see the stuff I did for them. For the rest of us, it’s a forlorn dream as it’s in a member area. So, what is it? It’s B2B stuff aimed at print service providers covering everything from how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool, cyber security, website UX, recruitment, digital payment, succession planning, marketing on Instagram and a whole lot more.
Redactive – Redactive were the people who kindly gave me the FESPA work, but they gave me plenty more besides. However, you’re going to have to be a member of The Royal College of Podiatrists, The National Hairdressers Federation or the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health to read the articles I wrote and edited for – deep breath – The Podiatrist, Salon Focus and IOSH Magazine.
Mubaloo – This tech company and app developer were acquired and rolled into IPG Mediabrands. The site I wrote these pieces for doesn’t exist anymore. But it was an interesting B2B project anyway, where I wrote things like ‘The rise of voice in chatbots’, ‘5G Rollouts, Opportunities and Threats’ and ‘Apple iPhone XS launch: Everything you need to know’.
CNN/Turner – This was a great one to work on. A retainer for CNN’s Digital Marketing Team, providing social media lines across a range of paid campaigns. From MedTech to FinTech, from Qualcomm to IBM, I was providing headlines for Facebook, Twitter, Taboola, Sharethrough and more. I did this for 18 months, until they had the bright idea of having their own in-house content team. It was all about getting eyes on things like this, so they’d send me the staging and I’d send back a huge variety of clickable lines.
Rocketer – Rocketer are a digital media performance agency. I wrote a B2B blog for them – ‘5 Facebook ad strategy questions every CMO needs to answer in 2021’ and provided some editorial input to their site, but I think they’ve pivoted a bit since then and the piece has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Plus, Facebook ad strategy has changed a whole heap since then as well.