One for the portfolio – Hanson UKIT intranet pages

Client

Hanson UKIT

Brief

Wording required for a new intranet site to provide key information to other areas of the business.

The client wanted the copy to focus on the people, and give the message that IT is both approachable and easy to work with. He also felt it was important to get across the valuable work that the department was doing to help strengthen the business.

Result

I worked to develop a friendly, conversational tone of voice and removed all ‘techie’ terms. I took a relatively informal, iterative, approach to make sure that the client was happy with the information provided before ‘polishing’ the text.

Unfortunately, I am unable to publish the finished copy as it is confidential.

What the client said

Director of IT, Hanson UK said: 

“Nicky was able to adapt my somewhat 'loose' brief into copy that really helps sell the services of my team. Especially effective was her ability to trim the content to meet the intranet toolset limitations”

Learnings

• The importance of the brief – especially key when the client is not experienced in providing information to copywriters.

We had numerous conversations and emails to ensure that everything the client wanted was covered.

• Importance of linking in with graphic designers / web designers etc. before starting work.

In this case we over-estimated the amount of copy required. Once the copy had been sent to the intranet administrator, it became apparent there was too much text on each page. I was asked to re-write to take up half the original space so the look and feel was right, and the key information was easily accessible.

• Even when you think the copy is tight it can be further tightened.

I was worried when asked to reduce the text by half, but the result was much more effective copy which retained all the original content.


If you have any tips on creating the perfect brief, or getting the right info out of your client first time I would love to hear them below.


Check back to follow my progress on my copywriting journey...