Wise
Freelance Copy Lead
Aug-Oct 2022
I was recruited by Wise to lead the copy team on a Tone of Voice project as the company prepared for a big rebrand. My main deliverable was to turn the brilliant rebrand work (created by Ragged Edge) into Tone of Voice Guidelines that the copy team and wider company could follow.
Using my knowledge of best practice, I led the copy team in creating ToV Guidelines that were digestible and easy to read, with catchy guiding principles, do’s + don’ts, and clear examples of good/bad copy in action.
I created new Strategic Messaging for key products based on the new ToV, and held workshops with product teams on how to use my strategic messaging formula.
The copy team was lacking some much-needed processes so I also helped establish some new ones. ‘Writing Help Hour’ used to be chaotic, ad hoc meetings that were a drain on copywriters’ time. I turned this into a formalised system with an Asana board, company wiki page, and Slack channel. This meant all requests could be logged formally and actioned in order of priority. It’s vital to have processes like this in place at a global fintech.
Lastly, I mentored the copy team (who hadn’t had a Copy Lead for some time) on key skills like strategic messaging, live presenting, paid social tests, how to advocate for copy as a craft, and more. I also squeezed in the time to write a few CRM + social campaigns – see below.
Wise’s rebrand went on to win ‘Best Writing for Design’ at the Design Week awards, and I’m proud to have played a part in this.
I led the copy team in workshops with the Brand+Creative team, where we gave designers new messaging to create assets with. We wrote draft example copy for landing pages, emails / ads/ in-app screens. Some of my creative ideas (figma WIP stage) are shared here:
Oktoberfest cross-sell account + card CRM campaign. The aim was to create playful emails to a global audience who might be visiting Oktoberfest in Munich. This provided an opportunity to cross-sell the benefits of a multi-currency Wise account and the Wise debit card. We created slightly different emails for each cohort (card or account) with CTA’s driving customers to open an account or order a card.
Security phishing codes CRM campaign. The aim was to drive customers to create a personal email code, which they would always see going forwards to help combat phishing. The messaging I created was human, direct and common sense - with the CTA clear.
Co-wrote and lead paid social message tests like this one. The aim was to test playful messaging in different global markets and find out where it converts and where functional copy is still preferred. Always fascinating to see results and if you don’t test - you’ll never know.