Original Brief: Copywriting for blogs across three franchises

Company Size: 100-200 employees

Company Location: Ascot, Camberley and Wokingham franchise, Farnborough, Farnham and Fleet franchise and Watford franchise

Scope of project: The original scope was adapted so I could become the lead copywriter for website content (landing pages and blogs), email marketing (lead magnets, email sequences and client newsletters), and occasionally social and print assets.

Achievements for client: An increase in local citations, keywords and rankings (50% now in the top 10, most of which are top 5). An increase in Google clicks and referral traffic. An increase in engagement, leads and conversions directly attributed to copy.

The project: Copywriting for lead generation

Initially, I was hired as a freelance copywriter for blog content across three franchises in early 2024. This quickly expanded to include blog content strategy, an area I enjoy and in which I have good SEO skills to draw from.

During those first few months, I worked closely with the Director and franchisee, the small marketing team and the stakeholders from each office. It quickly became apparent that my content marketing skills could be used to deliver concepts for copy and content across all our touchpoints as our marketing team grew and our focus on lead generation intensified.

For this client, I have personally delivered copy projects for the blog, landing pages, print and digital brochures, email marketing (including lead magnets, email sequences and a client monthly newsletter) and a smattering of socials (in between social media managers). And I continue to do so.

The main problem I needed to solve

Conversions.

This client's leads were drying up, which meant fewer conversions. The reason was twofold: They operate in highly competitive care areas and hadn't fully invested in digital marketing to this point. Despite the franchise's history and nationwide size, its competitors had a much more 'immediate' brand equity because they had a better digital presence. Of course, this paraphrases the issue. The three franchises hadn't yet found their voice in connecting with their clients, and their copy topics weren't landing.

I was tasked with delivering fresh copy for touchpoints that would help reignite engagement.

The strategy

I wanted to take a more emotive approach to storytelling here, one that would deeply connect with our target customers in their most vulnerable moments. You see, care is a significant consideration not just from a cost point of view but from a personal point of view. Lead windows can be extended or protracted depending on a customer's situation. They can also struggle to have the 'care conversation' with their family or even understand which services they need. And, of course, in this case, the three franchise areas had significantly different customer avatars. You couldn't use a blanket approach to content or copy.

My strategy for every piece of content is to emotionally connect, first and foremost. Nurturing would play into copy, lead magnets and clever internal linking for those who had a longer time frame to work with.

The second strand of my strategy was a more localised SEO capture plan for the touchpoints that would benefit.

My results

Since working together, the client has seen a rise in local search citations and rankings across all franchises. Our keywords are also tracking higher than ever, which means more clicks from Google. A further increase in referral links from sites I write editorial captions for has also helped.

Graph showing position increases for a franchise — Graph showing position increases for one franchise

Our socials have tracked higher and delivered more leads to email opt-ins I have written, which are now being capitalised on by a paid social expert on our team.

Email marketing is new for us, but it is bringing in leads and, for my part, delivering on upsells from existing clients. My early work on style and content development has meant that I have been able to hand over some of the segmented newsletters to other team members. I provide edits where needed.

There has been a direct correlation between copy and leads in some cases. As a result of a combined effort from the marketing and sales team, our conversions are now tracking higher.

More than this, our marketing voice and tone are much more targeted. We understand who we are speaking to and what they need. I am pleased to have been able to help define this.

I also love writing for a home care service. Personal reasons have led me to have a deep connection to the topic. I firmly believe that that is a big bonus here. If your writer can connect and feel what your customer feels, they can present solutions in a much more enticing way.