About Me! Me! Me!

I help people put their ideas into words. The right words. For many of my clients words do the selling – whether it’s a product, a service or a change in The Drum Freelance Guide - main image behaviour such as cutting down on drinking. Powerful copy grabs attention, creates interest and generates desire.

I work across all media – I believe it’s not the medium it’s the message. Whether I’m working on a leaflet, poster, newsletter, website, training pack, DVD or blog post the copy must take the reader through four steps:

Attention, interest, desire and action

These same steps that are used in direct marketing (where they go by the acronym AIDA). And the techniques that work in print work equally well for websites. Which is why you need a copywriter with a marketing pedigree. And that’s me.

So that's enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me...? Or see what my clients say about me. And thanks to the clients who recommended me for The Drum's '70 of the best freelancers working across the UK' (see pithy bon mot above, taken from the August 2010 issue).

Words Are Everywhere is a newbie, born in August 2009. I, on the other hand, have been around long enough to have a full skill set including over two decade’s experience in digital and print copywriting, publishing, journalism, marketing and communications on both agency and client side.
I have worked for public sector bodies NHS Health Scotland, NHS24, NHSQIS, the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Policy & Research, NHS Education for Scotland and the Government Office for Science.
Established businesses such as A. A. Thornton & Co, a firm of intellectual property attorneys celebrating their centenary in 2011, the People’s Postcode Lottery, Legal 500, Abbott Risk Consulting, Living Social to start-ups Fair-Price, Axiom Consulting, Ollie & Forbes and more.
I also work with design and marketing agencies such as 39Steps Studio, Editions Financial, Emperor, Freight Design, Morton Ward,Taste Design and Darling Forsyth.
Over ten years marketing experience: from strategic marketing for blue chip firms Scottish Widows, Deloitte, KPMG, Baker Tilly, Ove Arup & Partners, Nabarro Nathanson and Norton Rose to social marketing campaigns for NHS Health Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government.
I am an experienced and qualified journalist (Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism), marketer (CIM Diploma in Marketing), copywriter, editor and proofreader for print and digital.
I’ve won awards for creativity and copywriting. In 2007, the Communicators in Business Scotland Award for the best redesign of Lifetimes, the Scottish Widows magazine for employees. I project managed the delivery of all marketing material for the Scottish Government's HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) campaign which, along with the website, was shortlisted for the Communicators in Business Scotland Awards in 2008. In 2002, I was awarded the Napier University Programme Medal for Outstanding Achievement for journalism.