WRVS

The client

Registered charity WRVS does a lot more besides running hospital coffee shops and the original meals on wheels service. It works with local authorities, government agencies, the NHS and private businesses to provide a broad range of services that help people in crises and make life better for older people. Operating on a national basis, WRVS is able to call on over 2,500 employees and 60,000 volunteers to deliver its services.

Their needs

It was the breadth and diversity of its services that WRVS needed to get across to its key audiences. “We had an urgent need for concise, clear content for a high-profile campaign that would create awareness and understanding of our range of services for existing and prospective businesses and other organisations,” says Sarah Stokes, marketing officer, WRVS. “Having prepared a design template for the literature, we had a week to get the final design and copy to the printer. And then we realised the copy we had from another supplier simply wasn’t up to the job.” It was at that point that WRVS approached Resonates.

What we did

The WRVS team encountered a common problem. “We felt we were too close to the task and didn’t have the time or resource to re-write the copy ourselves. We had too many editors trying to fix the text and the content was in danger of losing congruity. We weren’t happy with the intial draft and felt we needed another perspective – a fresh start from someone who understood business-to-business sales but who could also capture the emotive side of our brand in words,” says Sarah.

Following an initial briefing meeting we spoke to key service managers within the WRVS business units to understand what they offered and why their clients bought from them. We then used some simple communications tools to simplify WRVS’ messaging. By creating a common structure for the content that would work for all of the business units, we were able to produce the final copy quickly and effectively.

The results

“The Resonates team delivered more than just copywriting. Their thinking helped to clarify which messages to prioritise; they used creative ideas to sell our business benefits and language that expresses our caring culture. And they turned the project around in just over a week,” says Sarah. “Even some months later the business unit managers are still delighted with what we created for them.”

Our view

We delivered the right words at the right time for WRVS. It was a really satisfying project to work on – we needed to think creatively to achieve a balance between communicating WRVS’ business appeal and the human face of the organisation. And they are nice people to work with.

Visit the WRVS website

 

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