The Institute of Certified Bookkeepers is one of our favourite clients. “They trust and listen to our expertise, are simply lovely people – and they pay on time! That might be something to do with their financial skills!” says Mint Imperial, Jo Duxbury.
We started working with the ICB in 2009. The company that was then running our Freelancentral website was doing the design and development of the ICB newsletter, but needed a hand with the copywriting side, so asked us to help. After a few editions, we recommended a restructure of the newsletter to make it more engaging and interesting for its audience – which our client loved and implemented. We still edit and produce the ICB’s newsletter every month.
Work expanded: more copywriting, and a prospectus
Following the success of the newsletter work, the ICB started outsourcing more and more of its copywriting to us. Letters to members, students and training providers soon led to us reworking the Institute’s entire prospectus.
Until 2010, the prospectus had been very corporate-looking and formal. Considering that its largest audience is 17- and 18-year old school leavers, we wanted to make the document much more engaging, interesting and easy to understand. But this had to be balanced with the professionalism of the organisation and the second most important audience: people who are studying while they are already working. Working with their incumbent designers, Cohoots, our team came up with a completely fresh look, copy and messaging for the ICB’s prospectus. Owner of Cohoots, Janette Mayne, was very impressed with the new copy: “For the first time in three years, I now understand very clearly what the ICB actually does!”
Our clients were thrilled too as the new prospectus proved so popular that they had to nearly double their print run. ICB Financial Director Belinda Carlsson says, “The prospectus has been very well received and has directly resulted in an increase in sales.” Peppermint Source has now written and project managed the ICB’s prospectus for two years in a row.
Time for a new website
With a new-look prospectus, it was time to update the ICB’s website. We saw this project through from concept and scope to copy and testing, with one of our preferred web companies, raramuri design, doing the graphic design and development. The site is now much more dynamic and the Mints keep it up to date constantly with information about news and events sent to us by the client.
CEO of the ICB, Andrew Carlsson says: “Working with Peppermint Source has really taken the ICB to new levels in communicating with our audience. We used to use formal, technical language, which our clients often could not follow. However, after Peppermint Source worked their magic on our communications, our market finds us much easier to understand – resulting in increased growth for our business.”
If your company needs to refresh its communications or speak to a large audience regularly, why not give us a call? We’d love to help.
