Articulate Initial Consultation Service

Articulate’s Initial Consultation service is a low-risk, low-cost way for clients to make sure that Articulate is the right agency for the job.

We do our best work when we understand our clients. This means that we need to get to know you, your business goals, your style and tone of voice, your brand guidelines, your products and markets.

At the same time, you want to make sure that Articulate is the right agency for you and that we can deliver the copy you need to enhance your marketing.

Our Initial Consultation service provides a structured framework for both objectives. We hope it will be the start of a mutually beneficial long-term relationship.

Before we get started

There are several good, cost-free ways to get to know Articulate before we begin any paid work together:

• Check us out online. Visit our website, our boss’s blog, and our article on working with writers.
• Chat by phone and email. We’re happy to talk about ourselves and what we do.
• Get references from our existing clients. We can supply credentials and references and, if appropriate, put you in touch with existing clients.
• See samples of our existing work. We can send you samples of our work so that you can see what we have done for other people.
• Attend a free Articulate seminar. See our events page for more information.

At a certain point, though, it makes sense to start a more commercial discussion and this is where the Initial Consultation service comes in.

How the service works

We can tailor the service to match your needs but, typically, this is what we aim to achieve:

• A two-hour interview, either at your premises or by phone, to understand your business, needs and requirements.
• A half-day of desk research into your business, existing copy, competitors and market. It helps if you send us any existing marketing collateral and supporting data.
• A review of your existing tone of voice guidelines and brand guidelines.
• Editing or drafting a 250-word piece of copy in your style and for your target audience. The objective is to bounce this back and forth with you a couple of times as a kind of ‘copy prototype’.
• Writing a one-page report outlining our initial findings and recommendations for further work. This is intended to be wide-ranging and thought-provoking.
• Drafting a detailed brief for a specific project based on your immediate copy requirements.

Business benefits

• Reduce risk. Picking the right agency is a challenge. Will they produce good work that doesn’t need endless editing? Will they deliver on time? Are they professional? Our Initial Consultation service lets you evaluate Articulate in a structured and planned way.
• Get good work. In our experience, the better we understand our clients, the better our work becomes. This is why we have found that a structured approach to ‘getting to know you’ is the best way of creating a professional relationship.
• Save time. Choosing the wrong agency can be a big waste of time. Also, relying on chance and informal, ad hoc discussions is, ultimately, an inefficient way of defining a brief.
• Provoke new ideas. The Initial Consultation will generate a brief, but thought-provoking report that might give you a new perspective.
• Kick-start your copywriting project. By generating a detailed and well-informed brief, we can ensure that your first project gets off to a flying start.

Fees

We offer the Initial Consultation at a discounted, fixed fee of £500 plus VAT.

The service is free if you commission a project worth more than £5,000.

Next steps

Contact us.

Please read our terms and conditions.