My Role: Content Marketing Manager

Core Responsibilities: Copy drafting, copy editing, vendor research, syndication oversight, vendor management

Team: Collaborated with President Phil Rubin (copy formula) and CEO Dr. Harold Katz (voice workshopping)

The Problem

When I started with TheraBreath, they had been in business for twenty years. Until I walked through the door, they’d never had a dedicated copywriter, and it showed.

Not that the copy was bad — they hadn’t become the fastest-growing oral health care brand in the world with bad copy — but it was inconsistent. Tone, format, and even quality varied wildly from product to product.

Don’t even get me started on other retail platforms!

This had to change. It made us look like the scrappy Mom-and-Pop shop we were in the 90s, not the global brand we had become.

The Solution

It was time for a full copy overhaul. I spent weeks learning the company’s voice, based primarily on the voice of its founder, Dr. Harold Katz. Friendly, approachable, but authoritative. Never afraid to talk science, but in a way a layperson could understand.

Working with the V.P. of Marketing and my copywriting mentor Phil Rubin, we devised a standard format for all items.

In the first paragraph, we’d introduce the problem and establish our product as the solution. The second paragraph would explain the science behind it in simple, approachable terms. The third paragraph would establish the quality and trustworthiness of our ingredients. And we’d end with a paragraph confidently offering our total satisfaction money-back guarantee.

Using Scrivener, my favorite writing software, I split our catalogue into batches. Starting with our best-selling hero items, I systematically updated every SKU, working with all stakeholders in Marketing and Compliance before uploading each batch of copy updates.

With this website copy as a “source of copy truth,” I turned my attention to other retail platforms, such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart. I adapted the copy to the specific needs of each platform and syndicated it out through Salsify and Syndigo.

The Results

Invaluable. As this copy refresh spread through our sales network (and later through our overseas distributors), we developed a unified brand voice for the first time.

It’s difficult to quantify how much this provided the company, but our growth and push into optimizing our online operations would not have been possible without this.

TheraBreath became the fastest-growing oral health care brand in the world. We had the bandwidth to experiment with new ventures, such as influencer campaigns, P.R. plays, podcast advertising, and innovative social marketing.

The Lesson

While product description needs vary from platform to platform, a source of truth is invaluable. Make it a priority for any growing brand you manage.