Simon has the rare ability to think deeply and innovatively, and consistently deliver. He can fire up a creative team to do great work, and help them structure a plan on time, on budget and to high standards.
—Rebecca Norris, Senior Strategic Advisor, Communications & Marketing, University of Melbourne
According to the dictionary, an ‘agent’ can be a person or thing generating a specific effect or change. It can be a chemical, an organism or a force of nature.
The Agents of Content are deployed by Simon Sellars. Sometimes the Agents are Simon and his interconnected skills (agents as method). On larger projects, they’re Simon and trusted collaborators (agents as people).
The Agents are connectors. They make sparks that burst into light. They discover the specks of inspiration that seed dreams, plans and outcomes.
The Agents turn complexity into simplicity, helping you see the talent and potential in your own organisation. The Agents don’t just swoop in, develop content or a complicated strategy and then leave you to it. They collaborate with you to build the strategy, operationalise your ideas and develop new ways to connect with your audience.
The result: scintillating content for people who believe in their work and in the happiness of their people.
Now, it’s time to meet the Agents of Content.
AGENT OF STRATEGY
This agent is a big-picture thinker, an experienced content producer with a strategic vision. By seeing the whole frame, this agent works with you to deliver a content framework that will satisfy your audience’s needs. Your team will love working with it, too, guaranteeing that your shiny new strategy won’t languish on the share drive, unused, unloved and forgotten.
Our content strategies are succinct, visually pleasing and easy to follow, backed by detailed research. We don’t think about content types in isolation. We’re audience-centric and platform agnostic. We design content from the ground up, starting first and foremost with user needs. Then we help you plan, publish and review quickly, painlessly and efficiently.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
- Content strategy
- Communications strategy
- User research & audience insights (developing personas, archetypes, user journeys)
- Content mapping (researching and defining customer tasks, emotions and expectations, key messages, topline goals mapped across the user journey)
- Content modelling (content types, key specs and relationships to the content map)
- Benchmarking
AGENT OF CREATION
This agent is an experienced content producer and editor, with over 20 years’ experience writing, editing, designing and producing content for print and digital. This agent’s CV is varied and extensive and includes travel guidebooks, commercial magazines, academic essays, novels, blogs, social media, websites, content hubs, brand awareness initiatives, advertising campaigns, videos and more.
Special Subject: Storytelling
This agent is guided by a sense of adventure, experimentation, a passion for research, a restless innovative streak and a finely tuned big-picture awareness. We make it our mission to find hidden stories and new angles on any job that comes our way, no matter how obscure or well known.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
- Writing for print, social media and digital channels
- Copywriting for ads and campaigns
- Long-form writing (fiction, journalism, case studies, white papers)
- Video concepts, scripts and direction (we’ll help you source the right videographer and then work with them to generate fascinating video content that’s right for you)
- Infographics and image sourcing
- Translating complex technical content into plain language
- Web design (we can design your site inhouse for smaller projects or help you source and project-manage expert collaborators for larger projects)
- Proofreading
- Copyediting
- Structural editing
- Style guides
- Design consultation
- Working with AI (you should hire humans if you can, but if you really want to use AI for content creation, we’ll help you understand the risks and develop guidelines so that your product doesn’t sound or look like everyone else’s)
Storytelling - Developing a narrative-driven approach
- Using the Hero’s Journey model to craft timeless and compelling user stories
- Tone of voice: developing an authentic tone that influences, inspires and persuades
- Using the power of narrative to achieve a conversational voice, forging emotional resonance and audience bonds
- Using word banks and brand lexicons to develop a consistent tone, regardless of channel
- Data-driven storytelling: diving into data sets to identify trends, visualise audience insights and bring to life new user stories
AGENT OF PRODUCTION
This agent helps streamline your content production so that everyone is not only on the same page but also less fatigued. This agent is experienced in running workshops and developing solutions that make all the cylinders fire in your well-oiled content machine.
This agent is also an experienced project manager, specialising in large-scale content development. We’ll help you design workflows that maximise the time you spend creating over the time you spend chasing approvals and sign offs. We’re also experienced in building content teams with specific expertise to match key tasks. We can make a deep dive into your business and provide recommendations on team structure, roles and responsibilities.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
- Agile content workflows that maximise the time you spend creating over the time spent chasing approvals and sign offs).
- Cryogenic content (content that can be stored, revived and used over and over, saving you time and money).
- Content governance
- Content lifecycles
- Content management
- Content policy
- Tone of voice
- Consulting
- Change management