About Me, Shylo Bisnett

I’m a strategic copywriter with experience across a wide range of industries and projects. From print to web to video and beyond, I combine an ability to discern details with empathy for a customer’s pain points. I’m also skilled at messaging development and can work with your team to hone your strategy before a single word of copy is even drafted.

Whether you’re looking for someone to help your in-house marketing team or at an agency, my can-do attitude means I slide in seamlessly, ask great questions, and return clean copy quickly. Take a look—and give me a shout.

Print Collateral

What writer doesn’t enjoy agonizing over the perfect headline, banging out paras on paras of body copy, and nuancing bullets, callouts, and even a Johnson box or three? Please take a look at selections from my print portfolio, including ads, annual reports, brochures, direct mail, etc.

This fact sheet on the needs of the millennial market helped our client Tellabs educate their targets about new tech demands.

This BMA Best in Show-winning campaign introduced our client’s customers to the needs of their consumers. We moved our client from products-focused talk about wires and switches, to talking about the end user.

This campaign highlighted technical solutions to real-world user concerns. Compelling and unique, the copy and design stood out in trade pubs.

Check out these ads from Tellabs’ “Inspire the New Life” campaign, which shows how technology facilitates modern social moments

A mock-up of our booth display at a major telecom trade show.

I developed a corporate blog strategy and content calendar.

This series of ads details innovations available in Diebold ATMs.

Our team created this piece for banking decision-makers, featuring sliders noting features and benefits.

I wrote copy for all National Restaurant Association Show materials, including programs, ads, flyers, and associated events.

Luxury event collateral aimed at high-profile industry leaders. From the invitation to the program to the event script, I made sure to include our organization’s goals—and delight the audience.

A custom invitation for National Restaurant Association board members. This high-value piece included branded beverage alcohol, a sterling silver cocktail pick, original cocktail recipe, and personal letter.

This campaign for eBay for Business demonstrates how the platforms brings buyers and sellers together—and saves real money.

This modular campaign for eBay’s Seller OnRamp program offered our client the flexibility to target many discrete verticals.

Multi-panel direct-mail piece for eBay’s OnRamp program for business sellers.

These longer-form copy pieces for eBay were tipped into business magazines.

This steelmaker needed to recruit new STEM grads fast. This piece, with a steel-look cover, helped do just that.

Our client needed to spread the word about its large grant program for environmental-education projects.

This multifaceted campaign for the Ad Council connected business owners with emergency-preparedness resources.

Part of a direct-mail campaign for Orbitz, featuring both flat and dimensional mail, plus online elements.

Online Work

I’ve always enjoyed crafting web copy. You’ve got to be clear, concise, and zesty all at once. My very first writing jobs were online and it continues to be a strength. Microsite, blogging, social-media, website refreshes—I’ve done it all. I’m WordPress competent and newly HubSpot certified, too.

Banner ads driving attendance at a trade show (Back-up GIF)

Corporate blog strategy, content development, and calendar planning for a telecommunications client.

I built and managed the social-media outreach for a local not-for-profit organization I founded.

I was a founding editor and featured columnist for the Chicago-based website, GapersBlock.

Our team created a “Gallery of Cool” for this new-business pitch to draw parallels between the product and entertainment icons.

Companion microsite for a print campaign regarding a large corporate-giving program.

Product-focused website for a major food-ingredients manufacturer. Focus on applications and innovation.

Persona Development

I spent years working exclusively on B2B brands. And my favorite clients were those who really understood their customers, but also wanted to understand end users. For those clients, I got to dig in and craft personas that helped bridge the gap between manufacturer and consumer.

A particular favorite was a somewhat dusty legacy telecom supplier. I was fortunate to work with an in-house marketing team that realized the best way to connect with its customers, providers like Verizon, was to understand the end user—folks like you and me.

My client was focused on a particular demographic who demanded more from telecom networks that any other previous generation—Millennials. My team developed unique personals for Millennial tech users to highlight the age group’s reliance on being connected in every aspect of life, every minute of the day. What resulted was a BMA Chicago campaign of the year that centrally featured our personas—but also delivered big for a smaller brand trying to break through big.

Advocacy Communications

If recent world events have shown us anything, it’s that what is most important is to be of service to one another. Whether that’s wearing your mask, agitating for systemic change, or making a contribution to a cause you admire, it is up to all of us to use the gifts we possess to enrich our greater community.

My gift is communication.

When my freelance schedule allows, I have been grateful that I’ve been able to connect with not-for-profit organizations to create impactful communications on a pro bono basis. Through Taproot Foundation, I partnered with other remote-based professionals in ad hoc teams to tackle significant projects for the Association House, Chicago Urban League, Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, and Sarah’s Inn. Our groups produced a range of high-impact deliverables, such as messaging platforms, holistic rebranding, annual reports, and brochures. In 2011, Taproot Foundation honored me as Chicago’s Volunteer of the Year.

I also founded and ran a not-for-profit organization in my neighborhood, a diverse community in need of more investment from residents, government, and the business community. Through dogged organizing, I helped grow Albany Park Neighbors from six people around a picnic table into a politically powerful juggernaut with 501(c)3 certification. We carefully nurtured our social-media following to more than 3,000 engaged residents, discussing critical issues such as business development, crime, infrastructure needs, etc. I created business-recognition programs, informational guides, and community forums. We fought for more resources from local politicians, engaged community members in real debate, helped review zoning proposals, and more.

I’ve been thankful that I’ve been able to contribute my communications skills by developing direct mail, scripts, and speeches for local candidates. While I’ve also volunteered for local national candidates, these local races are so critical to everyday, quality-of-life issues.

Direct mail for a political candidate targeting hyperlocal issues.

Social Media

As a digital native, I’ve been using online and social-media tools since their inception. I’ve been privileged to have had many opportunities throughout my career to extol the potential of social media and develop social-media content to realize that power.

While at my last agency, I championed and managed our blog, Twitter, and video accounts and showed our executive team how these tools were integral to public-relations efforts. I also led staff seminars in different online productivity tools, user-generated content, and other relevant topics. I developed a blog for my telecommunications client, and helped its internal team design an actionable content calendar so they could maximize time spent and sales realized.

During my time at the helm of Albany Park Neighbors, I created and managed our website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Through aligning relevant content with our organization’s goals, APN became a must-visit resource for our community—and anyone interested in our community, from developers to politicians to reporters.

One significant example of how we used the power of the digital pen to better our community? A Chicago developer wished to transform a corner in the middle of the community into a Walgreens. Sounds innocuous, right? Our team immediately realized that this proposal, located across from one of the North Side’s busiest transit nodes where thousands of students pass through on foot and bike, was poorly designed. We worked to educate and rally the community about the potential hazard, recruited the help of transit advocates, and convinced our local officials to demand a more pedestrian-friendly plan. During a community meeting attended by hundreds of residents, the developer balked. Now, our community features extensive pedestrian-street designations, preventing any future developer from installing dangerous curb cuts, drive-through facilities, and other dangerous engineering.

That’s what social media can do. Far more than an Instagram influencer peddling diet drinks. We informed an already-engaged audience about a problem, connected them with ways to get involved, and made real change.

Managing the conversation about local issues.

Storytelling

Case studies & Beyond

Finding the passion in any story is what separates an everyday case study from a memorable story that makes business impact. And it comes down to listening carefully, with deep empathy.

eBay understands the power in a single transaction as well as how individuals can create or support their own thriving businesses. I had the privilege of speaking with many, many of these entrepreneurs as to how they applied creativity and business savvy to eBay’s person-to-person platform. Often, I ended up finding their stories so compelling that I became a customer. Always, I was impressed by their passion.

Our firm developed an award-winning campaign featuring eBay buyers and sellers of industrial equipment, such as tractors, restaurant equipment, and the like. As I listened to their stories about how these sales made real impact to their businesses, I wrote down their details and facts, but I absorbed their determination. How hard they worked. How they supported their families and communities.