NATHAN NIX
WRITER + FILMMAKER
PRINT+WEB COPYWRITING
HOPE AFTER HARVEY CAMPAIGN
The Woodlands UMC | 2017
Copywriting + Feature Articles
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, The Woodlands UMC moved into action, pooling resources to help the community. All other projects were put on hold as we focused all our efforts on communicating ways people could either find help or volunteer to provide help to those affected.
Story after story began filtering back to our department of ways people in our community had stepped up to help their neighbors. We wanted to find a way to share those stories, both to honor the generosity of the volunteers and to hopefully inspire others to find how they could help in their own unique ways.
We created hopeafterharvey.org, a website that would gather and disseminate these stories to the community. My main role in this was to follow up on leads and interview them to learn their story. I then adapted their story for our various outlets, primarily through feature articles on the website and posts across our social media channels.
NEW ROOTS CAMPAIGN
The Woodlands UMC
Copywriting + Conception
New Roots is a program The Woodlands UMC started to help women new to the area adjust to the community.
When it first launched in 2014, we wanted to convey that the program was about more than just meeting new friends, although that was the most important aspect — it was also about the simple things like learning where everything is located (such as a park), especially given that The Woodlands is quite literally built in the middle of a forest and nearly everything is intentionally hidden behind trees, making finding locations difficult.
Two years in, we decided to refresh the campaign and focus on testimonial-type stories. We picked three women whose lives had been impacted by the program. In addition, we intentionally chose women from different generations to emphasize that New Roots wasn't just for younger women. Having three different stories from which to choose helped us keep the campaign from going stale too quickly as we assembled collateral, whether external (magazine ads, direct mailers, and web banners) or internal (hall banners and monitor slides).
CHRISTMAS AND EASTER CAMPAIGNS
The Woodlands UMC | 2015/16
Copywriting
As more people attend church at Christmas and Easter than at any other time, these are two of our biggest campaigns of the year.
Christmas 2016
Our main goal each year is to highlight what makes The Woodlands UMC unique — the variety of worship styles available on one campus.
In the past we've listed times for all of our services, but as the church grew, that approach became unwieldy. So for Christmas 2016, we decided to simply mention the number of services and then break out the different types available. The call to action was simply to direct people to our website for detailed information.
Easter 2015
For Easter, we wanted to emphasize the idea that attending church didn't have to be a once- or twice-a-year event. We chose the "Easter: A New Beginning" them because it worked with the notion of resurrection and also hinted at the fact Easter would be a great time for non-regular attendees to turn a new leaf and get involved on a more consistent basis.
LARGE CHURCH INITIATIVE (LCI)
The Woodlands UMC | 2015
Copywriting + Social Media
The Large Church Initiative (LCI) is a yearly conference hosted by a different big church every year. The Woodlands UMC hosted it in 2015. Each host church takes on the task of creating an advertising campaign for their year. For us, this included creating external and internal ads, as well as running the conference's social media channels before and during the event (control of the channels are passed on to the next church immediately after the conference's conclusion).
We paid particular attention to Facebook Ads, creating versions that targeted our main audience of church staffers, which included pastors, worship leaders, administrators, etc. I also ran the conference's Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts during this time.
THE DRIFTERS CAMPAIGN
Personal Project | 2013
Copywriting + Design + Conception + Social Media + Website Construction
For my first novel, The Drifters, I took inspiration from my indie rock heroes such as Ian MacKaye and Sufjan Stevens and decided to publish the book myself through Amazon. I devised a marketing campaign that also took inspiration from the music world — specifically concert promotion. In addition to writing the book itself, I designed the cover (using a painting I commissioned for the project from Houston artist Ashley Ward) and wrote the cover copy. I also created a handful of collateral — posters, postcards, Facebook and social media ads and more — that could be posted or left in coffee shops, record stores, music venues, etc.
Lastly, I created a (now-defunct) website to promote the book. It offered sample chapters, downloadable promotional materials, music playlists and more. We launched on April 15, 2013 with a "Tax Day Giveaway" that offered the eBook for free to anyone who wouldn't be getting a tax refund that year.