In 1992, we were all just working out this computer thing, and MYOB was bookkeeping software you could buy in a box off the shelf. It was – quite genuinely – revolutionary. And like pavlova, Phar Lap and Crowded House, Australia nicked it.
We’ve been lucky enough to work with the MYOB Enterprise team since 2016, and recently we spoke to Serena Nance, their Content and Events Marketing Manager, about her experiences working with the WFB team.
Serena joined the company while they were rearranging its internal structure. She did some rearranging of her own, flipping the way her department approached customer success stories and creating a content strategy – all of which needed writing, and lots of it.
While the quality of the writing is always top of the importance pile, Serena says our magic sauce is really about our processes and communication.
“The whole Words for Breakfast team has been really great to work with. I see them as an extension of the MYOB Enterprise content team.”
She loves that we offer “a nice balance” between working with a freelance writer and an agency.
“Freelancers come in and out, whereas WFB leverages ongoing learnings across projects. You have the benefit of account managers to keep things moving, but I can still talk directly to the writer if I need to.”
The WFB word spreads
At first, WFB worked just with Serena’s department, but then other teams started to get in touch.
“I got questions: ‘Where did you get that content from? I’ve heard the content is converting – how did you do that?’ So, I started introducing colleagues to WFB,” says Serena.
Now we’re working across the MYOB business
“It’s my reputation on the line, so, if I say they’re good, I honestly have to believe it.”
Distance no drama
Based in Australia at MYOB head office, Serena was hesitant at first about working with a New Zealand–based team. She soon found the time difference and distance didn’t add any complexity.
“I quickly had those concerns soothed within a couple of months of working with WFB.
“And then COVID hit and when we transitioned to working from home, there was no change with how we worked. Using video conferencing for meetings became the norm.”
Nailing briefs, fast
Serena says our team goes above and beyond. When she tasked us to write a summary document in a day, we delivered.
“They knew how to make it exciting and we got the first draft within 24 hours. Most agencies couldn’t manage that.”
The document did what Serena wanted it to do.
“In the post-event emails, double the amount of people downloaded the booklet than watched the webinar.”
While WFB’s copy is only as good as the strategy and implementation of a campaign, we’re so proud to be part of the MYOB Enterprise team’s success. They’ve seen a “significant increase in all the important engagement metrics” – more eBook downloads, clicks through to content we produced and time spent on page, to name a few.
“It’s been so great to have you help bring our content strategy into reality – it’s giving us such great results. Increasing the engagement then leads to a larger awareness audience, which is critical to building the lead nurture funnel,” Serena adds.
Our long-standing relationship with MYOB began in the enterprise space, where we created guides and thought leadership articles. Word spread about us, and now we write for every marketing team in the business. Here’s why.
It was so long ago that some of us might not even remember, but MYOB was one of New Zealand’s earliest tech successes.
In 1992, we were all working out this computer thing, and MYOB was bookkeeping software you could buy in a box off the shelf. It was – quite genuinely – revolutionary.
Its initial niche was small businesses, but it didn’t stay there for long, expanding its offering to cater to mid-large businesses and accountants. And like pavlova, Phar Lap and Crowded House, Australia nicked it. Just four years after launch, MYOB was named Telstra Australian Business of the Year.
We’ve been lucky enough to work with the MYOB Enterprise team since 2016 and spoke to Serena Nance, its Content and Events Marketing Manager, about her experiences working with the WFB team.
Serena joined MYOB while the company was rearranging its internal structure. Serena did some rearranging of her own, flipping the way her department approached customer success stories and creating a content strategy.
“WFB was on board and energised,” she says. “Then we started talking about nurture journeys for leads, and I was really excited to brief that work to them. WFB went above and beyond.”
She points to one recent example, where she tasked us to write a summary document within 24 hours of a virtual event. We got an overview and keynote slides, wrote a skeleton outline for the designer, and then dialled into the event.
“They knew what I was after and how to make it exciting for people. We got the first draft within 24 hours – most agencies couldn’t manage that fast turnaround.”
The document did what Serena wanted it to do.
“In the post-event emails, double the number of people downloaded the booklet than watched the webinar on playback. We’re also using that booklet on social as a lead gen.”
While the quality of the writing is always top of the importance pile, Serena says our magic sauce is really about our processes and communication.
“The whole Words For Breakfast team has been really great to work with. I see them as an extension of the MYOB Enterprise content team.”
Based in Australia, Serena was initially hesitant about working with a New Zealand-based team. She soon found that the time difference and distance didn’t add complexity.
“I quickly had those concerns soothed within a couple of months of working with them. And then COVID hit, and when we transitioned to working from home, there was no change with how we worked.”
Serena loves that we offer “a nice balance” between working with a freelance writer and an agency.
“Freelancers come in and out, whereas WFB leverages ongoing learning across projects. You have the benefit of account managers to keep things moving, but I can still talk directly to the writer if I need to."
“With a larger agency, changes would take days. With WFB, I can email and sometimes, within a few minutes, it’s changed and ready to go.”
Initially, WFB worked just with MYOB’s Enterprise team, but other teams in the business soon started to get in touch. That’s because the Enterprise team had built a reputation for its content quality.
“I started to get questions about it: ‘Where did you get that content from? I’ve heard the content is converting – how did you do that?’ So, I started introducing colleagues to WFB.”
Serena explained how she’d been working with WFB – that she could hand over a detailed brief or let WFB run with a topic.
“My colleagues are time-poor, so hearing you took a lot of research burden off my plate, they were excited about that as well.”
Now WFB works across the MYOB business with multiple teams coming to us for blogs, guides, video scripts and more.
“I’m hesitant to recommend third parties to other people in the business. It’s my reputation that’s on the line. So, if I say they’re good, I honestly have to believe it,” Serena says.
While WFB’s copy is only as good as the strategy and implementation of a campaign, we’re so proud to be part of the MYOB Enterprise team’s success. They’ve seen “a significant increase in all the important engagement metrics” – more eBook downloads, clicks through to content we produced, and time spent on page, to name a few.
“Increasing the engagement leads to a larger awareness audience, which is critical to building the lead nurture funnel,” Serena adds. “It’s been so great to have you help bring our content strategy into reality – it’s giving us such great results.”
Need help bringing your content plan to life? Get in touch!
Read how we delivered SEO results that saw MYOB’s organic traffic grow 10% month-on-month and sent crucial keywords 'accounting software' soaring to the top spot on Google in Australia.
MYOB has been in the accounting software game for more than 30 years – they were one of Australia’s first tech start-ups in the 1980s. They’re known as thought leaders because they always up their game, bringing innovative new tech to the market. But why do they remain an industry leader in Australia and New Zealand? MYOB listens to its customers and knows what their businesses need.
When it comes to their marketing, this means delivering informative, user-friendly content to support the small to medium enterprises (SMEs), one of their key target markets. This content does three things: shows Google that MYOB is a thought leader, provides helpful information to their clients and helps boost their organic web traffic and keyword search rankings.
We spoke to Dean Mendes, Demand Generation & Social Manager at MYOB, about how their SEO content had been missing that special something — a deep, local insight that only someone with boots on the ground could offer.
In the quest to ramp up its SEO game, MYOB faced a pivotal challenge – increasing organic traffic to its site in a way that added value and aligned with customer needs. Their previous partnership with an international SEO agency wasn't cutting it. The provider didn’t have the local insight or product knowledge to write quality content, so the MYOB team had to spend significant time changing and reworking the copy supplied.
“We speak to 18 different customers, talking about 18 different products, and it’s very nuanced to the New Zealand and Australian tax market,” explains Dean.
That’s where Words For Breakfast comes in.
WFB is a trusted local copywriting partner with a track record of understanding MYOB's unique market – we’ve been writing for MYOB in Australia and New Zealand for over a decade. When Dean started his search for a new SEO content agency, he knew our knack for demystifying tax talk would resonate with the MYOB audience. This wasn't just about keyword stuffing; it was about creating meaningful content that people wanted to read – content that provided value.
“Normally, we would do a tender for a contract this big. But because we already had that relationship with WFB, it was an easy decision. We gave them 40 test articles and they performed incredibly well,” says Dean.
MYOB's partnership with WFB improved the content's quality and revolutionised their entire workflow. The capacity for content production almost doubled from 12 to 20 guides per month — without any dip in quality or increase in time for the MYOB team.
The reason for this efficiency boost?
"The team is highly responsive and the quality of work is really good. Whether it’s a blog, customer story or an article, we can usually go straight to market with it. It saves us a lot of time," says Dean.
He explains that the new streamlined process, with all the teams coordinating through a single Trello board and one main point of contact, makes things smoother for everyone involved.
"In the past, individual teams came to WFB with separate briefs. Now, it’s all streamlined into one Trello board," says Dean.
Of course, the new, streamlined process wasn’t the only improvement. After writing countless guides, case studies and articles for MYOB over the years, we’ve gained a lot of knowledge of their products and business, which flowed through into the new SEO guides. As a New Zealand-based business, we were also able to nail the local tone of voice and the complexities of the Australian and New Zealand tax markets.
This meant most of the content only needed minor edits before going live. Dean explains that this is a big contrast with the previous content provider.
“When we did get a draft in, we’d have to run our eyes deep, put in a lot of changes and make recommendations for where we’d have to change content,” he says. “Whereas now, it’s more just a quick review. It goes through and gets a secondary SEO review to make sure the keywords are met, then we put it through.”
Accounting software is a competitive search category in Australia and New Zealand due to its highly competitive industry. To cut through all that competition and rise up the search ranks, MYOB needed to produce informative, engaging content that also hit the SEO mark.
Thanks to WFB’s combination of storytelling flair and SEO savvy, the new guides are doing just that – and MYOB is seeing the results in real time.
“We’re growing month-on-month, increasing the organic traffic at over 10% a month,” Dean enthuses.
Search rankings have also seen a massive boost.
“For key search term ‘accounting software,’ we were either eighth or tenth,” says Dean. “And then last month, we moved to the number one ranking on Google for ‘accounting software’ in Australia, which is a really big effort for us. And that’s just one example.”
For any business, being found online is just as important as being trusted. That’s why MYOB's strategic shift to Words for Breakfast for SEO copywriting was a masterstroke. Quality content, expertly crafted with clever SEO planning, has not only pushed their organic traffic through the roof but has also seen their online guides resonate deeply with local businesses.
The results speak for themselves. MYOB’s Marketing Content Specialist, Caroline Roberts, shares:
“The guides are performing really well. Here are some numbers for year-to-date (AU only):
“We’re also tracking MYOB Business sign-ups and ERP enquiries, and it’s great to see some traffic coming from the guides,” she says.
Want to amplify your reach with SEO content? Get in touch!
