Heidi Normanton (Heylo Founder)

Mike has been working with Heylo as a freelancer for under six months, working no more than a couple of days a week. Even within that narrow time frame, he has helped push Heylo forward, achieving an enormous amount for the business. Off the top of my head, Mike has:

- Put Heylo’s customers at the heart of all he does
- Designed and implemented our first Typeform survey, gaining us invaluable insights about our existing audience
- Brought a wealth of knowledge surrounding SEO and audience search intent in our particular low carb and keto niche
- Overseen the development of a number of new products (with many more in the pipeline)
- Created general copy, recipes and lifestyle/product images that are now feeding into our email and PPC campaigns
- He’s even taken over our email campaigns and we are seeing great results from that too

Mike will bring a huge amount of experience and insight to any food business, but particularly those in the health, diet and free-from spheres. He understands this sector incredibly well and has been a perfect sounding board for bouncing strategic ideas off. His seemingly exhaustive list of relevant contacts - suppliers, other freelancers, low-carb organisations and professionals is a huge help too.

I’d recommend Mike as an invaluable asset to any employer, but if you are a SME working with low-carb and keto products and you need a boost with regards to your content, SEO or NPD, it really should be a no-brainer.

Rob Wales (Lo-Dough Co-Founder)

Mike is a creative you’ll want to deal with; one who understands the business imperative of the projects he's working on and who delivers great results on time and in budget. With warmth and honesty, he’ll provide innovative creative backed up by strong project management and budget awareness.

I'd hire him again in an instant.

Ben Holden (Lo-Dough Co-Founder)

Mike Oates is a creative, hardworking powerhouse, constantly and consistently thinking up solutions to the questions thrown at him by our day to day business and long term goals. Working with a product like no other, he was able to quickly adapt his cooking style and develop recipes and products that satisfied our customer’s needs, steering a path through NPD tasks previously unexplored by any other manufacturer.

From tasty 65 kcal brownies and 49 kcal sponge cakes to revolutionary low-carb pizza bases, flavoured wraps, savoury crumb coatings and cake bars - Mike has been instrumental in turning out some incredible NPD in the low-cal, low carb and gluten free space, supplying our customers many much-loved products. 

His writing (and proofing) was always on point too, helping on site copy, blogs, investment decks, sales decks, product packaging, punchy ad copy, customer surveying and email marketing. 

Katrina Urwin (Loop Cashmere - Head of Marketing)
Mike understands the need to put the customer at the front and centre of his content work. Creating solid briefs based on sound understanding of the end user has been key to the success of his written work, recipes and even his NPD. He worked fast, stuck to brief and accepted the few revisions and changes he was given with grace, adapting his work quickly to satisfy the feedback. 

His understanding of copywriting for SEO and SEM is excellent and coupled with his tone of voice, he is a fantastic asset to any e-commerce marketing operation.

He responded well to pressure when deadlines were tight, but was constantly ahead of the game, working well in advance of most deadlines he was set. A strong team member, but equally at home left to take the initiative and get on with tasks alone. 

 

Adam Costello (Inland Sea - Founder)

Mike very quickly understood the needs of my business and helped me through some marketing fundamentals for the copy on my site. He assessed and analysed the info and helped me make necessary changes copy and layout changes on the site to drive a higher conversion rate. He also set up and progressed a successful Google Ads campaign on a threadbare budget, driving more relevant traffic than ever before to my site. He delivered a 30+ page SEO keyword research document that I will be using as a guide for a long time to come. All of this was achieved at pace and without fuss.

 

Oliver Hughes (S&W Handyman - Sole Trader)

Mike listened to me describe my brief and within a couple of working days had come up with a range of options for me to choose from on a small design/copy job I had asked him to look at. He was friendly and easy to work with, but also digested and understood my brief very quickly, meaning there was no time wasted in getting me a finished piece of work. I would highly recommend him.