Building the Newsroom

The Problem

Before this project, J.Hilburn's weekly update to their independent field sales team of stylists consisted of a single long email covering everything from product news to events to recognition, with no categories and no way to distinguish what was new from what had been shared previously. It caused real problems. Email providers cut the messages off partway through due to the length, so recipients had to click through to read the rest, and many didn't. Without categories, there was no way to scan for what mattered most or what was actually new information that week. Once an email was sent, it was sent; there was no way to fix a mistake or update information afterward. And there was no archive at all, so if a stylist missed something or needed to find it again later, it was gone.

Stylists noticed. The recurring feedback was that they didn't know what was happening across the company or couldn't find information they knew existed somewhere. I identified this as a real business problem, not just an annoyance, and pitched a full redesign of how field communications worked.

The Solution

Rather than build something new, I built structure into an existing platform: a WordPress Newsroom site that mostly housed static training materials. I turned it into a living, categorized information hub.

Information Architecture

Each week's update became its own mini-site within the Newsroom, organized into clear categories with on-page navigation so stylists could either jump straight to what they needed or scroll through everything:

• New This Week, for anything appearing in the update for the first time.
• Don't Miss, for important information that had run before but still needed visibility.
• Calls & Events, for upcoming training calls, webinars, and in-person stylist events.
• Selling Resources, for anything relevant to the selling process, like out-of-stock items, factory schedules, and holiday order deadlines.
• Tech Corner, for app updates and other technology news.
• Star Stylists, recognizing stylist milestones.
• Best Sellers, highlighting the week's top-selling items.
• Marketing, covering the client email schedule and media placements.

Separating New This Week from Don't Miss solved one of the biggest problems with the old format: stylists could finally tell what was fresh information versus what was being intentionally reinforced.

Publishing Rhythm

The update was published to the Newsroom every Friday morning. On Sunday, just before lunch so stylists could use it to plan their week, a companion email went out with a one-sentence summary of each story and a direct link to it, plus a link to the full update. Publishing to the Newsroom first solved another long-standing problem: if something needed a correction after the fact, it could be fixed on the page. The old email version was locked the moment it was sent.

Submission and Approval Workflow

There was no formal submission process before this. I built one from scratch: a Monday morning email to all team leaders with that week's submission deadline, followed by a reminder on the day of the deadline. I held that deadline firmly, since the weekly turnaround left little wiggle room. Once the update was built out in the Newsroom, team leads received a preview link and a deadline for final edits. After their edits were applied, I sent a preview of both the Newsroom page and the email to the CEO, CCO, CTO, VP of Sales, VP of Engineering, and Director of Customer Care, with final sign-off coming from whichever of the CEO, CCO, or VP of Sales was available that week. That review also had a hard deadline, which gave me time to test everything and make any last edits before scheduling it to go live.

Planning Discipline

Before this, the company's communications were entirely reactive. I built a planning calendar that looked six to eight weeks ahead, not because anyone required it, but because it let me work ahead of deadlines instead of constantly reacting to them. That habit became the backbone of how I ran the weekly update, and later, how I planned every other communications effort I owned.

Rollout and Results

Stylists were told about the change via a dedicated email and text ahead of launch. Since the old format was retired entirely rather than kept as an option, adoption wasn't really optional, but the response was overwhelmingly positive. The one real complaint came from a stylist who liked printing the old email to read on paper, something the new format wasn't built for. Anecdotally, stylists reported that it was easier to find what they were looking for, that they liked the new format, and that having a searchable archive for the first time meant they could go back and find something they'd missed.

From identifying the problem to full rollout took about a month: diagnosing what wasn't working, designing the new structure, testing it, communicating the change to stylists, and going live.