Lessons from Marketing Untied: My BOT Intern Experience

Hi, my name is Josiah Taylor! I’m a rising senior and honors marketing student at the University of Delaware.

Over the past winter and spring, I’ve worked with Bright Orange Thread to develop the Marketing Untied newsletter from an idea to a completed product.

As a winter intern, I mainly focused on the setup of Marketing Untied, conducting relevant market research and setting important branding and design guidelines. Once my semester started, I was brought on part-time to guide this setup to execution, focusing on writing emails, designing social media content, and reviewing performance metrics. The experience has been immensely rewarding for me. I’ve learned a lot about myself, marketing strategy, and what makes a good newsletter. 

For those unfamiliar, the purpose of Marketing Untied is to give away expertise for free. We take the breadth of marketing knowledge across the web and unravel it into 5 weekly takeaways, encouraging all to follow us in being lifelong learners.

In the spirit of Marketing Untied, here are the 5 need-to-know takeaways from my experience:

Communication is key

Writing a newsletter has taught me that being intentional about the language you are using is key to reducing misunderstandings and expectations. 

This was especially applicable when in my morning meetings with the team. When discussing my goals and intentions for the day, it was important to bring everyone quickly up to speed on the project at hand. Terminology was especially important here. For example, a “first draft” may be expected to be “written” in Google Docs but not “built,” as “build” insinuates putting the final draft into our email distribution platform. Always clarify exactly what you need from your team.

When writing Marketing Untied, each takeaway need be no longer than 2-3 lines, so it was important to figure out precisely what would communicate the value of the article and would resonate most with our audience.

Know your audience. Imagine every way they might interpret or misinterpret your message, then adjust accordingly.

Be flexible when hitting roadblocks

As with any project, Marketing Untied was not without its roadblocks. I came in with limited design experience, and Hendrik-Jan, our creative director, is fairly design-fussy. I spent a week’s worth of time designing the email in our email-building platform, going back and forth between feedback sessions, before realizing that it just wasn’t coming together how we wanted it. 

I was challenged, and my design skillset has grown as a result, but we needed something more. Quality work helps readability and is worthy of custom coding, so we decided to commission a freelance designer.

We may have had to spend more time at this action step, but my design work also gave us a good starting point to communicate to our freelancer.

Outsourcing this project gave us the opportunity to focus on other things in-house. It allowed us to answer questions about the Marketing Untied strategy we had not yet had the time to think about, like “how should we present ourselves on social media?” or “what should the sign up page look like?” It also allowed us to really refine how we wanted this newsletter to look. Flexibility was invaluable at this step to create a stronger product.

Roadblocks are not setbacks but, rather, opportunities for growth

An original design before outsourcing.

Final newsletter design after outsourcing.

Always be learning

The purpose of this newsletter is to deliver on Bright Orange Thread’s fundamental of being a lifelong learner. We wish to share our collection of marketing expertise so others can be lifelong learners too.

Creating Marketing Untied was a learning process in many aspects. Not only was I digesting the knowledge of the experts being featured in the newsletter, but I was actively developing my strategy, writing, and design skills through trial and error:

• Now, I know how to create an effective brainstorm and what questions to ask when developing a new product. 
• I’ve also learned how to target my writing and how to develop a brand voice.
• My design skills are a lot sharper now after drafting our original email design and creating promotional LinkedIn content. I’ve learned how to properly align elements and create dynamism to draw attention.

There is always room for improvement. Keep an open mind and resilient attitude to become the best you can be.

An example LinkedIn post I designed.

Know what you need to work best

Working remotely can be liberating. Unlike the set schedules inherent in in-person work and school, a remote job allows you to work in a way that allows for your full creativity. However, I quickly discovered that this requires a great deal of knowledge about what that ideal work environment looks like. For me, that environment means focus timers on my phone to block distracting apps, breaks interspersed throughout the day, and a defined schedule for when my day will start and end. 

This knowledge did not come without trial and error. I’m someone who frequently will bury my head in a project until it’s done, but this quickly becomes a problem when my to-do list was stacked impossibly high from the start. Over the course of this project, I gained a great deal of confidence with reaching out for help when needed. Hendrik-Jan, Rachael, and Eryn were always willing to help me reprioritize and achieve my goals.

Figure out what your ideal workday looks like, even if it takes a few ‘failed’ days to get there, and communicate that to your peers. Your success is the team’s success.

Always add value

One of my favorite aspects of this project was being able to add in my own knowledge from articles I’ve read, classes I’ve taken, or experiences I’ve had. This is where I could put my own spin on Marketing Untied and give back to the company. Some examples of ways I’ve accomplished this:

• Looking back at past email performance suggesting testing certain elements to improve the next. I operate with an improvement mindset, never settling.
• Submitting my own takeaways whenever I’ve seen or read something interesting, such as a B2B marketing tip, formula for email marketing, or a relevant news headline. 
• Using my Excel experience to produce easy-to-understand charts analyzing our dataset of collected takeaways.
• Sharing shortcuts and productivity tools with the team whenever I found them useful. 

Never settle for status quo. The point of being a lifelong learner means everyone has room to grow from others’ unique perspectives. Share yours!

Charts made in Google Sheets to describe our dataset of collected takeaways.

Explore Marketing Untied for yourself

Marketing Untied is a weekly newsletter containing 5 need-to-know marketing takeaways from across the web. If you enjoyed reading this blog post, I encourage you to join and see what we’ve created! You can also read past takeaways here.

Don’t take my word for it…

This is quite good, actually. First marketing email in six months I haven’t just unsubscribed.

– Polly, Greenbuilders

I recently started reading your e-blasts. I enjoy reading them each week. Their insights are extremely helpful and much appreciated. 

– Sam, Genesis TurfGrass