Marketing Agency 101: My Experience as a BOT Intern
Meet Olivia—BOT's 2021 Marketing Intern who put her bright ideas to work on design and social media campaigns this summer. Olivia’s work made our summer more interesting by pushing herself and her work further with each iteration (even if her new kitten was on her keyboard!)
Let me get out of the way here and let Olivia tell you about her experience at BOT.
Hi! My name is Olivia Schnefke and I am an incoming senior at the University of Delaware.
I’m studying Communication with a concentration in Public Relations and minors in Advertising, Entrepreneurship, and Sales.
As a communication major, what I learn in school is more theoretical than business-focused. I wanted to put marketing theory into real-world practice.
I’m not sure what my career path looks like at this juncture, however, I wanted to explore more marketing in different B2B and B2C environments to find what suits me.
When searching for an internship, my goals were to learn more about:
- Analytics - This is a big part of business because it allows them to make informed decisions based on quantitative research. And something I have been missing being a communications major.
- Design - attention to detail, branding, and honestly improving my creativity (and ability to think outside of the box).
Solution: Take an internship with Bright Orange Thread!
When BOT welcomed me as a marketing and copywriting intern this summer, they brought me in on projects related to social media marketing, analytics, and design. These initiatives were chosen to help me reach my goals.
Initiative #1
Think Like a CEO & Design LinkedIn Campaign
BOT wanted to leverage their vast library of content to reach CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses through a LinkedIn marketing campaign.
This was challenging because:
I had to learn to think like a CEO and determine what would catch their attention. And I’m simply not a CEO! I had to first learn about this business-expert target audience to understand what would stop them mid-scroll. I haven’t had real experience in design. I love tinkering with design, but I don’t have the technical training on what makes good design.
My approach was to:
- Mine BOT blog posts to pull the most eye-catching piece of expertise relevant to the CEO audience.
- Refine copywriting so it was short, sweet, and suitable for the CEOs scrolling through on LinkedIn.
- Iterate with Hendrik-Jan to develop a graphic style to define the campaign, and develop dozens of graphics.
Key takeaways:
- Learned how to put myself in someone else’s shoes - For this LinkedIn campaign, I put myself in “CEO Sam's” place. I had to think about what a CEO worries about, how they run their team, and what they want out of their company. I used eye-catching phrases and information that would allow CEOs to visualize success for their company.
- Better eye for good design - In my design “crash course” upon iterations to improve proper spacing, shading, layering, typography, I developed a better instinct on what makes a well-designed piece.
Initiative #2
Use Analytics to Track LinkedIn Campaign
We spent so much time developing a campaign—we needed to measure performance of the campaign by looking at engagement metrics on LinkedIn and the Google Campaign. BOT has always focused on following the analytics because it gives a measurable amount of successful traffic toward a campaign.
- Implement UTM codes to track the source of our site traffic
- Identify KPIs to indicate success
- Track KPIs in Google Analytics
Key takeaway:
- Learned what the heck all the abbreviations mean! - I have always heard and seen analytic acronyms used, however I never had a full understanding of them. For example KPI, click-through rate, time on page, etc. Now I know what they mean, understand them, and can even identify/create them.
Initiative #3
Create Content Calendar for a Client
BOT needed to create an efficient way to manage their client's social media posts for Instagram and Facebook. This client had great images to share, but their social media presence was limited.
This was challenging because:
- Learn to write like a different expert - As a small marketing company, I’ve learned BOT has to become an expert to many different audiences. In this case, I had to learn to write like an expert contractor.
- No design style was defined - Working with Rachael and Hendrik-Jan, we had to create a new visual style from scratch and set their tone of voice. We were given their logo but had to brand McComsey beyond that. From my previous BOT work with design, I was able to create their brand more efficiently.
My approach was to:
- Build a branded social calendar presentation to organize posts - McComsey had lots of content to share and our team needed a way to visualize it as posts. I recommended an approach to build the calendar on Google Slides as a more visual way to present the image and caption. Here, I brought my experience from another internship to improve processes at BOT.
- Build branded social media images - Using the images McComsey had, I created a branded template on Canva to include with some posts.
- Listen to the client to inform the writing - I sat in on a client meeting to help build my understanding of their tone of voice. The meeting introduced me to new terms firsthand that I could use to write captions that effectively communicated their expertise.
Key takeaway:
- Always add value - I recommended changing up the way BOT creates their content calendar because I knew this Google Slides content calendar is a valuable visual organizational tool.
Impact:
Learn valuable perspectives from professionals
From working for Bright Orange Thread, I have learned so much that reaches far beyond the classroom.
- Better attention to detail - By making so many graphics and designs I would like to think I have a bit more of an eye for what looks good and what doesn’t.
- A deeper understanding of real-use of marketing terms - I learn about different terms and concepts in school however when working for a marketing agency I see them actually get used. For example, inbound marketing, SEO, ROI, etc. I have also learned many new terms and concepts that further my knowledge of marketing. Some terms are: flywheel, KPI, A/B testing, etc.
Tips for the next intern
- Bring creativity to the table. Always add value and do this by thinking outside of the box so what you bring to the table is unique.
- Extensively prepare before a meeting. Know what you are going to address and be clear about it. For example, state who the client is, what the project is, what area of the project you are talking about, then ask your question or show your work. That will show you know what you are talking about and help everyone else understand and effectively help you.
- Attention to detail is key. Make sure you have checked everything over before presenting your work. It doesn’t need to be a final draft nor will it be, however it should be good work.
Impact on BOT
BOT Work Improves With Interns Who Add Value
We love welcoming new interns because we believe learning is a lifelong process. Of course, we work and hope our interns learn new marketing insights from BOT. But when our interns add value to the team and help enrich our own processes—that’s when the magic happens.
Olivia was proactive and diligent in her work in ways that consistently added value to our team. From sharing time-saving tricks in Canva with the team to suggesting and implementing a smart solution to our content calendar, she helped make her work and our team better.
We’re happy not to have to say ‘Goodbye’ to Olivia just yet. We are pleased to continue to work with her as she’s joining our team through this semester!
Be a Bright Marketer
Improve your family-owned business's marketing strategy with resources, tips, and insights delivered to your inbox 1-2 times per week.
Subscribe to the Bright Orange Thread Content Library today for instant access to these resources!