Content Marketing Recap
Intro
I already did an email sequence for the Sales Project. I leveled up my copywriting in last month’s quest. With these experiences in mind, I zoomed out to Content Marketing.
My company of choice? The Ancient Language Institute. Though they do have existing Content Marketing, it would be great to practice with a company I’m passionate about.
Throughout January, I…
Created a Landing Page for Ōsweald Bera
Planned a Facebook Campaign, complete with 15 posts
Wrote a Welcome Email Sequence
Let’s get into how I made each project!
The Prep
Before setting off, I had to learn a few things about my company of choice and content marketing in general.
For those of you who may not know ALI, allow me to introduce them. The Ancient Language Institute is an online group that teaches languages like Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and Old English. But they teach through the natural method: Immersion. They speak in the target language when they teach. Recently, they opened a publishing branch for pedagogical materials.
For this project, I took a deeper dive into ALI. I was already a happy customer. I became more interested in ALI as a company when my teachers gave testimonies of their network and the nature of the start-up.
You can see my research and other thoughts here.
As for some quick takeaways into Marketing, here’s what I learned:
Content Marketing is about creating value and trust.
Value because the content isn’t temporary, but evergreen. (e.g. ebooks, articles, and infographics rarely age)
Trust because you educate others and establish yourself as a credible source.
You can reuse and modify your existing works to create content.
You can adapt content from one medium to another, like turning spoken quotes into images.
It can be taking excerpts from longer forms of media, like clips from long videos or a summary of a blog post.
You can even show “Behind-the-scenes” footage as content.
Content Marketing helps with…
Promoting Problem Awareness
Promoting Brand Awareness
Offering Solutions
Retaining Engagement and Loyalty
With the background in ALI and Content Marketing established, let’s go into the projects I made for them.
Making a Landing Page
On Landing Pages
The mission of the landing page is to bring people to one specific CTA. It can be subscribing to a newsletter, downloading an ebook, signing up for a trial, or buying a product.
The typical landing page shouldn’t be long. It should feature “hero images” of the product or the desired result. And of course, social proof is always welcome.
Left: My Initial Outline for the Landing Page
Making One Myself
The problem with building one for ALI? It’s tricky to convince someone to commit to an $800 14-week class in a snap! So I needed to focus on something else. I doubted I could build it off their newsletter. At least, not without any ebooks or bonuses.
Now, a product makes more sense for a landing page. With their publishing branch Vergil Press starting, their new books can benefit from attention. There wasn’t enough information about their upcoming title, so I practiced with their first. Using ConvertFlow, I laid out the information in a concise manner. I was originally using another website, but I wanted the design flexibility.
There wasn’t a nice photo of the book itself upright. But there was an illustration of the main character Ōsweald wielding a sword. I figured I could combine those two as my hero image. Since I could not layer them on the webpage, it was time to combine them with GIMP.
Seems simple enough. The problem? The picture of Ōsweald had a white background. The same white as the rest of the drawing! So I selected the white background to remove it. And to avoid white particles remaining, I gave it a “feather edge”.
Using Feather Edge makes the remaining background smooth, which looks like a highlight. Without it, you get the results on the right— Sharp particles that need to be cleaned up manually.
Then, layering them together, we have this final image:
Naturally, ALI already has a description of their book. But for practice, I decided to write my own. I drew upon the author’s blog to write about it.
I also embedded their enjoyable trailer. It’s a perfect demo for the book. It needed to be there!
The testimonials are (naturally) the same. However, I also added photos of each person and a title for Content Creator Simon Roper.
What I liked
The first segment of the landing page was all concise. It sent its message to buy a copy of Ōsweald directly.
Old English is sprinkled throughout. In a way, it shows how serious we are at learning naturally.
A mixture of written copy with an embedded video demo.
Customized CTAs, especially the alt “Hwaet is Ōsweald?”
There’s no potential distraction other than the video (which is embedded).
The hero image is a quick improvement versus the cover alone.
What could have been better
Like in the original draft, the reviews could have been formatted side-to-side.
There could have been other images like sample pages from the old product page.
While a minimalistic background isn’t bad, something else could be added. For example, the old official product page had Anglo-Saxon paintings of bears.
What I can do next time
I had some issues editing directly in the interface. Instead, I could do a “digital draft” before going in.
The Facebook Campaign
I also tapped into the potential of Social Media. Out of all of the platforms, I went with Facebook. Facebook seemed better suited for longer posts than X (Twitter). Furthermore, it looks like ALI’s target audience is more likely to be there. The audience? Literary types especially. In turn, they tend to have at least some college. The age of aspiring ancient language learners varies from young adults (like myself) to fathers and older teachers.
The Pew Research Center shows that 71% of people with some college and 70% of college graduates spend their time on Facebook. Facebook is also popular across different age groups.
I originally envisioned the campaign focusing on text posts, but when I started making images, I became comfortable with making more.
You can check out all of the campaign posts here.
I produced 4 quote images for the campaign. I layered iconic artwork with quotes from great texts in Latin. Here’s two of them below.
I also made reference items:
When editing in GIMP, I decided to add complexity to some images. In the Cicero Picture (left), I put Gradients to make each painting fade in and out.
In total, I produced:
4 Quote Images
3 Reference Images
6 Written Post Drafts
2 Video Clips with Comment CTAs
What I liked:
The quote images are simple yet very effective.
The writing added to pictures and videos works. The videos give an interactive CTA.
What could have been better:
The Infographics could be better. The formatting for the Eras can look cleaner. The poetry aids could use icons or some kind of visual flair.
Some content can add the ALI logo to bring viewers back.
Adding on further interactions with viewers can help.
Out of the five Customer Personas, I focused on the reader “Lector Lucius” and the linguist “Lingua Laurentius”. The campaign can use other content more explicitly tied to the other three potential audiences (clergy, teachers, and historians).
What I can do next time:
Improve on the idea planning. I had issues with spontaneous ideas and verifying them. After the ideas, I should verify things like the quote’s source, all elements needed to make this chart, etc.
Tap into existing resources further. Many blog posts and videos can be converted into Facebook posts. Blog posts can be adapted with direct copying, the subject matter and a backlink will work.
Furthermore, I converted video clips to help demonstrate the Natural Method in Action. I simply added some text to the post– asking for a response from the audience. Exempla Gratis:
“Our Latin and Greek fellow, Leo Hunt, records supplementary material for our Greek 101 Students. Watch below, and see how much you can understand! We want to hear from you!”
The Email Campaign
Finally, what remained was to write an Email Campaign.
This Email Campaign in particular is a welcome sequence. They introduce the new subscriber to the business.
Here’s a summary of the sequence:
Welcome, with a background on ALI
The Method ALI Teaches
Encouragement and Demo
The Benefits (Short Term and Long Term)
Call to Action, with Testimonials
You can find the email drafts here.
What I liked:
The emails were approachable when speaking about ALI’s mission.
The emails were “in continuity” with each other. Some touched upon a previous email.
What could have been better:
These emails could use visual breaks or other formatting.
The Headlines could be more specific to their subject.
What I can do next time:
The campaign can benefit from an overarching continuity. Though I liked the soft continuity, I planned each email independently of the others.
Conclusion
Content Marketing has incredible potential. It can be both simpler and yet more difficult than you think. Although many forms of media involved in content marketing are time-sensitive, the content itself is meant to provide value anytime.
I enjoyed working on the project. I have not yet developed the diligence or organizational skills that Content Marketing has called for. But when I look back at what I’ve made so far? I’m proud of my work. The best of what I made has staying power. It is evergreen. As for the others? They can always be improved. After all, iteration is part of Content Marketing. Perhaps you’ll see the new and improved versions soon.
Other Lessons I Learned
Planning helps. It can be an overarching structure or it can be organizing thoughts.
Visual demonstration is powerful. The quote images aid the text’s meaning and context. The Demo Videos sell their works instantly.
Content can take more time than you think. I ended up spending too much time on the images, even though I had fun making them.