Content Marketing Specialist | WisconsinMade Artisan Collective

As the content marketing specialist, my role expanded beyond simple content generation. Every email newsletter, social media post, press release to the media, web copy update, and landing page was done by me. I worked within a small team, so some of my responsibilities expanded outside content marketing as well.

Work Stats

General Consumer Newsletters

  • Average open rate: 25-30%
  • Average click rate: 2-3%
  • 12.5% 2019 gross revenue

Automated Newsletters

  • Abandoned Cart
    • average open rate: 34-37%
    • average click rate: 9-11%
  • Customer Winback
    • average open rate: 18-23%
    • average click rate: 3-4%
  • Happy Birthday
    • average open rate: 17-23%
    • average click rate: 5-7%

Content Samples

A note about the blog links: they go to a PDF I made of the content in lieu of losing the site host.

Web Pages

Graphics Gallery

Please click image to view in best quality

Content Strategy Breakdown

The content calendar for the year ran from February to March and was determined the September beforehand. I ran the meetings with my colleagues as participants and valued their contributions to the sorts of content our customers would want to see and when. This is the backbone of the rest of the content strategy.

Graphics are created with a combination of company images, product images, and stock photos. Most graphics are created with Adobe Spark, with more complicated work being done on Adobe Photoshop. I also edit product photos in Adobe Photoshop.

Email Newsletters

The majority of my efforts are focused on our email newsletters, which brings in the most sales outside of digital ad placements. I segmented the list to cater to different individuals, but the main segments are general consumer and corporate client. Corporate clients can receive the general consumer emails, but not the other way around. I also manage a handful of automated newsletters, some of which feature evergreen coupon codes.

Newsletters are built and sent with Klaviyo. I also have some experience with Bronto and MailChimp.

Homepage and Website Content

The slideshow on the homepage changes twice a week in accordance with the general consumer newsletter schedule. It also reflects the newsletter’s content. Content on the homepage slideshow remains there on average 1-2 weeks before being rotated out.

Landing pages are created with InstantSearch+ and are re-used throughout the year to optimize SEO. Webpage updates are made through BigCommerce, with more stylized web pages (such as the holiday gift guides) built in Shogun. All landing pages are promoted in the general consumer newsletters, with some promotion happening on social media.

Social Media

Unfortunately, maintaining our social media presence is low on my priority list. I make social media content when I have spare time on my hands or a fun strategy to engage with followers, such as the Kringle Madness tournament from March 2020).

Blog

The goal of the blog was to highlight the artisans on WisconsinMade. I did that through a combination of artisan profiles, recipes, and gift guides for year-round holidays. As much as I loved working on the blog, it was not to last. A combination of back-end issues and a lack of incoming sales resulted in it going dormant in 2019.

There is still a lot of good, evergreen content on the blog. As of September 2020, I have plans to re-purpose that content into the email newsletter schedule.

Additional Responsibilities

Being this was a small team, I had responsibilities outside content marketing, mostly in the realm of customer service and corporate gift giving.

I managed corporate orders as low as $500 and as high as $20,000, each to customer satisfaction and standards. This was accomplished with exceptional communication and project management skills. I am the middleman between the customer and the artisan; I am also the tech guru as our ordering system has to be specifically manipulated to make the ordering process go smoothly. Spreadsheets and CVS files are involved. Handling corporate orders is a whole ‘nother ballgame than what I am used to, but I feel accomplished with every satisfied customer.

Speaking of satisfied customers, I also assist with customer service on WisconsinMade. If you send an email to WisconsinMade, I am most likely the person on the other end, responding to your query or turning your complaint around in your favor.