I need a little help in developing marketing copy - If you can help, please let me know by replying to this post.
BACKGROUND
We’ve just completed a successful “soft-launch” of the first micro-course for Learning in a Digital Age (LIDA). LiDA101, the first of four micro-courses, attracted 316 participants from 59 different countries and we were able to trial a parallel instance of the same course with our partners at the Saylor Academy.
Note that credit for LIDA will be recognized at Thomas Edison State University, Thompson Rivers University, Otago Polytechnic and the University of the Highlands and Islands towards local qualifications. Of course, more institutions are welcome to recognise LiDA credit locally and we can incorporate these partners into the marketing collateral.
We were trialling a number of new open technologies including OERu’s own social network on Mastodon - see mastodon.oeru.org seeding our “learning community” for the OERu 1st year of study. The other key technology relevant to this group is the Mautic open source marketing automation engine we have been using to send out course announcement emails via dedicated email campaigns. The technology has worked well - Phew!
Now that we know the technology is working as planned and we are moving forward with a schedule of micro-courses, we can develop copy for a few Mautic landing pages we can use to trial marketing approaches. This involves two mini-projects:
Mautic landing page for the LiDA103 micro-course (Open education, copyright and open licensing in a digital world) which starts on 25 April 2018.
Mautic landing page for recruiting Academic Volunteers International.
LIDA103 landing page
Purpose - low threshold lead capture (just name and email address) of individuals interested in joining the course. (We will establish an email drip campaign in Mautic with instructions on getting started and “registering” for the course closer to the start date.)
Scope - 50 - 75 words of copy for the landing page.
Primary sources for distributing landing page link: Social media and WikiEducator site message (a short sentence that appears at the top of every page in WikiEducator. WikiEducator generates in the region of 10000 - 11000 users per day. The idea is to post a site message which links to the LiDA103 landing page.)
Due date - 12 April 2018
Academic Volunteers International landing page
Purpose - Lead capture of individuals interested in bootstrapping OERu’s academic volunteers international concept.
Scope - Refining the draft landing page, preparing copy for a few succinct emails (3 or 4) for inclusion in a drip email campaign eg a) Thank you for your interest b) What is academic volunteers international? c) What we need to do - AKA work together in designing processes for AVI c) Call to action - Invitation to sign up on community forum for AVI on this site.
I’m more than happy to have a go at the copy - do you have a basic draft/layout of the Landing Page(s) yet? If so, please send it to me.
Questions:
Who would be interested in taking this course? Any specific professions?
What will the course outcome allow the student to do, personally? Get a better job? Apply the earned credits towards specific degrees (if so, which ones?)
Who teaches the course?
Do you need a marketing message for Social Media and WikiEducator placements as well?
As we had discussed, the overall site will be tagged with Google Analytics, correct? I would recommend that OERu’s Adwords account be started, including adding a Google remarketing tag to the site pages. The sooner you do this, the more data and audience you’ll have ready to go should a remarketing effort be undertaken in the future.
Let me know the above, and if I can help in any other way!
Thanks @gstobb - really appreciate your generous offer to help with a little copy.
At this stage, we are very much in a “learn-by-doing” phase trialling different approaches that may work for the OERu context. We’re using a very “open source” approach i.e. releasing prototypes early and frequently, incremental design (rather than building a master plan before implementation), running code (i.e. things that can be implemented quickly) etc.
In answer to your questions:
Draft landing page layout
For this prototype - we’re using this simple Mautic landing page. It has a “strap line” displayed over a background image - all the text below the image is customizable.
LiDA103 course specifics
Who will be interested in the course? Any learner or educator involved in learning online would benefit from the course. The course is primarily geared for higher education (university and college level) but would be valuable for vocational education and upper secondary school level.
What will the course outcome allow the student to do, personally? Effectively apply knowledge of copyright and open licensing (e.g. Creative Commons) in a digital world avoiding risks associated with breach of copyright. In addition learners can gain a micro-credential for assessed learning (i.e.certifying knowledge of copyright and Creative Commons through Edubits. Learners embarking on a first year of university level study can gain credit for two exit qualifications 1) Undergraduate Certificate in First Year Foundations (TESU), USA and 2) Certificate Higher Education Business (OERu), (University of the Highlands and Islands), UK
Who teaches the course? The course is “taught” by OERu and this instance will be facilitated by the UNESCO/ICDE Chair in OER (aka me ;-)) - but I think the “selling point” is the option for gaining a US or UK based qualification.
Do we need marketing message for social media / wikieducator site?
Yes - we need a succinct “site message” banner for the WikiEducator site. The image attached shows an example of the placement of a site banner (the blue box) on WIkiEducator. This can be displayed on every page in the wiki (about +10K visits per day.)
My thinking is to have one link / call to action which goes to the landing page. The purpose of the landing page is for lead capture (Name and email only - low barrier) of anyone interested in joining the course without having to go through a more time-consuming registration process. We will then 1) Assign the lead to a simple email campaign which will remind the user of the start date (about a week before the start) with instructions on how to register for the course. 2) Assign the lead to the OERu Newsletter segment.
Yes - it would be great to have a tweet / toot sized message as well :-).
Google Analytics
Yes - each course site does have Google Analytics. We haven’t activated Adwords yet (not enough bandwidth or capacity from a small team of two at the OERF and we don’t have knowledge or experience in this space.) But yes - agreed, the sooner we can do this - the more data we will have for remarketing. So all help in this area is gladly received with gratitude.
Thanks again Greg! - Lemme know if you need more info,
Wayne- here’s my first stab at it, let me know what you think and we can go from there.
Best,
Greg
Open Online Learning Starts Here (strap line) Master the Basics of Digital Age Creative Commons
Learning in a Digital Age (LiDA) is a free, online, open education course where you will learn the basics of copyright law, open licensing and license remix compatibility for intellectual property within the digital environment.
Benefits of taking this course include:
• Basic knowledge of digital-focused creative property law, standards and ethics
• Edubits certified Copyright and Creative Commons credentials
• First year university students can gain credit for two exit qualifications:
1) Undergraduate Certificate in First Year Foundations (TESU), USA
2) Certificate Higher Education Business (OERu), (University of the Highlands and Islands), UK
Credit for this course is recognized at several leading universities. Check this list for recent updates. (links to a popup or page with listed universities)
Learning in a digital age is the full-course - LiDA103 is the third of four micro-courses
We use community forums for questions (rather than email) for scalability.
Attempted a “call to action” sub-heading (you will see why we need help from professionals )
Removed reference to link to other universities who would recognize credit transfer for the course. To hard to keep up to date and I figure the OERu should promote its own partner network
Any suggestions for improvements / tweaks to this iteration?
I see the topic stats indicate a reasonable number of views so I presume the group have been reading.
At OERu we have a standard practice - silence means assent So if anyone does have suggestions for improvement, now is a good time to hear from you otherwise we will move forward with this “rough consensus and running code” iteration.
Now that we have a good landing page prototype for the launch of LiDA103 - I was wondering if you have any inspirational ideas for succinct social media posts and site messages we can post on WikiEducator which would work as a call to action for prospective learners to click through to the landing page which will be used to nurture leads.
My thinking is to initiate an email drip campaign via Mautic to help leads engage and ultimately register and participate in the course. I’ll post a separate “wiki” reply to suggest ideas for the email drip campaign.
Draft email drip campaign for leads generated from the landing page.
This is a wiki post - so you can edit the content below.
Context and lead flow
Prospective learners and interested people:
See invitation and call to action on social media / WikiEducator site notice
Click through to landing page and decide to receive information on how to get started with LiDA103 (Low threshold - only name and email address)
Leads are assigned to the OERu newsletter segment to recieve OERu updates.
LiDA103 leads are assigned to short email drip campaign to help them get started with participating in the course.
Note:
As with all OERu Mautic campaigns - users can unsubscribe at any time and will not receive further communications.
Campaign will be terminated 1 week before launch of a cohort-based offering to avoid conflicts with campaigns providing course instructions.
Draft email campaign
Email 1: Welcome and thanks. Acknowledge and thank interest in finding out more about LiDA103, Confirm OERu practice in respecting inbox of users and ability to unsubscribe at any time. Advise that leads will be subscribed to periodic updates from OERu. Introduce OERu concept (student video). Explain difference between cohort and independent study options in a sentence. Note that next email will provide instruction on how to register for a course.
Email 2: Register for a course This email will provide direction and support on how to register for the course to receive email instructions. It will also provide a succinct summary of the course outcomes.
Email 3: Tips for success - A few tips and guidelines for successful learning with OERu and “engagement survey” to provide feedback.
I’m thinking about postponing the start of LiDA103 cohort offering by two to three weeks - the pace and tempo of running the micro-courses back-to-back is a bit overwhelming for learners. So we have a little breathing space.
Is anyone on the list well versed in call-to-action (CTA) copy?
I’d like to implement an A-B test scenario with two landing pages that use different CTAs.
The current example focuses on a CTA for more info: “Send me more information on this FREE learning opportunity!”
I’d like to set up an alternative CTA so we can gauge conversions in the context of this landing page. Perhaps something along the lines of “Yes - help me register for this FREE learning opportunity!”
I’m totally out of my depth here in generating valuable CTA copy and would value input from the professionals. My interest is a tad more technical in learning more about Mautic’s A-B testing capability in the context of a live example.
To save time and help you come up to speed, I’ve settled on two landing pages with a different call to action (CTA) text and established an A-B test in Mautic yesterday evening which is now “live” .
Overnight, Option A: Learn about your rights to copy and stay legal in a digital world! has a click through rate of 17.65%
This compares with 5.56% for Option B: Don't delay, reserve your seat today - Granted that’s only after handful of responses, but this Mautic is a powerful piece of software and productive tool for OERu. I would not have imagined that one CTA would be three times better than the other - but I’m not a professional marketer.
We need help with two immediate tasks:
Copy for site banner text / twitter posts - See current example on WikIEducator which reads as follows and links to the landing page;
Note - Have just updated the CTA link text above in the wiki which now reads “Register my interest now!” - with acknowledgement to Jim Taylor for the refinement.
Corresponding drip email campaign that will accompany leads identified from the landing page. The thinking here is to establish a generic campaign that can be re-used for all courses to help learners get started. Depending on responses from the in-campaign survey, we will customize the emails they receive. Feel free to comment or suggest editorial changes. When making changes - please use “suggesting” i.e. the track changes feature.
Thanks! Hoping to have a working draft of the campaign live in the next day or two.
Thanks for the update - very helpful Yes, I had a good break thanks (just stayed around the house and relaxed… it already feels like a long time ago though )
Definitely in favour of Option A for the CTA text - it relates directly to course content without being too wordy (Option B CTA is fine, but could apply to any course (in my humble opinion))
How about making the copy for site banner text / twitter posts similar to CTA text A (‘Learn about your rights to copy and stay legal in a digital world’ or ‘Want to learn how to stay legal in a digital world? FREE course…’
Will have a look at the drip email campaign now and use track changes, as you’ve requested.
The public agrees with your choice of Option A - thanks to A-B testing.
I like your suggestions for the site banner / social media CTAs - we will have more flexibility here to use different alternatives as the campaign continues in reaching a wider audience.
Send me your gmail address offline if you would like me to add you to the list of editors.
Thanks Wayne - have been in to the e-mail campaign text now (showing up as ‘Anonymous’). Will e-mail you with my gmail address (does it have to be a gmail address? I almost never check that inbox!)
All edits accepted with thanks and gratitude! As an open source user, I’m not a great fan of Google Docs and not the most experienced user. I shared the doc with your OP address - will be interesting to see if it will attribute your edits - but doubt it.
)
So if anyone does have suggestions for improvement, now is a good time to hear from you otherwise we will move forward with this “rough consensus and running code” iteration.
Yes, I had a good break thanks (just stayed around the house and relaxed… it already feels like a long time ago though