LeadVenture uses ADP as its primary time tracking software. It also tracks pay, tax, and personal information, and is also where quarterly reviews are carried out.

For a full walkthrough of all ADP features, check out the LeadVenture ADP training module.

LeadVenture uses SharePoint as its shared intranet space. You can find exciting updates there, as well as assigned training and courses to build your knowledge.

Check here for the intranet home page and here for training resources.

There are a number of ways to communicate with your coworkers at LeadVenture, but the primary forms of communication are through our email provider, Outlook, and our instant messaging platform, Teams.

Both programs can be accessed using your internet browser or by downloading a desktop app. You may find one works better than the other.

LeadVenture is a digital marketing company with many brands under its umbrella, including Dealer Spike and ARI. While all brands offer something a little different for our customers, we work together to share knowledge and improve efficiency.

You have joined either Dealer Spike or ARI. Each brand has its own team of writers, and you’ll notice the work is very similar, which is why we still work closely together. You may even find yourself jumping to the other team to help with the workload.

The entire Digital Marketing team can be found on this organization chart. You likely won’t need to interact with many of the people listed, but it can still be helpful information to have.

You can also find this link in the Kickback Sheet on your monthly tracker.

The Content Team interacts with the SEO team on a regular basis. The SEO reps are in charge of creating monthly requests and curating keyword lists that drive each client’s SEO campaign.

You can find the full list of SEO reps on the organization chart or in the Kickback Sheet on your monthly tracker.

Our QA team assumes many responsibilities, including copy editors. They may screen some or all of your content for basic errors and let you know when larger sections require revisions. Our teams work closely together to establish best practices and create the best possible content for the clients. In fact, you’ll find a separate Teams chat reserved just for QA and Content.

The QA team members are:

• Ned Faulhaber - QA Team Lead

  • Tius McCowin - Digital Marketing QA Specialist

Our Juniper team, based out of La Paz, Mexico, offers support for teams across most Digital Marketing teams, including Content. They’re primary role in the content process is to published fully written and approved content onto the clients' websites.

While you likely won’t interact directly with them, you can find their names and titles in the organization chart, linked in the Kickback Sheet of your monthly tracker.

There are nine full-time Content Writers across Dealer Spike and ARI, based in cities across the U.S., India, and Belize. They are all very gifted writers and will be excellent resources as familiarize yourself with the work and the products. Ask them questions, listen to their advice, and check out some of their work for inspiration.

Your direct supervisor is the Content Team Lead, Amanda Kelner. She reports to the Vice President of Digital Services, Erica Danford, and works closely with other leads to improve faults in the process and help the team grow.

Your fellow writers are:

• Dealer Spike

  • Based in the United States:

    • Madison Garner - Senior Content Writer

      • Jess Zelhart - Content Writer

      • Joshua Grimberg - Content Writer

  • Based in India

    • Mohit Gupta - Senior Content Writer

      • Trishna Sharma - Content Writer

• Dealer Spike and ARI

  • Based in the United States:

    • Sheradan Hill - Content Writer

• ARI

  • Based in the United States

    • Katy O’Brien - Content Writer

  • Based in Belize

    • Belinda Rodriguez - Content Writer

Your first day is your onboarding day. You’ll likely spend most of the morning getting your accounts set up and accessing our system, along with filling out any tax information you may not have provided yet.

You should also receive a welcome email from the Content Team Lead. This email will include important links you’ll want to hang onto, as well as ways to fill time when you’re done setting up. You’ll likely receive minimal training this day in order to give you plenty of time to get settled in, but that doesn’t mean you can start poking around and reading through some of the material.

You should also be in more direct contact with the Team Lead, who will provide additional guidance should you need it.

Welcome to the team!

Once you’re settled in, you’ll begin training. This will be led by the Content Team Lead and will be carried out over the course of a few days. The training schedule can be adjusted if you need to take more time, or if you’re ready to move on faster than originally planned. You’ll find everything we cover on this page, so make sure you have this New Hire Roadmap bookmarked!

Your training will also include real content requests that you’ll be filling to begin applying what you learn. Your first several pieces will be screened by the Content Team Lead first before being sent to QA. When you finish each piece, contact the Lead and await further instruction. The first few pieces will be chosen for you, so you don’t accidentally pick up a difficult request when you’re still learning, but soon, you’ll be choosing your own content.

After training is finished, you’ll be free to begin working through the content on your own time, but you won’t be left out in the cold. If you find the work isn’t making sense or you would like additional walkthroughs for parts of or all of the process, contact the Content Team Lead to request additional training sessions.

You won’t have any firm workload expectations during your first month, but you may find that the work starts to naturally get easier and easier. Hopefully by the end of the first month, you’ll be able to comfortably start completing 5 pieces per day.

In your second month, you should start to become even more comfortable with the work, but we’re not ready to cut you loose just yet. If you find the work is still inordinately difficult, contact the Content Team Lead to discuss the obstacles you’re encountering and what some solutions may be.

You’ll receive a list of assigned clients in your second month. These are the clients you’ll be working with month after month, which should make it easier to familiarize yourself with the content they already have as well as their inventory. For more information, check out our Expectations and Accountability Document.

While you’ll be receiving these assignments, we realize you’re still learning. We want you to try to get through all your assigned clients by the end of the month, but if you don’t, there’s no need to panic. There will be no repercussions for not reaching this deadline and you can discuss with the Content Team Lead some of your thoughts on reaching your goal by the end of your third month…

At this point, we expect you to be pretty familiar with the process and a good majority of the products we write about. You’ll likely still have many products to discover in the future, but at this point you should be familiar with the products and related topics that we see quite frequently.

In your third month, we’re looking to see that you can hit the expected monthly requirements that your teammates also have: completing the content requests for all your assigned clients. If this feels unattainable, or if the Content Team Lead has concerns about your ability to achieve this goal, there may be additional discussions to find solutions.

If you’re feeling good about hitting your goals, then congratulations! You’re officially a professional LeadVenture Content Writer! Of course, we encourage you to always ask for help, whether you’re in your third month or third year, but you should find that the work gets more and more manageable as you go forward.

For a complete walkthrough of the content fulfillment process, check here for the DS process and here for the ARI process.

Trello is the primary project management platform for the content fulfillment process. The entire process, from start to finish, is a series of boards in which each team responsible for different parts of the process has their own board (the ARI system will be launched for July 2022 fulfillment). You should have access to every board, but you’ll spend most of your time on the Content Writing boards.

Check below for links to the primary content boards for Dealer Spike and ARI:

• Dealer Spike Content Writing Board

• ARI Content Board

All additional Trello boards connected to the content process are linked below:

• Dealer Spike SEO Content Staging Board

• Dealer Spike Content QA Board

• Dealer Spike Content Posting Board

• ARI SEO Content Staging Board

• ARI Content QA Board

• ARI Content Posting Board

For a reminder of how the kickback process is supposed to work, check out our step-by-step breakdown. Remember, it’s still a kickback if you were able to resolve the issue by messaging the rep, and should still be recorded in the Kickback Sheet on your tracker.

All the long-form content you write is part of the department’s SEO offerings. The primary goal is to boost SEO ranking by adding more content to each client’s site and boosting authority.

You won’t be expected to have SEO expertise, but some context can be helpful. Review these documents for some helpful information around what it is we do.

• Content Team: Guide to SEO

• On-Site Optimization Best Practices

The first thing you’ll need to note is the format of the piece being requested. This will dictate length, intent, and structure. Use our Format Breakdown for a refresher on what we offer.

You’ll also need to know what the product you’ll be talking about is. If you encounter a term or keyword you’re unfamiliar with, check the LeadVenture Content Glossary of Industry & Regional Language or one of our many product resources in our Research References folder in the Drive.

If you can’t find answers in those places, then you might be lucky enough to be encountering a new product! Add the information you find to our resources so we can benefit from what you discover, including linking the finished piece in the indexes when you’re finished.

First, you should see if an existing, unassigned piece could fill a request for you by checking what’s in Up for Grabs. You can find all our Up for Grabs pieces in this folder, or linked in the DS and ARI indexes.

For a complete walkthrough of the Up for Grabs process, check here.

Oftentimes, it’s easier to fill a request using a topic or information that the team has covered in the past.

All previously written content is kept in the LeadVenture Rewrite Indexes. The indexes are tools to help make content fulfillment easier, but there are no rules around how frequently you use them.

• Dealer Spike Rewrite Index

• ARI Rewrite Index

Whether you’re out of rewrites, or you’re looking for something fresh, the team has created a number of internal resources to make coming up with original topics easier. If you’re struggling to fill a request that must use an original topic, try browsing some of the team’s tips, or ask your teammates for help.

All content is stored in Google Drive folders assigned to specific dealers. They offer a historical record of all previously written content and also will store all future content written.

When it’s time to start writing, you’ll make your way to the dealer’s corresponding folder and create a document there.

• Dealer Spike Content

• ARI Content

Google Drive uses an alphabetization system to organize files, so we must use a specific file naming system to keep the files organized and easy to reference.

The LeadVenture Content Team follows a Style Guide specific the demands of the work. For questions about composition, voice, tone, or other style choices, refer to the guide.

Some content includes mentions of, or is primarily about a specific manufacturer, known as an OEM. These OEM pieces will likely require the use of trademarks, which writers are expected to add themselves.

Luckily, our QA team has prepared a spreadsheet detailing which OEMs and their brands need trademarks and which don’t. This sheet also explains when to use them. Take some time to read through the instructions, and ask for help from a writer or one of the QA specialists if needed. Keep in mind, if you don’t see an OEM listed in one of the main tabs, you may want to check the “Currently Without Trademarks” tab to see if we know there is no trademark on file.

Occasionally, you’ll run into a request for an OEM we’ve never written about before. If you can’t find the OEM listed anywhere in the spreadsheet, you’ll need to look up the trademarking information for yourself. Once again, our QA team has provided some tips on how to go about finding trademarking information. Follow this helpful guide, and you should be able to find what you’re looking for. If you can’t find it, reach out for help by contacting the Content Team Lead or the QA Team Lead.

Don’t forget, your fellow writers are here to help you! They have experience with writing about these products and have their own tips and tricks you can learn. If you’re stuck, reach out to one of the other writers or the Content Team Lead for help! You can reach out to them individually or drop a message in the Content Writing Chat in Teams.

The Content Team has spent years filling Dealer Spike and ARI requests and subsequently, we’ve spent a lot of time creating our own resources to make this task easier. You can find these resources in the Content Writing Tips folder in the Content Drive.

For Dealer Spike:

For ARI:

On the Dealer Spike side, all articles must be submitted with an image. To learn more about how to find an appropriate image, check out the Pulling Images for Dealer Spike Content Guide.

The LeadVenture Style Guide has a number of sections dedicated solely to identifying unique American and Canadian phrases and conventions. Take some time to review these sections so you know what the team’s official stance on these details are and contact the Team Lead with additional questions.

We’ve identified a number of helpful resources written using American and Canadian dialects. You can find them all in the Helpful Content Resources, which will also offer important information about the products we write about.

LeadVenture utilizes Udemy, a platform of online courses that can help close some language gaps for an additional price. If you can identify a specific course, or if one is assigned to you, you may request to be reimbursed for taking the course as part of your daily work. Contact your local manager for more information.

The team has been lucky enough to receive additional trainings from current and previous SEO Trainers. These trainings can be found in the Content Writing Chat in Teams, near the top of the window, in a tab labeled “Content Team Training Notes,” including a recording of these trainings.