I started out in a job with six titles: Marketing Communications Coordinator, PR, Branding, and Webmaster (it didn’t even fit on my card), partially because I’m an overachiever, mostly because I’m obsessed with what I do, and ultimately because I was terrified of limiting myself and had no idea what area of marketing I wanted to specialize in. I was infatuated with the industry, that anything could inspire creativity, transpire art, and spread a new idea.
15+ years later, not much has changed. I’m still a professional chameleon and have had about as nonlinear a career path as one possibly could, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks for taking the time to get to know me.
My first job out of college was in biomedical marketing, the marketing equivalent of watching paint dry. I didn’t know what I wanted to be doing, but I knew it wasn’t an environment where I could thrive. I started throwing darts at the wall and seeing what stuck – anywhere I could be creative and strategic.
That led me to the travel industry. I started in-house as the Online Marketing Manager for an adventure tour company…the very first major online tour agency. Within two weeks of being hired, that company decided there was too much overhead in trip sales and abruptly changed the business model to publishing virtually overnight, leaving that 200-person team with six of us in the media department. I was told if I wanted to keep my job, I could figure out how to become a managing editor, and just like that, I was managing a team of 50+ freelancers around the world and pumping out 30+ articles a month; figuring it out as I went (a recurring theme in my career).
As the media landscape continued to shift, influencer marketing became the shiny new thing, and tourism boards and destination marketing agencies were inquiring how to get more travelers to their city, state, or country. We began to offer sponsored content campaigns where I would travel to each destination as the in-house content creator, and share what made each place special through stories, pictures, and videos while obsessively learning the ins and outs of the social media world to grow my own following to 200K, give or take.
Eventually, that company decided to pivot again and become a full-fledged influencer agency, a pioneer in the space. We parted ways, and for a while, I was going at it on my own, doing digital marketing and content consulting for 100+ clients across 25 states. That is, until 2020, when the world came to a crashing halt, and travel was abruptly paused indefinitely.
Rolling with the times, I knew I had to pivot again, and took a job in-house with one of my most innovative clients, the Beaumont Convention and Visitors Bureau, moving from Colorado to deep south Texas to be their tourism developer. We were killing it, dreaming up new festivals and events like Beaulympics with gator races and “try”athalons and Artaco, murals and Mexican food pairings, while creating and launching new soft attractions like geocaching and foodie trails that attracted thousands of visitors a year.
The City Manager and Council took notice and asked me to do it on a larger scale by creating the city’s first communications department from scratch.
Never in my wildest dreams did I see myself working in local government or think I’d love sharing topics like water and infrastructure as much as the feel good stuff like travel and events, but I thrive on the challenge of explaining complex topics in a way that’s understandable and relatable, while impacting meaningful change where you live with a “citizen first” approach.
I say all this to say, I have a wealth of knowledge and a wide range of skillsets in the marketing and communications world.
Above all else, I’m a connector and problem solver. If you need help, let’s chat.
How I Can Help:
Digital Marketing Strategy
Without a strategy, you’re just throwing darts at the wall and hoping something sticks. Together we’ll do a deep dive into your goals and objectives and craft an actionable plan with a set of ROI-driven tactics that are right for your business.
Social Media
Social media give a voice to your brand and puts a face to your organization. We’ll work together to develop a tone and persona and build an audience with posts that say you’re active, engaged, and awesome to work with.
Content Development
You can publish articles all day, but if you don’t have distribution figured out or the proper audience identified, it’s the age old analogy of if a tree falls in the woods. We’ll develop an editorial calendar and promotional strategy to tell the stories that get shared.
Consulting
My consulting company, Digital Marketing on Demand Inc, has helped countless B2B and B2C clients grow their audience, traffic, leads, and engagement across a range of verticals. My background is in advertising, technology, arts, and media, and I have a master’s in E-business.
No project is too big or too small.
Still Curious?
I have bylines around the web from Eater and the Food Network to Huffington Post.
With 195K+ social media followers, I aspire to inspire travelers and foodies to live their best life.
