If there’s one “master lesson” I’ve learned during my career in digital, it’s the importance of harmony and precision. Like a well-oiled machine or a symphony orchestra, all the pieces-parts must be working in unison. And the more finely-tuned your engine and instruments are, the better your performance will be.
So, what does that have to do with me, what I do and more importantly, what I can offer you?
Well, I believe that all of your digital initiatives should be working just as hard as you do… and that the best way to achieve this is by working holistically — across channels, across teams and across your organization.
While I can help you improve your search engine rankings, create content for your website or launch a social media campaign, you’ll benefit the most by leveraging my insight and expertise to build a digital foundation that gives you a competitive edge, and to make your website and other digital initiatives work better — together.
In the beginning, I worked to polish my core marketing/public relations skill set, and then expanded it by becoming an expert in specialized digital tactics, such as search engine optimization, pay-per-click and content marketing.
I learned a lot through observation; from my colleagues, from my successes and from my failures. I learned even more by trial and error — being willing to try new things.
For example, when I was curious how capitalization would effect PPC performance, I tested it. When I wanted to learn HTML, I bought a book and used it to build (a very awful) website, and then taught myself basic server management. When I was curious how media exposure would impact search engine results, I sent some press releases (and measured the results). When I wanted to know if a tool would work, or what it would do, I used it — sometimes without reading the directions (there’s no better way to determine if something is intuitive). And if what I needed didn’t exist, I found someone to build it, so that I could accomplish what needed done.
I also asked questions. Actually, many questions. And I sifted through enough data to meltdown an NSA data center. I wanted to uncover the weakest links, so I could strengthen them. I wanted to learn how the things I did impacted customers, colleagues and my company — good or bad. I wanted to know what was working for other people. And I wanted to find what else — shiny and new — there was to do or try that could make the digital experience better.
I broke many things along the way. I fixed even more.
I still ask a lot of questions.
What I learned along the way is that many organizations invested a lot of time, resources and money into things they didn’t need – or not enough in the ones they did. There was often an easier, faster or less expensive way to achieve the same—or better—results; understandably, they just didn’t know it yet, or they were having trouble seeing the forest through the trees.
Some quick examples:
- One company came to my agency asking for help marketing its new ecommerce site, which cost tens of thousands of dollars; sales had plummeted since the launch. What we discovered is that the programming made it invisible to the search engines. At the time, there was no way to fix it, so instead of investing in marketing a poor platform (a short-term solution), we built them a new platform that fed the search engines spiders exactly what they needed, and upon which the company could grow — problem solved.
- Another client approached me for help with SEO and SEM with the goal of growing traffic, and ultimately, sales. After analyzing the situation, I determined that the largest barrier to purchase was a public perception issue, so I proposed an online PR campaign which had spectacular results.
- Put another example here.
Experiences like those provided me with valuable lessons-learned about how companies can better harness their digital investments to fuel long-term business growth, and improve operational and process efficiency.
I wanted to use this knowledge to empower digital marketers and their organizations by giving them solutions to the problems that had plagued me and my clients over the years. I wanted to help them build the ultimate mousetrap — one with the precision they needed to work harmoniously across a fragmented, omnichannel landscape.
The best way to do so was by getting involved as early in the development process as possible. Doing so ensured that essential functionality a digital marketer needs to provide an excellent user experience and ultimately drive revenue — but is often overlooked — was baked right into the platform. Things like an easy way to implement 301-redirects, update XML sitemaps and export shopping feeds. The ability to create friendly URLs, dictate header tags and manage tracking codes on the fly. Things that gave them a competitive advantage, simplified their jobs and drove results.
This led me down the path to helping companies:
- Create new cloud-based products and services
- Develop and implement new websites and technologies
- Identify, prioritize and execute improvements to enhance their current digital properties
The end result of all of this “exploring” is a vast, broad and deep amount of knowledge across the digital realm — from expertise in core digital tactics to a deep understanding of how to structure product catalogs on an ecommerce site, which newswire service has more social shares, and the best way to modify a spring controller to create search and user-friendly urls in hybris.