Hello! I have decided to start a new blog, so you can get to know who I am, how I evolved in digital marketing, and how I can help you.
Former Career
drafter for several years. In 2004, I had the opportunity to move to Kyiv, Ukraine*, for half a year with my now ex-husband. The Orange
My journey to becoming a digital marketer was not a straight one. My associate’s degree is in Interior Design, and I worked as a CAD Revolution, a series of protests and demonstrations for a free and fair election, took place while I was there, which fascinated me. Everything was new and exciting. I took pictures daily and wrote about my adventures living abroad. I had studied photography when I was younger and learned quite a bit about black & white film development, printing, and composition.
My parents gave me a digital camera as a going-away gift, so I had to learn a new type of photography and image processing. I loved that I could see the photos right away, and I had control over the output, no longer dependent on a film lab to develop the images. I was interested in websites, and I learned how to make a simple website with my photos, links, and a menu for the different pages.
“Clergy and Tourist” at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine
Photography
When I returned from Ukraine, I had such a passion for digital photography I joined a camera club where I had the opportunity to learn through competitions, educational programs, and image study. I mastered Photoshop, presented educational programs to the club, and began tutoring adult students.
I started a small, primarily fine-art photography business. My favorite subjects to photograph were landscape, architecture, and creative editing. Becoming involved in the local Open Studios, Art Walks, and gallery shows was a fantastic experience. Occasionally, I picked up some freelance work, but I didn’t know how to market myself, and photography is an incredibly competitive field, so I had to find other work.
Website Design and Digital Marketing
In January of 2013, I decided to go back to school and earned a certificate in Website Design. One of my teachers also taught videography and encouraged us to learn how to shoot and edit videos. We studied the basics of digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including social media, and familiarized ourselves with WordPress and Wix in addition to programming and hand-coding websites.
David Fox and Elyssa Conley at an event in Boston gathering Behind the Scenes content for digital marketing use.
David Fox, Photographer—Website Design and Digital Marketing
I learned so much over my six years with David Fox, Photographer. We built two websites, hosted a podcast, created content for the blog, social media, and websites. We had fun with the “behind the scenes” events. I took over managing the previously neglected Google Ads, My Business cleaned it up, and got David Fox, Photographer, to rank at the top of page one for Corporate Event Photography. Next, I learned Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. I learned how to write descriptions for each image so they would search well. I also had the privilege of mentoring two interns. Though I don’t have a degree in digital marketing, I read many books. Some of my favorites are: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller, This is Marketing by Seth Godin, The Power of Visual Storytelling by Jessica Gioglio, and Everybody Writes by Ann Handley.
In December of 2019, my position at David Fox, Photographer, was eliminated due to an unforeseen personal financial setback. It was sad after so many years together, but it was time to move on to my next adventure.
Wellesley Centers for Women—Website Content Producer
At the Wellesley Centers for Women, I updated the main Joomla website and four micro-sites. I perfected formatting articles with HTML and prepared various forms of media, photos, video, audio recordings, PDFs for web display. Working with the digital marketing team, I was able to create images adhering to the organization’s branding colors and font. I enjoyed creating graphics, and I had a strong interest in typography. This interest prompted me to take some workshops at MassArt and a couple of graphic design courses at Framingham State.
Machado Consulting
I continued to work part-time, remote during the shutdown while job hunting for full-time work. I came across Machado Consulting, an IT and Internet security firm in Worcester. They build and host websites as well. They were looking for a web developer to manage the hosted sites. I liked what I had learned about the company, and it seemed like a great place to work. This gave me the opportunity to manage multiple WordPress, Square Space, and Wix websites.
Elyssa modeling Skineez® Sport Pro Advanced Healing Compression Plus Ankle socks for digital marketing use.
Skineez® Digital Marketing
About a year later, I found myself working at Skineez®. I have worked with many different CMS platforms but never used Shopify. Thankfully, Michelle Moran, the founder, and CEO decided to give me a chance. I signed up for a Shopify site to learn as much as I could after work for the two weeks before I started. There was a learning curve, but I enjoyed working with Shopify. Over time, I found it much more stable than the Woo-Commerce site I had managed previously.
Email Marketing
As the digital marketing manager for Skineez®, I also had the privilege of leading the email marketing. I had read about email marketing techniques while working for David Fox, Photographer, but I could not convince them that it was a good fit for his company. To me, email marketing is much more effective than social media marketing, so I focused as much time as possible on it while at Skineez®.
I picked up a couple of books, including Email Marketing Mastery by Tom Carson-Knowles. We looked into moving it to a third-party Software as a Service (SaaS) with more flexibility than Shopify’s built-in email. I wanted to set up an autoresponder series and be able to do some A/B testing. GetResponse seemed to be a good fit and fair price to try it out. Working with GetResponse’s email builder was much more versatile. I could create an email and save it as a template to keep the look consistent and not look like a pre-made template.
Creating an autoresponder series, reading the analytics, watching the sales come in after the emails went out was gratifying. With a 35% open rate and an 8% click rate, I was hooked! Email marketing is very creative visually and with writing copy, a bit technical, and perfect for someone like me who is results-oriented.
Moving Forward
Now I am on a mission to continue learning, practicing, and growing my email and digital marketing knowledge, blogging, and web design skills. The best place to do this is here on my new blog, and I hope you will find the information here interesting and helpful.
If you need help with email or digital marketing, blog writing, product descriptions, web design, or SEO, please reach out. I’m happy to help.
Ukraine
*I can’t mention my brief time living in Kyiv without acknowledging the atrocities going on there now. It’s genuinely heartbreaking to see the places I visited and photographed, particularly Kyiv, under an unprovoked attack. Please consider making a donation to the Ukraine Red Cross