Work Experience
I am currently employed as the Marketing Manager for local popcorn company, KuKuRuZa Gourmet Popcorn. I have worked continuously since the age of 14, in many positions including Theater jobs: Technical Director, Lighting Designer, Sound Designer, Rigging Operator, and Stage Hand; Retail jobs: Bakery Assistant, FedEx Manager, Store Manager, Office Assistant, and Host; and in Planning jobs: Team Lead, Researcher, Community Organizer, Event Planner, and Facilitator.
Each job has left me with a diverse set of skills, that I have learned to use in many applications. This has left me capable of addressing any situation professionally and with care, because I am able to think on my feet, and use my unique set to solve a vast array of problems.
Each job has left me with a diverse set of skills, that I have learned to use in many applications. This has left me capable of addressing any situation professionally and with care, because I am able to think on my feet, and use my unique set to solve a vast array of problems.
Current Position: KuKuRuZa Marketing Manager
Creating Brand/Customer InteractionIt is very important to create a relationship with customers to keep them coming back. This includes Email Mailers, In-Store Events, Social Media (discussed in more depth below), and other branded experiences.
We send out Email Mailers through Mail Chimp every 2 weeks. This requires a substantial amount of writing, planning, and photography to populate each message. These mailers encourage customers to come into the store or onto our website, often provide discounts on specialty products, give insider details about events, new flavors, or other items of interest. These details allow our audience to engage with us from the comfort of their home at a time of their choosing, which keeps us in their mind even outside of our store. You can see an example of one of our mailers here. In-Store Events are a great way to give back to our loyal customers, and allow the relationship to be give and take. For our 1 year anniversary of our Ballard Store, we offered a Free Popcorn Day for any customer that walked into our store. This not only draws in new customers, but also rewards people who engage with us, and encourages them to build that relationship. In addition, it provides us with photographs of happy customers, excited children, and ample press coverage of excited customers writing blogs and posting on our Social Media pages. The photos to the right were taken at our Free Popcorn Day in Ballard.
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Creating Business Relationships and Partnerships
A large part of my job as Marketing Manager is developing both short and long term relationships with relevant companies to increase the general awareness of our company. This type of relationship can take on a number of different forms, from selling popcorn in bulk at a discounted price, to attending events, to sponsoring an organization or event, all of which happen for the purpose of publicity.
For example, we are partnering with Love with Food, a monthly food sampler box, sent to 12,000-30,000 people every month depending on the season. I have set up two major campaigns with them, one for 13,500 bags in July, and one for 25,000 bags in November. The most difficult part about setting up such a relationship is neither the quantity nor the terms of the relationship, but rather, identifying which company of this type reaches the audience most likely to follow through and become customers. Much of the work of setting up relationships comes from looking at statistics: What is the average income of the audience versus of our average customer? Where are the majority of the audience located? And other questions of the sort.
Earlier this year the Regional Manager, Mary Holocher, and I were sent to the MTV Movie Awards Gift Lounge in Hollywood for an event hosted by GBK productions. While the statistics show that the majority of the audience was not in our typical bracket, the photos gained from the event are absolutely invaluable. So much of my job is connecting our brand to ideas or experiences that the consumer trusts. This can be recommendations from a friends, eye catching photos, or the endorsement of someone that the customer admires. In Hollywood we met a number of famous actors, reality TV stars, and food critics, all of whom are able to provide that connection to our product. At the left, you will see a photo of Mary and I with Captain Beiste (Dot Jones) from Glee. Statistics show that a large protion of our brand audience watches Glee, so this type of photo lends credibility to our product for that portion of the audience.
I also work with to organize our participation in events, such as Seattle Weekly on the Best of Seattle event and Voracious, Seattle's premier foodie event, Pike Place Market on Arcade Lights, and Urban Craft Uprising, an event celebrating Seattle's finest homemade goods. Each event requires several weeks of planning to coordinate what we will serve, who will be present, and finalize all of the details with the host organization. These events help us to strengthen our Seattle identity and get our name out in the social circles that we consider our target audience.
This year I will continue to build partnerships and work with a number of organizations outside of events, as well, including Seafair, as a sponsor, AmazonLocal, as a premier local product, the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon, as a partner, and Visit Seattle, a non-profit that helps define Seattle's image and highlight the best that Seattle has to offer to encourage tourism.
For example, we are partnering with Love with Food, a monthly food sampler box, sent to 12,000-30,000 people every month depending on the season. I have set up two major campaigns with them, one for 13,500 bags in July, and one for 25,000 bags in November. The most difficult part about setting up such a relationship is neither the quantity nor the terms of the relationship, but rather, identifying which company of this type reaches the audience most likely to follow through and become customers. Much of the work of setting up relationships comes from looking at statistics: What is the average income of the audience versus of our average customer? Where are the majority of the audience located? And other questions of the sort.
Earlier this year the Regional Manager, Mary Holocher, and I were sent to the MTV Movie Awards Gift Lounge in Hollywood for an event hosted by GBK productions. While the statistics show that the majority of the audience was not in our typical bracket, the photos gained from the event are absolutely invaluable. So much of my job is connecting our brand to ideas or experiences that the consumer trusts. This can be recommendations from a friends, eye catching photos, or the endorsement of someone that the customer admires. In Hollywood we met a number of famous actors, reality TV stars, and food critics, all of whom are able to provide that connection to our product. At the left, you will see a photo of Mary and I with Captain Beiste (Dot Jones) from Glee. Statistics show that a large protion of our brand audience watches Glee, so this type of photo lends credibility to our product for that portion of the audience.
I also work with to organize our participation in events, such as Seattle Weekly on the Best of Seattle event and Voracious, Seattle's premier foodie event, Pike Place Market on Arcade Lights, and Urban Craft Uprising, an event celebrating Seattle's finest homemade goods. Each event requires several weeks of planning to coordinate what we will serve, who will be present, and finalize all of the details with the host organization. These events help us to strengthen our Seattle identity and get our name out in the social circles that we consider our target audience.
This year I will continue to build partnerships and work with a number of organizations outside of events, as well, including Seafair, as a sponsor, AmazonLocal, as a premier local product, the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon, as a partner, and Visit Seattle, a non-profit that helps define Seattle's image and highlight the best that Seattle has to offer to encourage tourism.
Social Media ManagementAs the Marketing Manager, I manage all Social Media for the company, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and, coming soon, our company Blog as well. This type of management requires constant attention - looking at what our competition is posting, how people are responding to different types of posts, and learning from the statistics I receive from the sites' analytics. Although these seem like simple tasks, Twitter, Facebook, and our blog become increasingly important for marketing as our company grows rapidly. We market our brand as a Seattle-local, passionate, and empathetic company. All of these things are true, but as we become larger as a company, it becomes more difficult for us to have the one-on-one customer relationships that reinforce this identity to our customer base.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to counter that is to create one-on-one customer interactions through blog posts, Facebook posts, and tweets that allow us to show the inside, compassionate side of our business to all of our customers. They learn more about the company, and have the opportunity to have a unique interaction with me every time that I make a post. Social Media and Blogs have distinct purposes, though they are quite similar in nature. A Social Media page only allows for short interactions, limited to a single shallow comment. This is wonderful for beginning interactions, such as asking a question or show a new flavor, but it lacks the length necessary to communicate a deeper understanding of our company. A blog, on the other hand, allows for a much deeper explanation, due to the length and ability to communicate many ideas in a single post. The balance, however, being that with Social Media you can post multiple times a day, targeting weather, new flavors, or any topic under the sun. With a blog you are much more limited by the amount of time it takes to create a quality post, with pictures and a story. Our Twitter Feed is visible to the right, and our Facebook Page is viewable here. Beyond social media, I also handle reviews, photos, and events for review sites like Urban Spoon, Yelp, and Google+. |