In April 2023, I took a leap of faith and stepped out on my own to form LED Marketing Services. Pulling from my extensive background in non-profit marketing and communications, I focus on strategic communications, emphasizing website content development and strategy, search engine optimization, digital marketing, and content creation.
I work with clients in a range of industries — higher education, senior living, international aid projects, professional associations, software startups, and medical coding.
I have extensive experience in identifying prospects and building personas to drive results-focused marketing materials and tactics. During my tenure with PMMA, the organization implemented marketing automation to drive tours and move-ins and launched social media for all its campuses, the Art is Ageless art competition, and two hospice locations. Audience growth was driven by organic posts generated at the local campus level and facilitated critical connections between residents and families during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I designed an award-winning website for PMMA’s Art is Ageless program, and led the development efforts for a website for the organization’s hospice program with locations in Farmington, Mo., and Wichita, Kan. I ensured the hospice site’s SEO gave the site the best possible placement in organic search by focusing on location-based queries. I also coordinated a team that produced award-winning websites for PMMA and its 15 communities and improved site traffic and conversions exponentially over prior versions of the PMMA websites.
One of the highlights of my career was receiving the 2012 Communicator of the Year Award from my peers in the United Methodist Association of Communicators. Together with my colleague, Kathryn Witte of Nebraska, we received recognition for our work in interpreting the transition of the Kansas East, Kansas West, and Nebraska annual conferences into a new Great Plains Annual Conference, which became official on Jan. 1, 2014.
Throughout my years with PMMA and the United Methodist conferences, projects from sexual ethics training videos and presentations to websites, and from the Art is Ageless website to collateral materials for a capital campaign that raised nearly $11 million in Kansas received award recognitions for excellence, creativity and writing.
I started my professional career at The Newton Kansan newspaper, covering city government in Newton, North Newton, and Hesston and the business beat in Harvey County. In addition, I was a general assignment reporter and was responsible for the annual Harvey County Pulse business feature section. I played an important role in the Kansan team which won the Victor Murdock Award from the Kansas Press Association for a series of stories about a dangerous intersection in south Newton after a child riding a bicycle across U.S. 50 was killed in an accident.
Social media, digital marketing, project management and organization, critical thinking, interpersonal communication, public relations, event program production, art direction, content marketing, video script writing, data management, and volunteer management.
Chief Creative Officer/Owner
LED Marketing Services- Wichita, KS – March 2022 – Present
Account Supervisor
Martinez Media & Marketing Group – Manhattan, KS – April 2023 – Present
Marketing & PR Account Executive
Bell PR & Marketing – Shawnee, KS – April 2023 – Present
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- Manage client projects from inception to completion
- Collaborate with team members and contractors to execute tactics and meet client goals
- Facilitate client relationships
- Research and write website content for clients in a variety of industries
- Set information architecture for client sites
- Design websites utilizing WordPress themes and client branding
- Create and develop reporting tools to demonstrate marketing benchmarks to clients
- Analyze performance data and provide recommendations for future tactics
- Identify ideal prospects, create personas and research to identify customer journeys specific to each client
- Develop client brand standards
- Write and pitch media releases
- Develop social media posts and track performance
- Coordinate vendor relationships
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce- Wichita, KS – March 2022 – March 2023
- Supervise and set goals for team
- Develop strategy and processes around promotion of events and programs
- Implement third-party tool to improve website accessibility
- Oversee the content for Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce digital communication, including the website, social media, all content marketing, custom publications, and newsletters
- Assist with set-up and execution of in-person and digital events
- Write content for Chamber website
- Coordinate responses to media inquiries
- Nurture relationships with local media
- Revise and refresh member communications including prospect packets, new member messages and quarterly membership dues
- Compile and coordinate annual membership investment guide
- Write, collect and coordinate content for annual summary report
Corporate Communications Director
PMMA – Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America – Wichita, KS – January 2014 to March 2022
- Manage freelance writing, design and social media contractors and numerous vendor relationships
- Guiding the rebranding of PMMA through the development of a new logo for the organization and its 15 communities and executing the brand strategy across all platforms
- Direct strategy and launch of global site redesigns for all 15 PMMA communities and corporate sites in 2019, lifting organic visits by 46% and overall visits by 99%
- Direct strategy and launch of marketing automation for 12 PMMA communities in 2017, increasing participation to 80% of new leads in 3 years, with 44% of move-ins participating in the program between November 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021
- Develop and manage annual corporate budgets of in excess of $500,000 for marketing, communications, public relations and publications, and community marketing budgets in excess of $2.5 million annually
- Write, edit, and coordinate production of marketing presentations, event collateral, marketing automation, social media postings, sales collateral, ads and other media for 15 PMMA communities and two hospices
- Coordinate, edit and schedule 15 community newsletters for print and electronic distribution
- Cut newsletter production expenses by $100,000 in the first year, and reduce expenses by an additional $48,000 by going to a digital only format for newsletters.
- Analyze, audit and monitor marketing automation results for 12 PMMA communities’ automation efforts
- Coordinate, analyze and direct PPC campaigns for 11 PMMA communities and two hospice locations
- Coordinate, write, direct and review social media posts for 15 PMMA communities, PMMA corporate, two hospice locations and Art is Ageless
- Develop and execute crisis communications plans for global pandemic response and create Media Room to handle media inquiries and provide updated information related to pandemic
- Complete public relations tasks including writing, editing, distributing and publishing media releases on behalf of PMMA, its 15 communities and 2 hospice locations
- Guide the branding and development of marketing materials for Heart & Soul hospice and designed, wrote and developed the award-winning Heart & Soul Hospice website, www.heartandsoulhospice.org
- Designed, wrote and redeveloped the award-winning Art is Ageless website, www.ArtisAgeless.org
- Established social media presence for 15 PMMA communities, PMMA corporate, two hospice locations and Art is Ageless
Communications Director
Kansas Area United Methodist Church – July 2006 to December 2013
- Supervise a staff of three
- Collaborate in the develop marketing and communications strategies for the creation of a new annual conference for Kansas and Nebraska United Methodists
- Conducted user-survey, developed site architecture and worked with developers to create new www.greatplainsumc.org website
- Coordinate use of new media including video, websites, email and blogging by the Kansas East and West conferences
- Utilize online applications to provide training in use of web applications for website management and online meetings
- Researched and implemented video conferencing plan and deployed equipment to remote locations
- Coordinate public media and crisis communication and coach spokespersons for crisis communication
- Shoot, script, edit, produce and author video content for conference websites and DVD distribution
- Coordinate media purchases for television advertising
- Develop and deliver training in person and online.
- Develop and implement social media strategies for Facebook and Twitter for the conferences and special events.
- Manage a combined area budget of more than $500,000 annually for personnel and programming.
Marketing and Communications Coordinator
Kansas Area United Methodist Church – March 2001 to June 2006
- Supervise a staff of two
- Coordinate crisis communications and coached spokespersons for crisis communication• Managed vendor relations to redesign and develop conference website in 2001 and 2004
- Developed training program for implementation of web-based content management system for conference website
- Coordinated media purchases for television and radio advertising
- Wrote and edited articles for and designed monthly newsletter
- Developed and wrote news releases
- Developed and delivered training in person and online
- Managed a department budget of $160,000 annually
Communications Assistant
Kansas Credit Union Association – March 2000 to March 2001
Redesigned, wrote and produced monthly newsletter and media releases, promotional brochures and materials.
Reporter and Business Section Editor
Newton Kansan – June 1996 to March 2000
Wrote and edited articles and designed pages for a daily newspaper.• Planned and assigned articles and designed annual progress report on Harvey County businesses.
Education
Bachelor of Science in Journalism
Kansas State University, 1996
Certificate in Leadership, Center for Management Development, Wichita State University, 2006
Technical Proficiencies:
GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar • WebEx • Zoom • Dreamweaver • Adobe Premier Pro and Media Encoder • Adobe Photoshop • Adobe InDesign • Adobe Acrobat Professional • Microsoft Office Suite including Teams • Constant Contact • MailChimp • Content management systems • MatrixCare Marketing • Sherpa • Handbrake • WordPress • Google Analytics • Google Office Tools
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