National Campus Rep Search

I am currently working on recruiting student brand ambassadors for chicka-d. I have set up a national search, focusing on 10 - 12 universities. The objective is to recruit 5 - 8 college girls in our top markets to represent the company during football season at their school. They will host in-store promotions, on-campus events, tailgate parties, fashion shows, etc.

I've launched a viral recruiting campaign that encompasses the use of Facebook, Twitter, email marketing, our website, in-store marketing and a PR push that directs interested students to the chicka-d recruiting webpage. With the help our graphic designer, I've created school-specific flyers that is being used across all platforms.

Since launching the campaign on March 9th, we've already had approximately 60,000 hits on our website, which is 20,000 more than last month. In addition, I sent out 2,869 emails to various universities, and of those, 1,773 have opened the email campaign generating about a 62% open rate.

To take it one step further, I am requesting all applicants post a comment, picture or video clip of them showing us their school spirit on the chicka-d Facebook page and asking them to share our page with their friends, giving them a chance to show us their dedication and win free chicka-d clothing, while generating more followers for us.

Chicka-d Website

In an effort to expand our branding and relaunch a new image, I worked with the designer of our company and a graphic artist to put together a new website that was more creative and playful in style. At Chicka-d, we relaunched the new website a few weeks ago, which will help to establish and grow our brand as a college clothing company. We wanted to take a whimsical approach to the creative and appeal to the true college girl.

For this website, I worked with our web development company, Infinity Pro Sports, and made sure that every page was working, every link was linked and every image was properly placed. I added all the content for the site, edited each school's images and plugged them in, connected the retailers with the appropriate schools, developed the campus rep and intern applications, updated all the press clips and launched the style guide.

Each step was tedious and took time, but it was well worth it. This will continue to be a work in progress, but the new site is live!

We Are Austin Live

In early December, I got a chance to represent Chicka-d on We Are Austin Live, which aired on KEYE Austin. We were hosting a college sample sale at a local sports restaurant for the holidays and the news picked up the event from an event posting online.

The President and Designer of our company were out of town, so I got to put together the segment. I called our best models, picked out the clothing to showcase and put together some key points for the anchor to discuss.

The only issue with the clip was that the reporter dropped the mannequin, which caught me slightly off guard. I wasn't exactly sure what to do with that, but all-in-all, I think it ended up okay. We got a kick out of the clip. I hope you do too...enjoy!

View the clip here!

Realty Austin Website Setup

This past year, Realty Austin, an Austin-based real estate company, collaborated with Real Estate Webmasters to offer all of their agents a selection of real estate-focused template websites that were customized to each individual agent. This became an important selling tool for the agents at Realty Austin because it gave them their own presence online, as opposed to just having a bio on their company's website.

Real estate agents are busy building their business and don't have the time or knowledge to build their own website, so I started offering a set-up and social network consulting service to the agents.

This service includes:

• Website setup: layout design, development, editing and maintenance
• Content creation and coordination
• HTML coding
• Snippet programming with integrated MLS
• Search engine optimization 
• Social media & online branding strategy and management
• Link building

The following are a few of the sites that I worked on:

CarlShurr.com

SearchAustinHomesHere.com

RealtorJenny.com

TracyWallingford.com

DonnaDarling.com

Webmaster Certification Program

With a strong interest in building a web-based company and seeing the impact that technology has had on our society, I've become more and more intrigued and interested in technology, namely web development. I've created content for and maintained several websites at previous jobs, but I didn't have much development knowledge. As a marketing professional, I realized (quickly) that I needed to do something about this, so...

This past year, I enrolled myself in the Webmaster Certification Program at ACC for a little 'personal' continuing education. I started in the design & media track, where I've learned basic HTML and design, but I'm realizing that I need to learn more programming. Programming provides the functionality, which connects all the pieces of a site to make it run smoothly and operate properly.

One of my current goals (and a New Year's resolution) is to enroll in the programming classes and really start to learn the different languages of the Internet. With a few web-based business ideas, the desire to work at a technology company and a few programming classes, I'm definitely on my way to becoming a full-time techie.

Print Ad Campaign: Anna Maria's Boutique

Although I haven't been specifically in marketing since I graduated from college, I have taken on roles that required marketing responsibilities, which have lead me to this path. One such role was being the Store Manager at Anna Maria's Boutique, a local, high-end, women's fashion retail store.

One of my main duties was to create and coordinate the local print campaigns each month, which ran in Austin Monthly, Tribeza, Rare, Jewell, Austin Woman Magazine and Austin Magazine (no longer available).

With the help of my assistant manager, we:

• strategized the ad campaign
• negotiated & purchased ad space
• found the appropriate photographers
• negotiated photographer rates
• found & coordinated the photo shoot locations
• coordinated & styled the models for the shoot
• coordinated hair & makeup
• worked with the art director of each magazine to create the ad layout
• approved the artwork
• sent the final artwork to print

We were very proud of our ad campaigns, as they became our creative outlet every month. We wanted to create a fantasy fashion world that was beautiful, luxurious and adventurous. We saw the ads as an extension of ourselves and our store.

Our tagline was "You never know where fashion will take you...". The concept was to have a beautiful model wearing some of our best pieces in a place that was completely unexpected.

We hired a fantastic photographer and I believe we captured the essence of our store exactly as we saw it. Unfortunately, Anna Maria's had to close its doors in 2007. We had worked on the campaign for 5 months prior to its closing and it had just started gaining traction and brand identity in the local fashion scene.

Although the store did not survive our campaign, we developed a relationship with most of the local media and we gained irreplaceable experience in the creative ad process, both of which have helped me in my current endeavors.

Live Life Now

As an avid follower of Ladies Who Launch, I received this post in my inbox last week and absolutely fell in love with this quote.

"Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here, we should dance." ~ a compilation of quotations by Mark Twain and Amber Deckers.

It is in my nature to get wrapped up in the day-to-day life and I tend to forget the small things that make me happy. Life is truly short and I need to start really living and appreciate who I am, where I've been, where I'm going and everyone and everything along the way.

I don't break the rules enough, it's hard for me to really forgive, I'm terrified of love, and sometimes when things make me happy, I don't smile enough.

As the end of the year approaches, I owe it to myself to really take note of the things I need to learn to appreciate--the small stuff--a smile, laughing, kissing, dancing and true optimism. After all, happiness is one of the key elements I seek in life.

Now that Christmas is over, I'm looking at the next year. Although I'm not big on resolutions, I believe this quote says it best. I'm going to put this quote somewhere I can see it everyday and truly live by this. This is my resolution.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!