Five Case Studies in Driving Success
Whether someone cheers for or roots against the Tar Heels, the brand is one of the most recognizable in sports from coast to coast. After putting some heart into designing a tiny ad for a restaurant to go in an event program, I was tapped to step up to create these fan favorites that have been a tradition for decades.
Adhering to strict brand guidelines, I ensure the precise combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink is used to create the Carolina Blue hue.
Having grown up in Chapel Hill and having lived as far away as Seattle, I assure you that these posters are collected and displayed in man caves, she shacks and sports bars across the country. Doing this project has become an annual treat, and a dream come true.
I led PR efforts and managed an engaging social media program for a $2.5 billion sales organization.
In 2009 state lotteries were lagging behind private industry in adopting social media. I persuaded leadership at the North Carolina Education Lottery to let me manage a trial social media program. After exceeding expectations, I nurtured the program as part of our overall communications efforts for more than eight years. The press releases, blogs, graphics, and videos I cranked out contributed to reaching a combined audience of 37 million in the span of one year.
One of our most memorable product launches was for an instant ticket called BBQ Bucks. Check out the results of the PR plan I co-created to earn publicity including the press release I drafted, the inside scoop on how I got USA Today to pick up the story -- and don't forget my quote in Vice Magazine. I loved my colleagues and mentors at what we affectionately call "the luck factory." In October 2012, I was nominated for and received the “Above & Beyond” employee recognition.
A B2B marketer once told me, on the subject of reaching a niche target audience, that she had woken up from a cold sweat dreaming about trying to drop a pebble from space into a kiddie pool.
Here on earth, it was my mission to hit the mark for Issuer Direct Corporation, which empowers its business customers with tech solutions ranging from SEC compliance software to a virtual conference platform.
To attract the attention of key decision-makers from PR agency chiefs to chief financial officers, I doubled the rate of blogs published as well as researched and authored five discipline-specific whitepapers to generate leads. To promote those pieces, I wrote copy for social media posts and scheduled them in a mix of thoughtfully curated content.
I penned every word and designed every square inch of the annual report for a statewide community lender.
Most folks do not go out of their way to read about how loans are underwritten. But if the reason loans are made is to help small business owners' dreams come true, it becomes a relatable human narrative.
Carolina Small Business Development Fund's annual report is received by a diverse audience of legislators, bankers and other key stakeholders. I set out to illuminate how the nonprofit supports entrepreneurs in historically underserved communities. And, between those stories, I distilled the technical details of operation into palatable pieces.
I then assembled everything together using the Adobe Creative Suite to create branded illustrations and format the sum of written and visual pieces. The final product was praised by colleagues for its magazine-like reading experience.
In six months, I drove 48% growth of the LinkedIn audience for a global communication and compliance company.
Since 2004, I have designed poster-size collectibles for the University of North Carolina Men's Basketball program.
I wrote compelling features for publication in The News & Observer, North Carolina's newspaper of record.
The classified section — before Craigslist rendered it obsolete — was once the go-to place for buying and selling property or looking for job openings. Frequently, my task at The N&O was to write human interest stories for the section front that tied to common classified themes like real estate and employment.
I wrote and designed a special advertising section called Celebrate Nursing to promote opportunities in healthcare. One of the stories is about a nurse named Tracy with a big heart who used it to put smiles on people's faces who were going through tough times. I wrote the piece back in 2008 but it still gets me in the feels.