Why I Moved To A Digital Role

Over the last 11 years at Stone Ward, I have grown up, learned a lot and had many life-changing experiences. I have valued every minute of my time in our account management department and have especially enjoyed leading a group of talented people as we evolved the group into brand managers over the last four years. Stone Ward has always provided me with the opportunity to explore my interests and passions and apply them to our work and to our clients' communications efforts. Several years ago I was able to add our research responsibilities and management to my account management work which allowed me to work on a broader range of clients and to think differently than in the traditional account/brand management role, which I have enjoyed immensely. And now, Stone Ward has again providing me with the opportunity to follow my interests and passions and lead the agency in a different role as Director of Digital Strategy and Planning.My specialty has always been to take massive amounts of seemingly unrelated information, process it and distill it into something that makes sense and is actionable. I enjoy the challenge of overwhelming amounts of data floating around me and figuring out the patterns within it. This is how I ended up "following my nose" (as my dad would say) into the research part of my current job. In my new role, I am excited that I will continue with my current research responsibilities (that's the "planning" part of the title).The process for digital strategy is very similar to developing an overall communications strategy and distilling information from research, but in addition, there must be a working knowledge of the tools, an understanding of how they can work together and a passion for the technology and its possibilities. And as interactive marketing channels (websites, display ads, search, social, mobile, etc.) have come onto the scene, each has been added as another tactic to coordinate under the umbrella of integrated campaigns. But we need to take a step back and think about how the work together, feed into each other, complement each other and ultimately roll up to accomplishing an overall communications goal. My skill set, interests, experience and client knowledge make the transition to a solely digital role make sense.Why do I want to focus on digital strategy now? We know digital marketing works – for new customer acquisition, lead generation, and brand building. However, given the speed at which the interactive marketplace has evolved many organizations now find themselves with sprawling, disjointed digital marketing efforts that sometimes lack a central vision and useful measurement systems. There is an opportunity to make digital communications into a meaningful framework for planning, execution, and measurement. And that really excites me.This change not only represents a shift in my roles and responsibilities at the agency, but also a shift for Stone Ward to a more concentrated focus on integrated digital engagement as a driver in marketing communications for our clients. I want to thank Millie and Larry for believing that I can lead this effort and giving the opportunity to do that. I also want to thank our entire Leadership Team at Stone Ward for the support in my making this transition and in the agency focusing on digital.