Digital Strategist Joins Our Growing Team

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.”

This point made by Marshall McLuhan, a Communications Professor, accurately sums up the ever-evolving and growing landscape of digital marketing. When clients are given the power to understand how the many strategies involved in digital marketing (SEO, PPC, LPO, social, content, email and mobile, for instance) tie in with each other and understand how to interpret the corresponding analytics behind them, the end result is a better product for an end user and more profits for our clients.

As the growth of Synapse has paralleled that of the digital marketing landscape and the focus of our clients has become more digital, our digital marketing team has again expanded. To aid in the digital marketing efforts of our clients, Synapse has added a Digital Marketing Strategist, Stephanie Schaeffer.

Stephanie has over eight years of experience in overall marketing strategy, with a specialized focus on digital marketing. She holds an undergraduate degree in Marketing as well as a MBA with a concentration in Marketing – both from York College of Pennsylvania – and a certification in Landing Page Optimization (LPO). When she’s not knee-deep in analytics, she can be found walking or running with her pup, reading, concocting crazy new healthy meals, or hiking and traveling with a camera glued to her hand.

We had a chance to sit down with Stephanie and ask her a few questions about joining the Synapse team as well as get her take on digital marketing.

What attracted you to Synapse?
One thing that was very important to me in looking for a new position was finding a company that shared not only my passion for marketing, but also the willingness and capability to test its marketing. I was looking for a place where I could bounce ideas off of teammates and be constantly creatively inspired. The team culture and the company’s ability to change and change quickly were made very apparent, being driven home by its Best Places to Work in PA award. The entrepreneurial spirit also attracted me as I had started my career with a growing company, and I can appreciate the challenges and freedoms it can offer.

How did you get started in digital marketing?
I started my career as a Marketing Analyst for a software development company, where I was thrown in to figuring out the up-and-coming world of Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in order to promote our downloadable software. As the industry grew, I grew with my company becoming the Marketing Director and a Digital Marketing Consultant. I realized I had this amazing opportunity to be on the cutting edge of the emerging field of digital marketing and I have been working towards evolving with the industry ever since, achieving Online Testing and Landing Page Optimization (LPO) certifications in the process.

Why digital marketing?
I love the constantly evolving environment of digital marketing, and I especially love the ability to test everything. I’m analytical by nature. Some may say I have an obsession with over analyzing things, but this trait allows me to never accept anything at face value. The analytics of digital marketing allows me to utilize my obsession to the benefit of the client.

What do you see as a trend in 2013 for digital marketing?
For so long the focus of digital marketing has been on SEO and the industry has gotten a bad reputation for so many black hat practices. Then the focus shifted to social media and that part of the industry got a bad reputation for its inability to measure and create significant ROI. It has been exciting to see the focus now shift to making both of these practices accountable through the integration of SEO and social media with testing, analytics, and LPO. Even more specifically, the shift has been to converting traffic, because what really is the point of creating all of that traffic without the ability to convert them into a lead or a sale?

Want to learn more about how Stephanie and the team at Synapse can help you with your digital marketing and web analytics needs?  Start a conversation with us today.