Thanks for visiting my site, Digital-Melissa.com. If you don’t know anything about me, here is a great place to start. I’d love to talk in person (or online), so please contact me to chat about your needs.
I am a marketing and design professional, with 20 years of experience in the eCommerce realm.
When I first started out in eCommerce, we were excited to put up five product pages a WEEK. Our site was built on FRAMES. Who remembers frames? Being involved in eCommerce all these years has been a real fun ride!
I spent the majority of my 20 years working for Drs. Foster and Smith Pet Supplies, based in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. When I began, I was purely a Web Graphic Designer, and ended as a Project Manager and Product Owner (if you are familiar with Agile Framework you know what that is) for various eCommerce platforms. I was also the User Experience Supervisor, and managed a team of up to eight people. I helped launch two mobile websites, and was the lead for continued upgrades to these sites for the best user experience – one of my true passions. In addition to this, I was on the Marketing Planning Team which planned all the Marketing efforts for several years, and was the founder of many of the Social Media platforms for the website(s).
All of these years and experiences led me to where I am today – helping other businesses grow! Drs. Foster & Smith got scooped up by Petco, and I am using the opportunity to start over and use my skills to help others:
- I am a highly regarded Project Manager
- Have a strong background in design
- Can code HTML and talk to developers AND understand them
- Build out and maintain websites on a variety of platforms: WordPress, Wix, Shopify
- Build and maintain Social Media presences
- Search Engine Optimize (SEO) the heck out of anything
- Ensure optimal User Experience for customers on both desktop and mobile
- Copy writing for marketing, write original content and edit/proofread
- Photoshop veteran of 20+ years, as well as formally trained in Graphic Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Michigan State University. I am a Photoshop wiz and can do just about anything!
Included with my eCommerce experience is 15 years of knowledge of the marine ornamental fish and coral industry. I was the primary lead for most of the work done on the reputable LiveAquaria.com website, managed Social Media for the site, and have an incredible amount of knowledge in the area of fish, corals, inverts and more which I love to use.
I was also a passionate writer for the Drs. Foster and Smith Pet Blog for many years – contributing over 50 articles and being the top writer for the blog. I continue to love to write about my pets and you’ll see posts on the blog about them from time to time.
In my spare time, I love to spend time with my family, my friends, and our family of pets. We own a seven year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Emme. A 17 year old black kitty named Kai (who has various ailments and requires a lot of attention), and two 10 year old Ocicats: Cirrhi, the chocolate spotted silver female, and Ritter, the chocolate spotted Chocolate male. We live on a small, quiet lake in northern Wisconsin and love it here.
