Professional Summary: Melissa is a digital leader who knows how to attract and engage audiences across social, search, newsletters, apps and more. She's passionate about creating smart, data-driven strategies that blend content, analytics and storytelling to drive real results. With a knack for improving processes and boosting performance, Melissa thrives in fast-paced, startup-minded environments — building strong teams and strategies that connect content, marketing, product and business goals.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Bachelor of Arts in political science, cum laude, ​Wichita State University
​Project Management Principles Certification, University of Maryland at College Park

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EXPERIENCE
2021 - 2024: American City Business Journals
Senior Director, Audience Growth
  • Content Strategy: Developed strategies to grow content, audience and engagement across hundreds of digital channels and 50+ products in 46 U.S. markets reaching 17 million business leaders each month.
  • Growth Marketing: Led optimization, distribution and promotion for search, newsletters, apps, push alerts, social media, 3rd party digital assets, syndication and partnerships.
  • Performance Tracking: Leveraged data analytics to build revenue-focused content, audience and subscription roadmaps, KPIs and operational goals with user-friendly dashboards for measurement.
  • Operations: Created workflows for content creation and distribution, breaking news, special projects, new products and verticals including brand hubs, native advertising, awards and events.
  • Team Development: Directed a team of specialists focused on accountability and experimentation, including establishing processes for role descriptions, hiring, annual goals, reviews and bonus structures.
  • Staff Training: Launched an onboarding, training and resource hub using learning content management systems, large language models (LLM), artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and other actionable resources.
  • Product Management: Ran cross-departmental projects and product launches, including writing proposals then building roadmaps, tracking progress, meeting deadlines and achieving KPIs.
  • Partnerships: Coordinated vendor, partner and tech systems contracts, implementation, training and relationships to meet organizational standards and save millions in spending.
  • Key Achievements: 2023 was a record-breaking year for ACBJ, as social media visits grew +50%; search visits increased +25%; email newsletter click-through rate improved +45% and total clicks grew +117%; and push alerts surpassed 1.3M users while CTR improved +15%.

2019 - 2021: Cox Media Group
Director, Audience Engagement & Optimization
  • Digital Strategy: Developed data-driven content and audience growth strategies across digital products for 100+ news outlets in 20 media markets reaching more than 52 million Americans weekly.
  • Data Analysis: Managed KPIs driving 270 million average monthly page views.
  • Leadership: Set audience best practices, created a resource center, then led training and development.
  • Collaboration: Partnered with leaders in Content, Marketing, Analytics, Product, Tech and Revenue.
  • Key Achievements: In 2020, social media sessions went up +20%; search up +80%; newsletters up +93%; push alerts up +25%; and news aggregators up +1,000%.; partnership revenue up more than +1,000%.

2018 - 2019: Cox Media Group
Director, Data Analytics & Insights
  • Led a team of expert data scientists, analysts and strategists.
  • Identified trends, areas for growth opportunity and risk assessment across CMG digital, radio, TV and newspaper properties.
  • Determined data-driven digital strategies and worked to implement these strategies with key stakeholders to empower audience insights and outcomes.
  • Responsible for creating and maintaining a central reporting hub with core KPIs that go beyond page views and sessions., including improved data reporting, analytics and strategic development with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

2015 - 2018: Cox Media Group
​Director of Audience for Fans 1st Media
  • Developed, executed and evolved distribution, engagement and growth strategies across platforms for F1M brands and new ventures including Rare Country, Clark.com, Rare, FanBuzz, Alt_driver and Hot Topics.
  • Directed an industry leading Audience Team to match winning content with owned, paid, earned and social media marketing to strategically amplify performance among valuable audiences.
  • Led initiatives in SEO/SEM, newsletters, community management, influencers, partners, paid social, native advertising, and other owned, earned and paid audience growth.
  • Managed to key performance indicators including 60 million monthly visits and a multimillion-dollar budget.
  • Built and managed a new video team and strategy for 40+ videos a month and millions of views.
  • Graduate of Cox Enterprises yearlong management course.
  • Delivered results: Visits outside owned Facebook including SEO and newsletters up 200%; paid partners up 200%; paid social up 300%; A/B testing up 3X, leading to 200% overall performance improvement on social.

2007 - 2015:  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Cox Media Group)
Projects / Sunday Editor (previously Senior Designer)
  • ​Planned and managed the AJC’s biggest projects, special sections and breaking news coverage.
  • Collaborated with reporters, editors, photographers, designers and artists.
  • Worked closely with centralized Cox Media Group copy, design and wire desks to art direct projects.
  • Engaged departments on projects, including digital, marketing, advertising, freelancers and vendors.
  • Art directed and designed Sunday news covers and sections, editorial pages, projects and special sections.
  • Member of several redesign teams (2008 redesign, AJC 2.0 project, 2012 redesign).
  • Trained and mentored other designers.
  • Technical experience with graphics, illustrations and photography.

2005 - 2007:  Orlando Sentinel (Tribune) 
Senior Designer                                       
  • Designed and planned Sunday and daily news and local covers, projects and special sections.
  • Coordinated Local In-Depth, a weekly visual section on local news.
  • Trained and mentored other designers.
  • Member of several redesign teams (2006, 2007, inception of award-winning Local In-Depth).
  • Graduate of Tribune Co.’s yearlong leadership course.
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2002 - 2005: The Myrtle Beach Sun News (Knight Ridder / McClatchy) 
​Copy editor, designer, wire editor       
  • Stylebook editor in charge of revisions and additions
  • Designed A1 and local sections
  • Copy editor, headline writer, wire editor, slot

2000 - 2001: Cox Communications
​Customer Service Representative Lead       
  • Led analog cable, digital cable and Road Runner cable internet customer service and technical support.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Analytics: Adobe Analytics (Omniture), Alteryx, Appfigures, Breezeboard, Chartbeat, Comscore, Dataminr, Google Analytics, PowerBI, Quantcast, Similarweb, Tableau

CMS: ACBJ Admin CMS, Adobe Headless, ARC XP, Contentful, Optimizely, WordPress VIP

Customer Data & Marketing: Adobe Audience Manager, Airship, Digioh, HubSpot, Keywee, Marigold (SailThru), Marketo, Maz, MPP, Piano (Cxense), PugPig, Pushly, Salesforce, SquadUp, Upland (PostUp, SecondStreet), Wunderkind (BounceX)

Design: Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro), Canva

Digital Distribution: AdEspresso, DashThis, Facebook Business Manager, Hootsuite, Inbox Monster, Naytev, Outbrain, Social Flow, Social News Desk, Sprout, True Anthem, Tweetdeck

Project Management: Asana, Atlassian (Confluence, JIRA, Trello), Slack

SEO & SEM: Botify, Google Ads, Google Search Console, News Dashboard, NewzDash, SEMRush, Speedcurve

​AFFILIATIONS

2006 - present: The Society for News Design
International nonprofit organization
  • Foundation President
  • Best of News Design competition coordinator, facilitator and judge
  • Annual Workshop Committee
  • Education and Training Director
  • Southern Regional Director
  • Executive Committee
  • Speaker and trainer

Others: Online News Association, Society of Professional Journalists, Poynter Institute, Freedom Forum