Marketing & Promotions Manager

January 2013 – May 2014

Blue Rooster was an upscale Southern comfort food restaurant and live music venue known for their unique fried chicken recipe and bringing big-name national blues artists to Sarasota.

This was my first solely focused full-time position since Creative Loafing folded, which is why my contract work with Nichebuilder and Sarasota Guitar Company both ended at this time.

As Marketing Manager, I assisted in establishing the business, helping to develop the overall marketing strategy, website and social media pages, and grand opening publicity campaign.

Having already built relationships with several A&E writers at local news outlets after four years working as one of their own, I had a head start forming friendly ties within the media.

I also know what makes life easier for reporters fielding piles of press releases and promo materials, and we scored tons of free press just by having these insights.

Post-launch, we continued to run weekly ads in print papers and send out promo packages, which I created and dispersed to publications with ample consideration, well aware of their deadlines. Other ongoing duties included designing and printing show fliers, event calendars, dining menus and table displays for the venue.

On the digital front, I managed our BlueRoosterSRQ.com WordPress site and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, ReverbNation, Google+ and Google Maps pages, updating all event calendars, publishing blog and social media posts, and responding to emails, messages, comments and reviews. I was especially proud of the MailChimp email marketing campaign I created called “Blue Rooster News,” building the weekly subscriber list to 8,000+ high-value patrons in the first six months. I even integrated a ticketing platform into our site using Brown Paper Tickets, saving us and our patrons a ton of money by avoiding the usual ticketing service fees.

Eventually, I started picking up bar shifts, which would unknowingly mark the beginning of the next chapter in my life. The About page explains the rest of the story.

You can click the buttons below to read my Grand Opening Press Release (Doc format), or check out a sample of my “Blue Rooster News” emails (HTML with broken photo links. Hey, it's old!). You’ll also find samples of the food and drink menus, show fliers, newspaper ads and table displays I created.