At Pronto Marketing, our mission is to provide clients with all-inclusive internet presence management. Our website production services tend to steal the spotlight, but we’ve also got a ton of “add-on” Marketing Services that handle the growth of your online presence once your website is finished and “live.” That includes everything from social media campaigns to custom blogging, and there’s one team in charge of it all: Marketing Services. Let’s get to know Tanya, this team’s manager, and her 12-person team a little better!

Q1 .Tell me about yourself and how you went from Media Arts to managing the Marketing Services team here at Pronto

Ans: I graduated from the Visual Arts department at the University of California, San Diego, with a Bachelor’s degree in Media, with a concentration in Computing Arts. It may seem a bit strange to have gone from Media Arts to managing a team that works primarily with marketing execution and customer service, but you’d be surprised how much one can learn and adapt from the arts.

My studies were part history, part psychology, part science, part technology, and plain old human relations. It was experimental and melded quite well with Pronto’s core values.

For me, the draw was really about the arts, the computing part of it, and people. From the beginning, I’ve always been interested in HTML and programming languages. So the moment I got a chance to join Pronto as an email newsletter producer, it was the start of such an eventful journey.

After that, it was really just about moving from managing my own clients’ accounts to leading the team, and finally running the entire team and learning new skills. That’s the whole story -- from UC San Diego to Pronto.

Q2. What is the Marketing services team, what are some of the services you guys manage?

Ans: In the bigger marketing process, the Marketing Services team at Pronto executes of our clients’ marketing plans. Our team handles a variety of services for clients, ranging from email campaigns and social media to custom blogging and eBooks (and more!). We oversee each of these projects, working in coordination with the clients, managing them from beginning to end to give our clients peace of mind and let them stay focused on their business.

Q2.5: Which service is your favorite and the most interesting to work on?

Ans: Of course, my answer will always be email campaigns. The beauty is that the entire campaign development process requires a lot of hard work and preparation, which a lot of people don’t know about.

Every campaign begins with a brainstorming session to visualize how the finished product will look. Next, we start working on the HTML to get the structure right, getting busy with CSS so that it’s “skinned” perfectly for the final presentation. The last step is the testing period, where we test and tweak the newsletter to make sure you get the best looking campaign -- in every email client and web browser.

Throughout the entire process, I love working with clients and figuring out what’s best for them in each case. A lot of cases start out similar, but actually end up looking drastically different. Each of our clients is unique and their needs vary greatly. Collaborating with each one is like solving a brand new puzzle, every time.

Q3. It's gotta be more than answering client requests and delegating. Are there any unique ways your team approaches their tasks?

Ans: Yea, continuing my answer to the previous question, each client truly is unique and their business wouldn’t get much of anything out of canned and mass-produced campaigns. Though our services do have limitations on what can and can’t be accomplished, and how much we’re able to offer, our team focuses on catering to each client in the most customized way possible.

Q4. Is there one question you hear all the time from clients? This is your chance to set the record straight!

Ans: I guess one question that we hear very often and would apply to most if not all of our add-on services is: Can I get started with the ________ service today?

For my team, whenever this question comes up, the first thing we always tell clients is that it’s best to wait until your website is live (if it is still in production), or at the very least for your website to be finalized and waiting to go live.

Most of our add-on services are post-production services and many require references to the mood, tone, and brand image on your website. Some even require links to information on your site and its various intrasite pages.

Q5. What's the one thing you wish you could tell every client the second they sign up for an add-on service?

Ans: It would have to be: Keep calm and trust us. Having clear and concise communication from both ends means pretty much 50% of the job is already done . Patience and clarity from clients will always be appreciated as we move forward together, even for the simplest of tasks.