Company: Peace, Love & Decorating
Role: Creative Director (Oct 2014 - Jan 2020)

Company Overview
Peace, Love & Decorating is an e-commerce retail platform that sells designer furniture, home decor and gifts. Under my direction, PLD’s online presence grew at an average rate of 12% year over year, and managed to stay ahead of the online presence it successfully generated. A retail storefront/showroom was located in Downtown Duluth, Georgia (est. 2012). Sister stores included Christopher Radko Gallery (est. 2008) and My Royal Sister (2015 - 2017).

Before my arrival at PLD, a Creative Department did not exist. In 5+ years, I had the privilege of building a strong, dynamic team that moved the company forward with consistent creativity and dedication. I was also directly responsible for the development of company culture within the office, the establishment of a brand identity, and all creative strategy and content produced during my time here.

Brand Development

A clear brand identity and story was established for PLD. Working with a team of varying staff members, we broke down the different branches of our company and established a mission statement, brand story, guiding attributes, core values, and customer profiles.

Visual Development

Under my direction, we successfully:

• updated the logo

• established a brand identity and introduced it across all media

• gradually redesigned the entire website

• redesigned business cards, handouts and internal documents

• created branded templates for web pages, digital content, email campaigns, and more

We ensured our brand aesthetic and values were obvious across all platforms by:

• Adding content pages to communicate our story, policies and special offers

• Establishing web standards for the category pages, content pages and product pages

• Remapping the customer journey, ensuring our shoppers were in constant “discovery mode”

• Improving our SEO by using long-tailed keywords, proper descriptions and page titles

Strategy Development

Social Media
During my time at PLD, our Social Revenue increased 151% year over year and our Social Ecommerce Conversion increased 91.5% year over year. My Creative Team also successfully:

• Extended ourselves on Pinterest, pinning regularly, introducing rich pins and increasing our original content
  Results: Quarterly impressions increased by an average of 60%, Pinterest Revenue increased 800+%, Ecommerce Conversions increased by 98.5%, and Pinterest Sessions increased by 68% year over year

• Began using Later.com to schedule posting and started to use Instagram Stories more regularly
  Results: Our Instagram following tripled, and Instagram Sessions increased 465% year over year

• Began to implement paid advertising on Facebook to promote sales events, original content and new brand releases
  Results: Facebook Sessions increased by 99%, Facebook Mobile Sessions increased by 164%, and Facebook Revenue increase 19% year over year

Blog
We rebranded our blog, renamed it the PLD Post and created a posting calendar to ensure we created steady, interesting and informative content for our customers.
Results: Readership increased at an average rate of 50% each year, since 2015.

Highlights/Features/Trends
We began highlighting seasonal interior design trends to help customers explore new decor ideas and keep up with happenings in the industry. We also highlighted the brands we carried using brand overviews, meet the designer and “how this is made” content.
Purpose: To help inspire our customers, promote products and establish ourselves as an authority figure in the interior design community.

Email
We used several email platforms while I was at PLD, including Emma and Mailchimp. I navigated my team through each transition, establishing email campaigns, expanding our customer groups and updating our segmentation strategies. We established an incentive program to encourage email sign ups, introduced birthday rewards, and created “We Miss You” re-engagement campaigns.
Results: Number of subscribers tripled, Email Sessions increased 46% year over year, and Open Rates averaged at 24.8%

In-House Content
We created more original content, using in-house photography and videos to increase brand awareness and product exposure. Under my direction, we allowed the customer to learn more about the people behind the product.

Loyalty Programs Established

Team Building & Culture Creation

During my time at PLD, I successfully built a talented team of diverse creatives, and contributed directly to our company culture by introducing and establishing the following across all departments:

• Project Management System - Basecamp

• Wednesday Workshop - learning, growth and leadership development program

• Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly Check-ins across departments

• Annual Recap - address pros/cons of previous year and establish goals of upcoming year

Basecamp
I introduced Basecamp to my team to streamline communications, layout projects, assign roles, and check on progress. We started using Basecamp as a Creative Team and eventually it was used across all departments.

Workshop Wednesdays
I started a weekly program, Workshop Wednesday, where the entire staff gathers to learn or brainstorm something as a team.
Purpose: To give staff members outside the Creative Team an opportunity to provide input and be a part of the ideation process; To promote a culture of learning and growing; To develop leaders, discussion mediators and presentation skills

Web Team
During my time at PLD, I lead and managed our third-party web team, Grow By Data, who’s responsibilities included updating all products and providing us with consumer data. Together we ensured all product details were accurate, and that all items were categorized and properly featured on the site. We communicated daily to check progress and address concerns throughout the week.

Building a Team
During my time at PLD, I was responsible for interviewing, hiring and managing job positions for the Creative Department. It was my responsibility to create job descriptions, allocate responsibilities, interview candidates, introduce selected employees to our brand, and guide the individual throughout their position. I ensured each individual understood their value to the team, and made sure I was accessible at all times to questions, concerns and most importantly creative ideas.

Beyond the Team
I lead the company in giving back to our community through non-profit partnerships and cause focused campaigns. Peace, Love & Decorating has had a strong partnership with SafeHouse Outreach in Atlanta for many years, and we were able to sponsor several of their internal/outreach projects.

We also raised money for Breast Cancer Awareness each year and for several other local and national causes including hurricane relief efforts in 2017. We also established strong bonds with our fellow merchants in Downtown Duluth, actively participating in a community that takes care of one another and supports each other in times of transition and hardship.