Haefke Brings a Decade of Digital Marketing Experience to #TeamPALO

Meet PALO’s Newest Hire – Nicole Haefke!

As more businesses recognize the value in a strong, digital presence, PALO Creative continues to build upon its foundation of digital expertise with its latest hire.

PALO’s new Digital Media Coordinator, Nicole Haefke, has gone from crunching the numbers for one company (her previous employer, Coastal Pet Products Inc.) to running analytics reports for several of PALO’s clients. The challenge, she says, has been applying her “big picture” approach on a much larger scale, but it’s a challenge she readily accepts.

“I’m very passionate about exploring the big picture to get a better understanding of the small things, like which search terms are most effective and which audience to target,” Haefke says. “I’m a numbers person. I like facts. And when you look at data and analytics, whether it’s SEO or social media, there’s truth behind it.”

Haefke sharpened her digital marketing skills while working with PALO’s Digital Media Director, Jim Komara, whom she met in 2006. At the time, Komara developed custom real estate websites for real estate agents, and Haefke got first-hand experience in optimizing a website’s content to improve its search rankings. She continued her practice for other local small-business websites while she attended Youngstown State University, where she was president of the university’s Economics Club and an active member of the American Marketing Association. She graduated YSU in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in business with concentrations in marketing, advertising/public relations and economics.

In addition to SEO and metadata, Haefke has a well-rounded knowledge base in digital marketing, including specialties in evaluating Google Analytics and DoubleClick, online ad campaign management, social media marketing (SMM) and online reputation management. By leveraging her 10 years of experience, she engineers online marketing strategies that are geared toward driving quality traffic, leads and sales opportunities to a customer’s website.

“I love analyzing graphs, numbers and trends, because it helps me to target specific audiences so they see the content that’s most relevant to them,” Haefke says. “It’s smart marketing for any business.”

When she isn’t crunching the numbers, Haefke enjoys writing, hiking, traveling (she’s been to all but 11 states) and dancing – she started when she was four and studied ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical and hip-hop. She’s also a life-long bowling aficionado with a few 300 games under her belt. Nicole and her fiancé, Brian, currently reside in Poland where she stays involved in the community and is an active Rotarian.