Carley Summers: Interiors, Styling & Photography
I had the pleasure of working as Director of Business Development & Marketing for a globally recognized interior designer, stylist, and photographer who has over 230,000 Instagram followers, @carlaypage, otherwise known as Carley Summers: Interiors, Styling & Photography.
I worked closely with Carley, creating and collaborating on business & marketing strategies, overall social development & digital media campaigns, and organizing organic PR campaigns centered around storytelling. I am extremely passionate about leveraging data in order to optimize marketing campaigns that drive results for a business. Carley’s business consists of three core pillars: interior design, social media influencer campaigns, & interior photography.
I have a true passion for working with creatives and have a unique ability to translate high and low-level research and data findings into digestible goals and objectives that have been proven to deliver positive outcomes such as overall revenue boosts, increased number of digital marketing collaborations & partnerships, and a rise in social media following (for example, Carley’s Instagram following grew from est. 50,000 to over 200,000 followers in the time I spent as director).
My biggest focus at Carley Summers’ was developing an internal structure that could scale her business with any and all future growth and opportunities. I spent countless hours conducting research and collecting competitor data to create strong, ambitious but achievable goals for her business. In addition to the internal business strategy development work, I presented countless times to clients and made strong connections with collaborators and digital media partnerships, corresponding with big names such as Vanity Fair, Southern Living, & Penguin Random House Publishers. I also created and ran her interior design internship program linked with East Carolina University’s design students, which is still in use today to help even out the overall workload shared between all three core pillars of the business.
I have assisted backstage with scriptwriting and documenting production on The Design Network where Carley Summers was featured on TV. I was responsible for capturing and curating behind and on-the-scenes social media content daily allowing her followers to see glimpses of how Carley lives & works as a designer. This content curation I captured included attending events such as speaking engagements at High Point Market and several podcasts, her debut furniture line The Max Collection, interior installation days for clients' homes & businesses, day-in-the-life office routines, and of course, social media campaigns and partnerships including, but not limited to, Vanity Fair, Southern Living, Sezane, Jonathan Louis, Samsung, Afloral, Loloi rugs, Tuft & Needle, and more!
My daily routine consisted of handling all internal business organizational systems, as well as the marketing and media content captured on everyday projects and client check-ins. I work with Summers to design everyday homes, commercial spaces, new builds, and renovation projects. I participated in installations for all our design projects and documented each moment Carley made on camera for her to be able to share with her followers.
My new systems, which included the creation of an online internal business database & external client database, stronger email marketing communication, an improved website, organic advertisement campaigns, podcasts, the internship program, and more, allowed Carley's business to grow and new passive income projects to come to fruition without penalizing the bread and butter of the business – interior design clients and influencer campaigns.
