Amy Leigh Morgan

The situation:
Nordstrom wanted to grow its market share in the men’s space without alienating existing customers, and with minimal financial investment. Leadership had recently eliminated the men’s strategist position, which left both the creative and site merchandising teams in a rudderless limbo state.

The task:
We needed a coherent, 360-degree content strategy to serve two distinct market segments: people interested in traditional menswear and those interested in trendy, fashion-forward menswear.

The action: 
In addition to my regular duties, I performed a competitor audit across both market segments. Then I created a comprehensive list of content assets on the site and reviewed them with relevant stakeholders. This was the first ever index of assets for this team.

Finally I proposed a variety of updates to our content strategy, including new content for both segments, as well as a plan to surface underutilized content that was buried on the site. I also proposed a governance schedule for assets.

Because I was functioning in a peer capacity on this cross-functional team, it was essential that I gain the trust of my partners by asking for their input and incorporating their feedback at every step of the way. Once all the stakeholders and execution partners bought into the plan, we iterated on features and revised as necessary. KPIs included CTR, demand, likes and shares.

The result: We’re in the first quarter of this plan, and have already gained a deeper understanding of our users. We’ve cancelled some features due to poor performance, and are creating new ones that align more closely with our more successful content. Next steps include quarterly benchmarks, SEO audits and A/B testing.

The situation: 
I needed a complex, engaging project that would allow me to stretch into brand strategy, creative direction, curriculum creation, marketing, project management, public speaking, publishing and more.

The task:
Create an utterly magical brand from scratch, then build and deliver satisfying products that fulfilled the brand promise and left people asking for more.

The hero product was a series of creative writing classes that taught students of any experience level to write Grimm-style fairy tales. Part literary criticism, part creative writing and part narrative therapy, the classes were a big hit—but the brand was even more popular.

The action: 
I created a full brand identity package and provided myself with a sandbox in which to explore a full suite of skills. 

I maintained a 3x/week blogging schedule for a couple of years, as well as a Facebook page and Facebook group. I staged a public reading at the end of each class, usually at Third Place Books.

In conclusion, I published an illustrated anthology of student stories. All artwork associated with this project was created by commission and is original to the Fairy Tale Factory.

The result: 
I ran three classes in the first year, then gradually tapered off as my full-time workload became more demanding. My benchmarks for success were my own personal standards, interest in my classes and the frequency with which teachers would email me to say they were using my site to supplement their curriculum (approximately once every two or three months). 

I ran the last class in 2013, but six years (and a much deprecated website) later people still email me three or four times a year, asking when I’m going to run another class.