Team Member Spotlight: Kayla Hammersmith

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. (Or maybe at least one or two of you?) This month, we’re getting to know Kayla Hammersmith, Manager of Copywriting & Content Strategy. You might know that she loves knitting and the classic collared-shirt-under-sweater combo. But you don’t know the whole story. Read her spotlight now.

1) What’s your favorite work task? What’s your most challenging work task?

My favorite work task is coming up with new blog post topics for different clients. When I discover a valuable keyword that I think we can write a high-ranking post on, it feels like I’ve successfully completed a scavenger hunt.

I also really enjoy writing ad copy. One of my favorite ad copy tasks was when I had to write “risky” ad copy for a wedding photography company. How does one write “risky” ad copy for such a romantic business? It’s not as hard as you might think—and it’s way more fun.

My most challenging work task is figuring out how to demonstrate the impact of quality content in SEO. Since there are so many variables that go into site traffic and usage metrics, it can be difficult to show a clear relationship between a piece of content and a site’s metrics.

2) How has your digital marketing knowledge impacted your everyday life?

After working with Facebook advertising, I feel like I’ve been inside the tech version of the sausage factory. Not sure how well that comparison works, but I’m sticking with it. Anyway, whenever I see a post advertised to me on Facebook, I try to hypothesize what kind of audience targeting the brand is using.

Case in point: I just scrolled through my Facebook feed. I saw an ad for a Warby Parker monocle. That’s clearly remarketing; I’ve been to that product page. Then, I saw approximately 3 Cyber Monday ads—even though it’s the day after Cyber Monday. Does Facebook have a targeting option for procrastinators? If so, it’s working.

3) If you could manage the blog for any celebrity, who would it be? What would the posts be like?

Mary Berry of The Great British Bake-Off fame. Who else? She’s a talented baker, her cardigan taste is impeccable, and her name rhymes. Plus, she’s 81—it’s pretty safe to assume that she needs someone who can help her out with the technology side of things.

I might divide up her blog into categories like baking tips, recipes, lifestyle, and Bake-Off posts. I’d love to do a series of posts that bring up her favorite recipes by decade. She’s been a baking sensation since the 70s, so there’s a lot of content there. (Of course, I’d do some keyword research to discover some valuable recipe-related keywords, too.)

Lifestyle posts would be 90% floral blazers and sweaters.

4) What’s your favorite Perfect Search memory?

I love all the times that we get together as a team and break out of our work routines. Whether it’s SERPs & Slurps—a wine tasting event that incorporated meta data and content—during a Thursday meeting or a holiday party, these events always bring us closer together as a company.

5) If you could host a podcast with any two co-hosts (living or dead), who would you choose and what would your podcast be on?

I’d choose Starlee Kine. She was the host of Mystery Show, the purest podcast there ever was. It was exactly the kind of podcast I wished I had made but never knew it. Listen to her episode investigating Jake Gyllenhaal’s height. It’s the finest piece of reporting I’ve ever encountered.  

My other co-host would be Maria Bamford. She’s one of my favorite comedians. While she can be very deep and thoughtful (in a quirky, surreal way), she does spot-on impressions of her Minnesotan mother. I love her.

Since Mystery Show was mysteriously canceled, we’d throw legal ramifications to the wind and start the podcast up again—with two new sleuths. Starlee, Maria, and I would be detectives investigating the everyday mystery (ie: how tall is Jake Gyllenhaal, really?), plus we’d include an advice segment. The advice segment would be unrelated to mysteries.

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So when’s this new podcast coming out? We’ll subscribe.

For some of Kayla’s copywriting advice, check out her 5 ways to triumph over writers’ block.