Your work feels clear. Marketing feels like guesswork.
You keep tweaking your website, your ads, your messaging. And nothing moves. You have no idea why it's not working.
You don't know which channel to try, which message to lead with, or why the last thing you tested didn't work. You pour time and money into traffic that doesn't convert. And the business you built (the one you know is good) keeps failing to land with the people who need it most.
The fix isn't more tactics. It's a clearer message, aimed at the right person.
Here's why that's fixable, and why I'm the right person to fix it
Hi, I’m Hilary, and I got into marketing on the back of a horse.
not this horse
Before I was in marketing, I worked in equine surgery in Kentucky, where I learned the massive impact of systems and checklists. When the checklist fails in an operating room, you know immediately. Marketing is more forgiving, but the discipline transfers. (It's also the same instinct that makes me organize my grocery list in the order I shop the store.)
My first real marketing job was at a horse racing track in Washington state, where I ran the CRM and loyalty program. I was also the Twitter voice of Ed the Thoroughbred, the track's mascot. After that, I spent years in regulated industries where "just try stuff" isn't an option. I built retention strategies that actually retained people and ran campaigns that worked, not because they were particularly clever, but because the message finally made sense to the right person.
Equine surgery. Horse racing. Niche regulated industries. Turns out, that's excellent training for marketing anything. Because every business is niche to someone. And the people who care most about what you do are already out there, already using specific words to describe their problem, but speaking in ways that probably aren't on your website right now. Doing the research of finding those words and putting them to work is most of the job. It's also, genuinely, my favorite part.
Before the homepage. Before the ads. Before any of it.
I figure out what your customers are actually saying, and then I make sure your business is using their language.
In practice, that means your homepage finally explains what you do in a way that makes people take action. Your emails do more than check in; they move people from curious to ready. Your ads say the right thing to the right people, not just people who fit a targeting profile. Your social media sounds like you and actually inspires people to act.
But before any of that: my job is figuring out who your business is actually for and what they need to hear. That's the part that often gets skipped. It's also the part that makes everything else work. Really, really, well.
My Proof:
A regional entertainment venue had an email list and a campaign schedule. They left with a segmented, journey-based email system built around where each buyer actually was in their decision. Direct email revenue hit $1.15M that season, up 25% year over year.
A horse racing wagering platform had strong targeting and good instincts about their customers, but the copy wasn't built to convert. I redesigned the welcome series, built an abandoned cart sequence, and refreshed their retention copy, testing everything against a control group to isolate what was actually working. In the first year alone, those changes drove $5.11M in additional wagering that wouldn't have happened otherwise. By year two, that number was $10.29M.
The pattern is the same every time. When the message is right, the numbers move.
If you're at this part of the page,
you probably already know…
The business owners and marketing teams I work with usually come in knowing something isn't working but aren’t able to name what. They leave with a message that makes the right people say "this is exactly what I need", and a clearer sense of who those people actually are. Getting you to that moment is kind of my whole thing.
Not sure what to say about your business or who to say it to? That's literally what I do.
I read everything and respond to everyone. I just might take a day or two.
