How Joanne Sanders, President of EWISE Marketing, Transformed Email Marketing

My name is Joanne Sanders, and I am the President and founder of EWISE Marketing and Communications. We are a full-service marketing agency based in the Atlanta Metro Area of Georgia.

I am also a former sales executive who saw an opportunity to develop a new kind of marketing agency—one that combines bold creativity with laser-focused targeting to deliver beautifully impactful campaigns and initiatives that drive growth.

Back when EWISE started more than 16 years ago, social selling was just beginning to gain traction. In fact, some of our earliest clients came through social selling efforts.

From the start, we recognized the power of digital, and the opportunity to be creative in an emerging space was truly exciting. Sixteen years later, we're still driven by the possibilities that digital continues to offer.

As President, my role is to drive growth, scalability, and quality across the organization. That means bringing in new customers, recruiting team members, engaging partners, developing scalable infrastructures, and helping to establish and enforce standards throughout the company.

Running a business isn’t for the faint of heart, but when you love the impact of what you do, it’s absolutely worth it.

In my opinion, creativity should drive emotions and decisions through targeted design and messaging. Simply making something look pretty isn’t creative.

Doing something wild that doesn’t make sense isn’t creative either. Good creative work is uniquely thoughtful and meaningful—that’s what drives the intended emotions, which in turn drive action.

Like many agencies, we hold internal brainstorming sessions. During these sessions, we start with the goal in mind, then explore different ways of visualizing and achieving—or even exceeding—those objectives.

Having a framework allows us to guide creativity along a path that generates results. It may seem counterintuitive to some, but structure often drives incredibly impactful creativity.

Honestly, I’m surrounded by a team that inspires me with their amazing ideas every day. Outside of that, without a doubt, my life outside of work has been a critical source of inspiration when I’m “off the clock.”

Laughing with my family often brings up random details that turn out to be game-changers; meditating during long walks always seems to spark “gotta text that idea” moments; and even getting lost in a puzzle or a good book can lead to unexpected “aha” moments that inspire others too.

I know not everyone in our space is excited about AI, but I am. For us, it’s not about drafting pieces, but about creating structures that allow us to move faster. In fact, we're beginning to develop AI assistants for team members within our organization.

They’re handling basic research and routine tasks, freeing up our core team to focus on the areas that require authentic design, writing, and more.

It’s a truly special honor for us—particularly because we're looking to expand our footprint in New York. About a third of our team is from the Empire State, and while we've been working with clients in the area, this is another reminder of why we belong in this market.

In an effort to maximize our client's email marketing campaigns, we collaborated with our design team and partners to create a distinctive, memorable, and digitally dynamic piece that stood out from the competition.

Once we launched, the impact was immediate—leads, leads, leads! We quickly realized the power of what we had created and began applying the same approach to other clients’ email marketing campaigns—and it worked for them too. For this award, we submitted the original email marketing piece that started it all.

Selecting which one to submit was the hardest part! As mentioned above, we kept implementing the same approach for other clients—and our targeting and designs improved with each one.

However, we felt it was only right to enter the original first, and then consider submitting the others in the future.

Winning awards is another indicator that we're heading in the right direction. Of course, we're always focused on metrics and results, but receiving the endorsement of our peers gives us even greater confidence. Thank you again to all the judges involved.

Without a doubt, our ability to track and measure is my number one favorite thing. For those of us who have been in the industry for a while, I remember the days when everyone questioned the value of marketing. Digital marketing makes it easy to see both the qualitative and quantitative value of marketing—and then some!

My second favorite is the ability to make things more engaging and automated. It really helps companies of any size gather data and bring the kind of personalization that enhances the customer experience and drives growth.

And third, our ability to connect with key buyers online like never before. From geolocation and re-targeting to SEM and social ads, the ability to reach our audience—and continuously refine our messaging to capture their attention—is a challenge I love to take on time and time again.

I think the U.S. is actively working on balancing the use of technology. Yes, data is valuable, but not at the expense of privacy. Yes, AI is beneficial, but not when it violates copyright laws. It’s still a work in progress—with a long way to go—but I appreciate that the U.S. is beginning to implement some healthy guardrails.

The digital marketing space is becoming increasingly intricate, and I believe we’ll see even more specialization within the field. We’re already seeing marketing professionals who focus solely on Facebook (Meta), rather than being general social media specialists.

There are also website developers who work exclusively on specific platforms, unlike before when many handled multiple ones. We even see marketers who specialize only in Amazon marketing. I could go on and on.

Specialize! Digital has become so advanced and complex that specializing in one area will be especially attractive to companies looking to ensure things are done right.

I think a lot of platforms that are standard for marketing teams (e.g., HubSpot, Figma, etc.) offer courses to help you finesse your skills. There are also platforms like Coursera that regularly offer online classes to anyone wanting to learn something new. If in-person works better for you, local technical colleges often provide low-cost certificate programs to help individuals boost their marketability.

My grandfather (also an entrepreneur and problem-solver) has always been a source of inspiration in life and at work. We were very similar, and when he passed away, I made it a point to keep his advice near and dear. I often think about him when I’m trying to unlock a solution or seeking new ideas. I carry him with me wherever I go to stay creative in all the work we do.

Surround yourself with confident leaders. The more business books I read, the more I realized those amazing CEOs out there understand that "networking is giving"—and if you help one person, it comes back to you.

The sooner you eliminate toxic people and surround yourself with leaders (personally or professionally) who truly care about your outcome as well as theirs, the sooner success will come your way.

Thank you for asking these questions and for putting this award together! You're showing true leadership by recognizing the work of so many in the digital space. Thank you.