Courtesy Placentric Digital Marketing
By R.J. DeLuke
A woman who’s career has taken her to London and Ireland is now entrenched in the North Country, operating Placentric Digital Marketing in Glens Falls.
Ann Donnelly has years of marketing experience dealing with a great many companies overseas and in the U.S. She’s concentrating on the Queensbury, Lake George, Glens Falls region, though she can take on clients from virtually anywhere.
Her office is on the third floor at 33 Park St., Glens Falls.
“It’s going well,” she said, noting she belongs to three different chambers of commerce “and they’ve been super supportive of me … The chambers have been a great resource for me and getting to know the area, but also getting to meet the right people.”
Donnelly is from Fulton County in New York state, but circumstances found her moving to Ireland, where she began digital marketing. A job she held at the time was high pressure, allowing little free time. It was time to find something else.
“This was 1998-99. People were starting to use the internet for business and stuff. But I first started doing it just to keep in touch with my family.” With her husband at the time, thy started an accountancy firm. She made a website for the business, “then in a couple of months, we were starting to get inquiries from all over the world.”
There weren’t phrases like “search engine optimization” yet, but Donnelly found she had a knack for getting companies noticed online, thus growing business.
“So that’s how the firm started. And because we were new to the area. We were in a rural town. To compete with other accountancy firms was difficult because we’re not from there. So this allowed us to be an international accountancy firm in a little town of West Cork, Ireland.”
“I started seeing that other businesses could use this too. So where I lived it was a very touristy area. It’s right off the coast of West Cork. So there was a lot of opportunity then,” she said. “So a lot of my start in my digital marketing career was convincing people that they should have a website. And this is before social media. Email marketing was still very useful then. So that was kind of starting up at the time. So getting the knack of, you know, how to build a list and how to use it to generate business.”
Her business grew tremendously. But she returned to the area five years ago, taking some time to settle in to her surroundings. Now she’s growing her business. She offers services beyond websites and promotions.
“I can do the standard services you get with the digital marketing, which would be website development, social media management. What I love to do is go in and do the whole strategic plan. Look at a business.
“With my business backgrounds—I’ve got 20-plus years of digital marketing. But I’ve got 30-plus years of business management experience. That goes from big companies to our own accountancy firm. I like to talk to businesses about what are their goals and look at what they’re doing now to make sure that the digital marketing is in line with that. Because you need more than just a website and a few social media posts,” Donnelly said.
“It’s got to be a part of your overall business strategy to make sure that it’s gonna fit, that you’re spending your money wisely, that you understand it. So many people just don’t understand what their digital marketing people do or if they’ve done what they’ve paid them to do. Where I’m very straightforward. I like to partner with the people that I work with, so that it’s like a two-way conversation.
“Most people find that they’re getting a lot more than just digital marketing. The one thing that I love is when someone says, ‘I not only learned about digital marketing, but now I understand how to do my business better.’ I’m also looking to build partnerships with businesses that would be a good fit.”
She also believes in “collaboration versus competition. What really helped the regions that succeeded during COVID was collaboration versus competition … I think it’s important for people to collaborate. There’s always going to be some sort of competition within an industry. Some industries more than others. But if people can really work together, especially when it’s something that’s so key to a region, collaboration can make the whole difference in getting more people into your area.”
Her business name reflects some of that.
“I was inspired by Lake George Chamber and the people they worked with during COVID. How they all work together. The big hotels helped the smaller businesses getting the PPE funding that they needed. They convinced the state to let the area open up a little bit sooner with outdoor dining, because they had to compete with North Country, which was allowed to open earlier. And they did a really good job of communicating with the state and advertising.
“They targeted New York City area and that kind of circumference of people that might drive up there and really communicated about how safety precautions were being taken; what you could do in the area. Most of the businesses that were open had their best summer. So for me, thinking about the sense of place, that’s where I came up with Placentric.”
The company website is placentric.com and she can be reached at 518-223-9554.