Kimberly Jenkins
The Portsmouth Daily Times, Ohio
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) From creating and manage websites to social media marketing, Audrey Statton is juggling classes as a student at Shawnee State University with two blossoming businesses that have actually picked up steam during the lockdowns.
Portsmouth
“It’s not about how many years of experience you have. It’s about the quality of your years of experience.” — Jacob Cass, Logo of the Day. This quote could fit a young lady from the area, who has not yet graduated from college but is already finding success in not one, but two businesses.
Audrey Stratton is a senior at Shawnee State University and will graduate in the spring of 2021 with a degree in marketing and a minor in Entrepreneurism and business management. Stratten whose family is from the area started her marketing business in June 2020.
“I loved what I was doing in marketing and I wanted to do more,” Co-owner of Local Happenings Stratton said. “People started asking us to do websites and it was kind of taking away from our goal with Local Happenings and I enjoyed it a lot, so I started this on my own, so I could continue to do marketing work.”
Local Happenings (localhappenings.org) is the business Stratton co-0wns with her partner and finance Ryan Schiesser.
“We are trying to be a one-stop-shop for Scioto County. We knew there was a big lack of information going on we kind of wanted to fix it, we’re both from here, so it’s crazy trying to find everything in one location, events and things like that,” Stratton said. “We were initially going to start this fall with an event platform, but then COVID hit and things just kind of go crazy and we wanted to figure a way to help out. I created our current website and we started off promoting local restaurants because they were getting hit really hard by COVID. We started helping them and we partnered with WNXT and a couple of other places and we just keep adding more and more, and we are trying to just promote everything going on in Scioto County.”
For her marketing business, Appalacian Marketing and Media, Stratton said, “I do websites, I can create and manage websites, I can do marketing, so I can put together marketing materials. I can make logos, I can help campaigns, I can kind of do whatever, as long as it is in the scope of marketing. I actually got the contract to do the Scioto County Commissioners website that was one of my first, I’ve done a couple of other websites, but that is kind of the big one that I am really proud of.”
Stratton says as far as the websites go, she can do as little or as much as someone would want. She also said that she can teach someone how to run their own or they can pay her to manage and run their website. This would depend on all of the factors that someone would want.
Stratton continued, “Another reason I started the business, is I saw the lack of updates and new websites in the county. They may have one, but they are not up to date and I started talking to people and they said they pay so much for it, we don’t want to deal with it or we can’t ever get anyone to get back to us. I have family here and I know that not a lot of people can afford a website and I didn’t want that to stop anybody. Another part of my business is that I don’t want to charge a whole lot.” Stratton can be reached at Audrey.stratton@appalachainmarketingandmedia.com
As for Stratton’s plans for her future after graduation, she said, “I plan on working with the marketing company, as well as Local Happenings. I get to meet a lot of cool people, a lot of public and I plan to work with just the two businesses and try to grow both of them.” She added that she also plans on staying local.
When speaking about a go-getter and someone who has achieved great things at a young age, Audrey Stratton fits this without hesitation, her accomplishments display what hard work and goals can lead to and knowing how young she is, just makes what she has done, more special.
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