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Mariaelena Morales

Integrated Marketing Strategist

Why do I love marketing? Strategic, effective marketing is a jigsaw puzzle. And I love puzzles. Every day, the marketing puzzle shifts, and I have to learn and adapt.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been solving marketing puzzles in diverse industries across the private and non-profit sectors. As challenges became increasingly complex,  I’ve repositioned brands and products to expand audiences and increase resiliency; fostered cross-functional collaboration; and established new approaches that balance internal and external needs.

I’ve accomplished this by understanding how all the puzzle pieces fit together, getting to know sales, products, and operations teams and their processes. 



  • I have over a dozen years of tactical experience with inbound and outbound marketing channels.

  • I’ve tapped into customer and stakeholder feedback for insights to inform activities.

  • I’ve analyzed campaigns and product evaluations to optimize strategies and tactics.

And I’ve used all of that skill and experience to build strategies that are targeted, actionable, and flexible, responding to shifting trends and delivering results.

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What I've done

  • Revenue Growth
  • Increased Bookings
  • Internal Alignment
  • Launch Campaign
  • Revenue Growth

    four female students posing in front of a college entrance sign

    TRIO Tours - Brightspark Travel

    How can you better serve your audience with better marketing? TRIO programs received federal funding to provide college tours for underserved high school students. At Brightspark Travel, we identified TRIO tours as a growth opportunity. But previous demand generation consisted of only two emails to static lists over the course of an entire sales season.

    We launched integrated marketing campaigns with new content and refreshed contact lists. In two years, we grew revenue from $1M to $2.5M and more than doubled the number of students served. 

    > Find out how

    Image: Brightspark Travel

  • Increased Bookings

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    National Performing Arts Festival - Brightspark Travel

    How can better marketing grow your revenue? Our flagship theatre event, the National Performing Arts Festival, had seen declining bookings year over year. We knew the festival’s prime location at Walt Disney World® Resort could help sell the event and lift our struggling performance travel category.

    We revamped the event’s branding, messaging, and content, which we served to a more focused audience segment. By the campaign’s second year, we boosted revenue by booking a record number of groups, expanding the event to a third full day. 



    > Find out how

    Image: Brightspark Travel

  • Internal Alignment

    black woman smiling and shaking hands with an unseen recruiter; a black man is being interviewed in the background

    Recruitment Marketing - Skills for Chicago

    Can better marketing keep your clients happy? At Skills for Chicago,our recruitment marketing efforts were disconnected from the needs of our client success and talent acquisition teams. We needed to attract ideal applicants and refer them to our employer partners while reaching our community impact goals.

    We developed new ways of working together to reach applicants more effectively. In only six months, we grew average daily applications by 42.5%, doubled our email open rate, and surpassed our annual job placement goal before the deadline. 
 



    > Find out how

    Image: Skills for Chicago

  • Launch Campaign

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    Miche 5K El Paso - Windy City Events

    Wanting to expand their audience past the Chicago area, Windy City Events is preparing to launch their marquee 5K experience in El Paso. As a growing organization with a new marketing team, they needed support in crafting a strategic campaign to launch their event brand in a new market.

    I designed a three-phase, multi-channel campaign to build awareness, generate interest, and drive registrations within their target segments.    
 



    > View the launch plan

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