Meet Rachel Lindteigen of Etched Marketing and Etched Marketing Academy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Lindteigen.

Hi Rachel, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started my career with the Arizona Renaissance Festival after graduating from ASU with a degree in journalism from the Cronkite School. I worked there for a few years and had my first introduction to digital marketing in the early 2000s. From there, I joined a non-profit for a few years and worked in marketing and public relations, event planning, and fundraising. After notMYkid, I went to the corporate office of Pump It Up, where I oversaw marketing for our franchise owners across the country. I got to learn more about SEO (search engine optimization), paid search, social media marketing, and led a number of marketing training workshops for our franchisees. I found that I absolutely loved digital marketing and wanted to focus completely on digital from that point forward.

In 2011, I joined the team at McMurry and worked in the interactive agency services division. It was my first fully digital position. I was with them for a while and then joined the team at PM Digital (now Forward PMX) in early 2012. At PM Digital, I was the SEO manager and then worked my way up to Senior Director, SEO, and helped establish the Content Marketing division for the agency and was named Senior Director SEO & Content Marketing by 2016. I loved working for the agency and had the opportunity to work with some of the smartest marketers out there on both the agency and client-side. It was fantastic. But in 2015, I had my son and the career that I loved didn’t work so great with a young family. I was on the road a lot for client meetings and there were a lot of extra hours at night and on the weekends plus, I had a long commute from Ahwatukee to North Scottsdale that didn’t help at all.

In the fall of 2016, the agency was sold to an investment firm and a number of the managers were laid off and I was one of them. As I looked around and interviewed for other positions in the valley, nothing really gave me the flexibility I wanted for my family. I’d wanted to go out on my own for years but was afraid to make a move. I finally did it in the Spring of 2017, after removing myself from consideration for a Content Marketing position with a large e-commerce retailer based in Phoenix following interview #7.

I officially launched Etched Marketing full-time in the spring of 2017 and have been self-employed since. Today, I work with small business owners and help them with Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing. I work 1:1 with clients, providing services for them, coaching & training them, and recently launched online courses in SEO, Shopify SEO, and Etsy SEO to help them learn how to get more visibility and be found on Google.

I love that my business today allows me to use so much of my experience from the corporate world. I teach a marketing workshop that is an updated, current best practices version of what I taught the franchise owners at Pump It Up back in 2008. I teach the SEO strategies we used during my agency days and my training at the Cronkite School is the basis for a lot of my Content Marketing training.

Today, I work out of our home. I’m able to take my son to and from school and can take off when he’s on break. He just finished kindergarten and doesn’t remember a time that mommy worked anywhere but home. He has no memories of that crazy first year when I traveled so much and he spent more waking hours with his nanny than me and I’m very thankful for that. I didn’t know it at the time, but the agency selling and being laid off was one of the best things that ever happened to my career. It helped launch me into a whole new area that I love even more than I loved my career back then.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s not been completely smooth – Marketing is often the first department to be cut when budgets are cut. I was laid off from notMYkid the week before Christmas in 2008 (remember, the economic crash of ’08, I sure do). Our donations were down significantly and I was called into my boss’s office immediately following the company Christmas party luncheon and told my position, along with about 30% of the staff had been eliminated. It was our last workday before the holiday break. I was single and a homeowner. It was not a very Merry Christmas that year to say the least. It was stressful but I landed in a great spot and joined the team at PumpITUp a few months later and in a position that was perfect for me.

Then, eight years later, I was in a similar position, though no longer single with a mortgage payment to worry about. I was laid off, along with a number of other managers following the sale of our agency. We were assured everyone was safe. No one would be laid off in August when they announced the sale. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case by early November. They eliminated roles & combined positions to reduce expenses. I remember feeling unsure about starting my own business because there are risks associated with entrepreneurship. You never know where your next client will come from. Losing a big client can impact you, etc. I talked to my husband about my concerns and he said he felt that betting on myself was a safer bet given what I’d been through several times.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Etched Marketing and Etched Marketing Academy?
I run Etched Marketing, an SEO and Content Marketing agency that serves small businesses all across the country. I help clients get found on Google and create content that connects with customers and converts. I do website SEO reviews to help potential clients understand if they need to do something more to be found on Google (spoiler alert, most do) and then put a custom plan together for them to help them get to page 1 so that they can get more traffic. I also work to craft content strategies that allow us to drive traffic from customers who are looking f0r what they sell.

I also run Etched Marketing Academy, an online training academy for small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to learn how to market their businesses themselves. I teach SEO (search engine optimization/how to get found on Google), marketing, and blogging courses. It’s great fun and I love helping people learn how to do things the right way so they get results. I offer classes for online course creators, entrepreneurs, other small businesses as well as e-commerce and handmade goods businesses on Shopify or Etsy. A little bit of SEO training can go a long way to making your business more profitable.

I focus on teaching my clients and students both the questions to ask of their marketing consultants so they can be assured they’re getting what they pay for. There are a lot of people out there who serve small business owners who don’t do things the right way. I was working on a client’s competitive review recently and came across some very outdated, bad SEO tactics on a competitor’s website. It’s good for my client because while the competition is trying to figure out SEO, they’re not a threat to us because they’re breaking the rules and doing things that will get them in trouble with Google. But I feel for that competitor who is spending money to “do SEO” and won’t get results because they chose the wrong provider. There are so many situations like that out there and it bothers me. I want to help educate people so if we ever part ways, they know enough to ask the questions to ensure they’re getting what they’re paying for.

How do you think about happiness?
I love spending time with my family. I have my son, my step-daughter who just finished her freshman year at ASU and my hubby. We’ve been together since my step-daughter was nine. Nothing beats a quiet weekend with the kids both at home, something on the grill, and everyone in the pool. It’s not the most exciting but it makes me happy.

I also love traveling and exploring the world. I’ve been all over and look forward to traveling again now that things are getting better after covid. We’re starting to plan a few trips for the next year and I’m excited. And pretty much nothing beats an evening on the patio at Postino with wine, bruschetta, and good friends or a night at book club where we never talk about the book but also never stop talking and laughing. And being able to spend the week with my little guy when he has school breaks is the best part of all. We recently spent a week visiting TopGolf, the kids’ museum, the zoo, and more. It’s just mommy and kiddo time for a few days and then we go back to school and work.

Contact Info:

• Email: Rachel@EtchedMarketing.com
• Website: EtchedMarketing.com
• Instagram: @etchedmarketingacademy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EtchedMarketingAcademy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/EtchedMarketingAcademy

Image Credits
The family ones in the red dress are from @meghanstewardphotography (she’s in Gilbert)