Meet Marissa Roper | Digital Marketing Consultant & Freelance Contractor, CEO & Owner of M Riley Marketing

We had the good fortune of connecting with Marissa Roper and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Marissa, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I have worked in digital marketing since college. I started as an intern in corporate in-house marketing at Intel & dove straight into digital marketing agencies right after graduating from ASU in 2019. Spending five years after college deep in the marketing agency space was challenging, stressful, and depleting. It was also extremely rewarding and taught me more than my four years at a University. As immensely passionate as I am about marketing and about the clients I worked with at these agencies, at the end of the day I noticed the same thing happening again and again, regardless of what agency I was working for. I was working more than 40 hours a week majority of the time, despite my yearly salary that stayed the same whether I put in 40 hours or 70 hours in a week. More often than not, my bandwidth was pushed to the very brink, making more room for errors to be made and burnout to happen frequently. There was also frustration occurring at times with the lack of functional processes at some agencies I worked for, rigid work structures that didn’t always fit my needs as an employee, and the occasional discontent with being pigeon-held into fulfilling the same role everyday for our clients.

Not that agency life is all bad, it was a time of my life that I would never take back. However, five years of grinding tooth and nail can be hard on a person. I put my own well-being and health aside more than I would like to admit, and work-life-balance was almost a myth to me. And despite many of my employers trying to improve upon this constant burnout issue, it seemed to very much be the norm of our industry, as it is many industries in the United States. I knew that this constant burnout couldn’t continue the way it had been, something had to change.

Meanwhile, over the last two years or so, I had begun helping friends or friends of friends here and there with small marketing projects. Assisted with some boosted posts here, graphic design there. Built a website, wrote some copy, advised on social media strategy for people in my life that had small businesses or were in the early stages of a start-up. That began to snowball as I collected more referrals for digital marketing services as time went on. I quickly began to learn that I was able to not only charge more per hour or per project retainer for these services I was executing on the side than I was making in my day job, but I also was able to ensure that I was being compensated for the time I was spending on these projects. It also allowed me the freedom to work within different avenues of the marketing realm. After working specifically in media buying and paid advertising at agencies for five years, it was refreshing to work on more creative or branding strategy-focused projects that I had explored while in college. I liked being able to tackle new and diverse projects, or revisit old skills that I had explored and hung up after being in school.

The final straw came down to flexibility. Starting my career very close to the rise of COVID-19 brought around a lot of shifts in the way we work and where we work. I went from working a five day work week in the office full time to working fully remote and stuck inside, to a hybrid schedule of some work from home days and some mandatory days in-office. And the hybrid work schedule was a great schedule to have for a long time, until I got into a space in my life where travel became a huge priority for me. It has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember to see as much of the world as I possibly can. As I have made travel a larger priority in my life, I started to notice myself counting vacation days, trying to spread my time off for the year as thin as I possibly could between all the trips I was hoping to take that year.

All of these factors played a significant role in my exit from the marketing agency world. Starting something new, whether it be a new career, a new business, is terrifying and uncertain. But it is also challenging, exciting, and empowering. You give up the stability of a nine to five job. You give up the included health benefits, the matched 401K, and the consistent pay-check. But it is replaced with the freedom and the authority of a business owner.

I am still a ways away from the place I am trying to get to in my new business, but I’ve fallen in love with building something new from scratch that is mine. I’ve fallen in love with being able to wear multiple hats in the digital marketing ecosystem, allowing me to have stronger ownership over the brands and clients I work with. I’ve fallen in love with being able to build the processes and systems that work best for me. I’ve fallen in love with the flexibility and freedom that comes with building my own routine and work schedule. I’ve fallen in love with the luxury of being able to work remotely from anywhere. I’ve fallen in love with having complete ownership over my income and my growth, and not relying on external approval and assessments to grow in my career and business. I’ve fallen in love with being an entrepreneur and a business owner.

What should our readers know about your business?
M Riley Marketing is a digital marketing consulting and freelance contracting brand launched in 2023. Helping businesses find their sparkle, build their brand, expand their business, and grow their online presence. Offering an array of marketing services including: pay-per-click paid advertising, media buying, organic SEO, local SEO, social media management, social media strategy, content creation, copywriting, email marketing, graphic design, website creation and design, videography and video editing, photography, brand strategy, branding management, conversion tracking, promotion and partnership building, marketing strategy consulting, marketing business coaching, event planning, and portfolio and resume building.

With the goal to be a one-stop-shop for businesses and brands, M Riley Marketing takes pride in owning the way a client’s brand interacts and is portrayed in their industry, focused on the business goals of our clients to merge the gap between where they are and where they want to be. With a smaller number of clientele than the typical marketing agency, M Riley Marketing clients receive the same breadth of encompassing marketing services of a one-stop-shop agency without the worry of other competing client requests getting buried for the dollars you are paying. M Riley Marketing has the flexibility to work the way you need and will deliver the results you need.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
So I am very big into speakeasys and artsy spots. Downtown Phoenix is one of my favorite up-and-coming places. I dormed down there as a freshman, and everytime I go back to Downtown Phoenix, I am blown away by the growth of cool spots and businesses that have popped up there. Don’t have anywhere in particular to shout-out, but just that area in general has so much creativity and life, it is such a vibe just to be around that area.

I also am very into site-seeing and nature hiking, so I try to get away from the valley as much as I can. Areas like Sedona, Flagstaff, and the Grand Canyon area are also beautiful areas to site-see while in Arizona.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are a couple of influential people in my life that I would like to give credit towards my success and growth in my career and has played an important role in where I am now.

My current mentor and partner: Jessica Feldman for taking me under her wing as a teacher, showing me the ways of managing your own marketing clients, and helping me grow my skills in digital marketing through the clients we have worked on together and plan to work with in the future.

My father: James Michael Roper for teaching me from a young age what the true meaning of work ethic is. And for showing me the importance of network marketing and building relationships.

My past managers in my career: Daniel Block and Shannon Love had very different management styles, but both have helped guide me as I began my career and helped shape me into the career woman I am today.

My college professor: Luis Bonilla who first sparked my love for digital marketing at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite of Journalism and Mass Communication program. Originally planning to become a broadcast journalist while in college, Luis’s teachings and Dean Jessica Pucci’s Digital Audiences Program played a vital role in leading me into the career that was right for me.

Website: https://mrileymarketing.com

Instagram: @m.riley.marketing

Linkedin: @marissaroper

Facebook: M. Riley Marketing or marissa.roper.98

Other: (the website is still being built, hoping to have it live in the next month.)