House of rad

Full Campaign Partner · In-house, Director-level · Milwaukee

Building a symbiotic digital ecosystem, where web, social, and email all reinforce each other, for a Milwaukee artist incubator housing over 80 artists and studios, with its own gallery space.

THE CHALLENGE

House of RAD needed more than a marketing calendar. It needed a connected digital ecosystem, with several high-stakes campaigns needing to speak with one voice across web, social, and email, without any one channel operating in isolation.

STRATEGY

Rather than treat each initiative as standalone, I built a symbiotic system where every landing page, newsletter, and social series fed into and reinforced the others. Short-form video was identified early as the highest-leverage format for social, while a dedicated entry point became the engine for growing the email list directly.

EXECUTION

• Rebuilt the organization’s website on WebWave from an existing design, optimizing it for SEO

• Owned the full editorial calendar and bilingual copywriting across channels

• Maintained the site continuously. Event pages, artist pages, and more. Keeping it current rather than static

• Designed and developed five landing pages within the WebWave website itself. Beerline, The Trade Hotel, Riverwest Apartments, Near and Far, and as standalone project pages Aether Society, House of RAD’s parent organization, as an investor and membership facing page; and Near and Far and Trade Hotel, which anchored full campaigns detailed below alongside Genesis and Artist Highlight.

• Separately, built a full-page MailChimp signup gate. The first thing new visitors see on the site, skippable but prominent, as the primary subscriber-capture mechanism

RESULTS

Grew the email list from 1,000 to 1,700 subscribers (+70%) within the first few weeks of the new Mailchimp gate going live

+690% engagement growth year over year on social (3,990 total reactions, comments, shares)

46.8K content views, with Reels driving 65.6% of them and 69.8% of net new followers

Audience 71.6% Milwaukee-based, confirming the content reached the organization’s actual home market

Nested campaigns

Near and Far – A trilogy of love, vision, and community.

This campaign ran through the entire digital ecosystem by design: each reel fed the newsletter, and the newsletter drove traffic back to the landing page, nothing lived in isolation. The three-part structure was built strategically, not just chronologically:

Part one introduced Andrew and Tracey’s love story and his work in the Third Ward, alongside early process footage, cutting metal, welding the first pieces.


Part two turned to legacy. What he left behind, paired with footage of the sculpture’s final stages, the glasses finished in blue paint.


Part three covered the mounting of the piece itself, closing on an emotional interview with Tracey, his widow. Ending on the quiet detail of missing their daily coffee together.

The campaign also brought in neighborhood and material sponsors, Evolution Tools and Miller Welding. Using the project to introduce House of RAD’s existing welding community to a more mainstream audience.

Project Landing Page Part One Part Two Part Three

Genesis – Storytelling through nostalgia.

Positioned House of RAD’s new gallery through intergenerational storytelling and nostalgic media language. There was no dedicated landing page for this one, the goal was opening night attendance for House of RAD’s first gallery show at that space, strategically timed to align with Gallery Night and Day, and that alignment shaped the campaign’s collaboration strategy from the start.

I strategically invited artists to participate in low risk, fun reel content. This built real excitement inside House of RAD, gave emerging artists visibility, and tapped their own networks for reach. Through the intergenerational, nostalgic media language, the campaign bridged a generation gap and brought in new audiences, while tagging and collaborating with neighborhood partners kept the network expanding well past opening night.

This campaign uniquely bridged the Director role with the gallery’s own committee. The gallery now operates its creative independently of House of RAD, but Genesis was built when that connective role still existed.

Full House Reel Twin Peaks Reel Telenovela Reel

Trade Hotel – Artist Collection Campaign Integrated content strategy.

Structured identically to Near and Far: reels as the entry point, driving straight to the landing page, reinforced by newsletter features. Artist interviews, copywriting, and microsite design were fully owned end to end, with reel and short-form video direction handled the same way.

Project Landing Page Intro Reel Mike & Shana Reel Vic Buell Reel Supporting Post

Artist Highlight – Relationship-centered storytelling.

The monthly interview series proved durable enough to become an ongoing fixture. Interviews were conducted personally, with an intern directing audio and video edits. A close working relationship built on a shared instinct for capturing the emotional truth of an artist’s process, not just the craft itself. Distribution had its own compounding loop: each monthly feature drove traffic to social, and the featured artist’s own followers would often follow House of RAD in turn, along with whatever org or project they were connected to. A small, repeatable network effect built into the series itself.

Shannon Morgan Jill King Congh Lopez Denise Dekeuster Celeste Contreras Lily Shae Mike McGuinness Jackson LaHaie