About Me.

Throughout my career, I have worked with brands both big and small to draw exposure and build brand presence, learn best practices, and adapt quickly to client needs along the way. I specialize in content marketing, branding, and website optimization. I’m a writer, strategist, and all-around content expert. I play an integral role on creative and marketing teams—defining and upholding the brand’s visual and editorial style and ensuring messaging across all touch points are consistent and audience aligned. I’m also the one who builds the creative and content strategies along with the team that brings them to life.

Connection and relationship building are the foundation of my personal and professional brand. For me, there’s no bigger professional triumph than being able to cultivate an emotional connection between a user and a brand. It is what has driven me to create engaging digital experiences for a variety of editorial and marketing clients—whether the goal is to entertain or educate an audience, sell a product, retain customers, or find new ones. From non-profits to events to SaaS, I create the right message for the right channel at the right time.

Connecting people to the products they love through professional storytelling? Sign me up.

Why I'm Different.

Your potential customers are inundated with thousands of messages every day. I cut through the clutter by crafting clear, compelling campaigns that address your customers’ most pressing concerns head on, and conveniently solve their problems with your products. I have an innate knack for quickly identifying the key points of complex issues and translating them into concise language.

My Expertise.

From non-profits to Events to SaaS, I create the right message for the right channel at the right time.

Digital Strategy

Expertise in Digital Strategy, leveraging SEO, social media, personalization, and pushing content out on multiple channels to create meaningful consumer engagement.

Planning & Execution

Experience planning and executing editorial, marketing, and engagement strategies, including use of Google Display, paid search campaigns, and influencer marketing.

Versatile Copywriting

Versatile copywriting and editing skills, catering content from detailed jargon for the technical, brass tacks C-Suite to broad strokes for the general public.

My Experience.

2020

Marketing Director

Emilygrene Corp. – San Dimas, CA

2017

Senior Content Marketing Writer

Informa – Los Angeles, CA

2016

Content Manager

IZEA – Los Angeles, CA

2015

Digital Content Manager

Worldwide Business Research – New York, NY

2013

SEO Analyst

LexisNexis – New Providence, NJ

2012

Content Producer

News 12 Long Island – Woodbury, NY

2012

Freelance Content Producer/Journalist

Occupy Wall Street | Mic.com – New York, NY

2011

Production Assistant/Freelance Journalist

Mic.com – New York, NY

My Education.

2020

General Assembly

Certification, Digital Marketing 

2010

Marist College | Poughkeepsie, NY

Bachelor of Arts, Journalism and Political Science

Companies

Customers & Clients.

Whether your goal is to entertain or educate an audience, sell a product, or find and retain customers, I’ve got you covered. I’ve worked with some of the best and fastest growing companies
around.

Testimonials

What My Clients Say.

Working with Deanna is in equal measure personally uplifting as it is professionally rewarding. Deanna’s combines a reporter’s instinct with a writer’s focus to offer a wry and insightful perspective across the full range of corporate content and communications. 

Her exemplary work ethic and assiduous effort to go the extra mile give colleagues confidence that Deanna always commits the totality of her talents to the task at hand. Rather than giving up on difficult or demanding assignments, Deanna’s resilience and professionalism will take her far as she applies hard won experience from Manhattan’s Canyons of Steel in a balmier, but no less intense City of Angels. 

Eric Pinckert
Co-Founder & Managing Director
BrandCulture

During our time together at WBR, Deanna was an excellent partner and asset for WBR Digital. As the Digital Content Manager, she led the content creation efforts to help our clients define, communicate and deliver true value and thought leadership to the marketplace through sponsored benchmark reports and whitepapers.

Deanna was able establish relationships with a network of industry executives, both manufacturers, analysts and retailers, which she was able to leverage to gain exclusive insight for a number of high-level white papers, directed towards a number of different industries, including finance, procurement, field service and luxury brand marketing.

She successfully worked with various departments to effectively service the clients and create content. She has excellent communication skills and holds herself to a very high standard. I enjoyed our time together and would see her as a great addition to any team.

Dave Matthews
Managing Director
WBR Insights

Deanna is extremely hardworking and diligent and has a contagious commitment to quality in her work. She doesn’t like to just check off the boxes and get things done, she likes to do them well and to do work she and her colleagues can be proud of – an admirable quality in a workforce that’s ever-more demanding and often too focused on quantity. 

Deanna is truly a team player who wants to help whenever and wherever she can. She also knows the value of good presentation and when appropriate she is ready with carefully organized and immaculately prepared materials – a detail which does not go unnoticed. In addition, Deanna is an extremely caring individual; always very sensitive to others and always willing to go the extra mile – be that to take on a project or simply to grab a coffee for a colleague just because.

Kelly Hushin
US Head of Digital Content
WBR Insights

Deanna is a real pleasure to work with. She’s a highly skilled and knowledgeable content producer that led the campaign content creation for our many advanced manufacturing events. Working under tight deadlines with ever-changing priorities, Deanna managed a heavy workload with grace and professionalism, regularly providing creative strategies and solutions to advance our efforts. Deanna would be a tremendous asset to any organization. 

Janice Budai
Marketing Manager
Informa Markets

Deanna Gillen worked with me and the legendary reporter Gabe Pressman on several assignments. She is professional, thorough and understands the news business. She has always stepped up to help me with whatever needed to get done. She learned very quickly and added value to whatever project we were working on. I would recommend Deanna Gillen for a position with your company. Her hard work and positive attitude will be great assets with whatever she does.

Keith Feldman
Photographer, Editor, Producer
NBC

I sold content in the Field Service vertical which Deanna would cultivate and create custom targeted content. Deanna is professional and quick on her toes in high stress situations, and has maintained wonderful relationships with clients and business partners alike. She was always able to turn around top-notch content quickly, along with pitching fresh ideas and managing multiple projects. Deanna is a great asset to any team.

Holly Block
Manager, Media Planning
ViaComCBS

I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Deanna for the past year and a half on the Field Service portfolio. As Digital Content Manager, Deanna is responsible for creating engaging content to use as marketing collateral for the Field Service events that I run. Through her onsite and phone interviews, she has forged close relationships with top executives and fostered brand loyalty for our events. Deanna continually impresses me with the in-depth, incredibly researched written content that she produces – whether it is a VIP Whitepaper, Benchmarking Report, or Q&A with our speakers. She’s incredibly hard-working, a wonderful writer, and a truly valued colleague.

Jen Montgomery
Senior Director, Communications
Gartner

Deanna is a hard-working and professional journalist. She worked on covering the Occupy Wall Street movement for the site and this involved moving back and forth between downtown Manhattan and Harlem. She put together detailed coverage while keeping us apprised of her movement and informed of her next steps. Close contact helped amplify her contribution.

Her video journalism skills are also top-notch. She interviewed several important leaders in the movement with poise, and she finished the project by working on the technical details of the film that she ended up with.

Jordan Wallace-Wolf
Research Assistant
Wolf & Henderson P.C.

Deanna’s detail-oriented work style made her an outstanding addition to our staff at the Marist Circle. As Opinion Editor, she managed the content, layout and design of the page while ensuring timely, well-written pieces were highlighted each week. In addition, Deanna frequently contributed quality work to other sections of the paper, often taking on challenging stories that required a great deal of research and reporting.

Deanna is a pleasure to work with on a professional and personal level, and she’d be a great additional to any staff.

Kait Lanthier
Director, Content Strategy
Babson College

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