Teaching Spanish in public schools for six years started to drain Heather Murr so she turned to marketing, a field where she had no experience or education.
But that didn’t matter to the lifelong southwest Oklahoma resident.
“I just knew it was time to do something different. I loved teaching and Spanish, but my husband and I wanted to have a family. I wanted to have more left over to give to my kids at the end of the day.”
Beginning in 2017, she went to work for a marketing firm that specialized in financial services. She appreciated the experience she gained there, but she knew she wanted to work with a local company. Finally, Murr found her niche.
That’s when she found Light Alive Marketing where she started as a contract content writer. After four years at the company, Murr now serves as Light Alive’s project manager. As project manager, Murr oversees all projects big and small.
“I work as the liaison between our team and the clients,” she said. “When I started, we had about 30 websites with 30 regular clients. Now we have over 100 clients we regularly work with. We’re growing with the number of clients we have. We do a little bit of everything from working with startups to large companies like Comanche County Memorial Hospital and Hilliary Communications.”
Murr had no idea if marketing was right for her in 2017, but now she knows she made the right move.
“I love it here. The thing I love most is helping people. To me it’s about being a servant leader where you go the extra mile and do a really good job,” she said.
The rate of growth at Light Alive proves Murr and her staff are making a difference for small, medium and large businesses. Sometimes, Murr has to overcome financial objections from small business owners who think marketing is unnecessary and too expensive.
“It’s a matter of helping people understand where their audience is and how to use their budget to reach them. We make recommendations and then the customer decides,” she said.
Marketing success also depends on the level of trust the client has for Light Alive.
“When you ask, ‘what’s your budget?’, that can make a small business owner uncomfortable,” Murr said. “We have to earn their trust for sometimes and start small so they can see the value of what we’re proposing.”
Away from work, Murr is a member of the Lawton Business Women’s organization where she has served on the marketing committee the past three years. She and her family attend First Baptist Church West in Lawton where she also serves as a volunteer in children’s ministries.
When she was teaching at Cache Public Schools, Murr received the Teacher of Today Award from the Masonic Lodge.
Murr is married to husband Quinton and the couple has two children ages 4 years old and 10 months.