Ugi Gets Orderly | Day in the Life of a Digital Marketing Manager

Getting into the startup world doesn’t require coding skills since age 4, a Harvard MBA, or an abundance of gray hoodies. Startups are about leveraging talent, from all backgrounds, with gusto and grit. They ask employees to be professional hustlers in varied and challenging roles to launch (and hopefully sustain) successful businesses.

In the first installment of Hype’s “Day in the Life” Series, an effort to showcase what it’s really like to work for a startup, we asked Joy Ugi, the marketing manager for Orderly, to document how she spreads the word on Atlanta’s growing restaurant purchasing app.


Ever wondered what in the heck people do as digital marketing managers? I know my parents do. Lucky me, Hype offered to follow me around for a day to see what I do with my minutes. So, for all you Curious George’s out there, here’s how this hustler gets it done one day at a time.

5:30 a.m. | My alarm goes off, and I pull myself out of bed and into my sneakers. During my 45 minutes at the gym, I catch up on some reading. Today, it’s Tribal Leadership.

8 a.m. | When I get to the Orderly office in Sandy Springs, my first order of business is filling up my coffee cup. Can I live without coffee in the morning? I’m afraid to try.  orderly-worksout 8:45 a.m. | Every morning, the sales and marketing teams gather for a morning huddle – we refer to it as our standup, mostly because we all get up from our desks and stand (around the coffee pot). The goal is to share a win from the previous day, and three goals we want to accomplish today. It helps our team stay focused and on the same page.

One of my goals for today is teaching an email marketing class at General Assembly.

9 a.m. | My mornings usually start with reporting and analyzing the inbound leads that came in from the night before. It’s also important for me to make sure our new and current customers are pushed into the appropriate lifecycle campaign. My Excel spreadsheet are my best friends; can’t resist the color coding.

10:30 a.m. | Handling Orderly’s social media channels is a big chunk of my job description, so today I put together creative to promote our newest infographic / blog post.

Then I help review content for a new BDR email series; prep for meetings; and answer emails about Orderly’s postcard mailer, a dedicated email send, and a webinar we’re co-hosting. 

11:30 a.m. | During this daily get-together, our product team and sales team goes over at-risk accounts and demoed leads that are hot, but not-yet-converted. I sit in to get updates on any statuses about our inbound leads.

orderly-4756 fattens-wallet-orderly12 p.m. | Despite the fact that the sales team tries to have a peaceful lunch at the community table, I accost them with more queries about my inbound leads reporting. It’s safe to say I’m obsessed.

Not shown: My sandwich that I’m eating like someone who hasn’t seen food in a week.

I also manage to squeeze in an oil change during my hour lunch break. I’m pumped (get it?) orderly-lunch1 p.m. | I steal a conference room and map out copy ideas for a targeted series of emails we want to send in the near future. Drawing and writing stuff on whiteboards helps me think.

1:45 p.m. | Don’t judge me. Even on my busiest days, I need a break from the straight-up hustle. So I watch an always-hilarious Vooza vid and then check our social media stats for an ego boost. 7 likes, 1 comment and 11 clicks in a couple of hours on LinkedIn? Daaammmnnn, we good.

2 p.m. | It’s back to work… on more email copy. This time it’s for another targeted series we’re going to send to an audience we haven’t tried messaging yet. Sort of a shot in the dark, an experiment, a growth-hack. I bring out the Sharpies to help me brainstorm this one. orderly orderly-snip

3 p.m. | Time for my weekly meeting with my awesome veep Tim Muenchen. We talk what I’m loving about my job (the free snacks), what I hate about my job (that I don’t have a desk heater), what new stuff I’m learnin’ and people I’m meetin’ (cool tech folks like you). Then we go over my projects for the week and prioritize. Basically, it looks like this.high-five

4 p.m. | The master of social selling, Lucas Walker, spills his secrets about winning over prospects and leads through social media… and how to do it in 15 minutes a day. It’s gold, people. Gold.

7 p.m. |  With five minutes to spare, I run into General Assembly and get the ball rolling on that night’s Intro. to Email Marketing class. Five fantastic students give up their evening to listen to me nerd out about email. The best part about teaching is meeting all the entrepreneurs, go-getters, and chance-takers who come to my classes.

 ugi-twitter email-at-general-assembly

9:30 p.m. | Finished class and headed out for the night. Til next time, General Assembly!

10:30 p.m. | From the comfort of my covers, I check my emails to make sure there aren’t any fires to put out, check our social media channels to see if I can retweet anyone, and check my calendar to see what’s on the sched for tomorrow. Somewhere in there, I pass out.   

That’s all there is to the daily routine of a digital marketing manager. Mine in particular is cray-cray, but I wouldn’t want it any other way-way.

Just so you know, Mom and Dad.


Joy Ugi wrangles digital marketing for the restaurant app Orderly and teaches marketing classes at General Assembly (including an upcoming digital marketing panel discussion on March 2). She enjoys craft beer, roots for the NY Giants, and is always good for a grammar pun.