LORYN CALDIE

DATA, ANALYTICS, AND CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

OVER THE PAST DECADE, Loryn Caldie has used skills gained in her Hubbard School courses to take on roles, including Key Account Coordinator at iHeartMedia, Digital Campaign Manager at Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), and currently, Associate Manager of Reporting and Insights at Best Buy Ads. In her current role, Caldie “uses journalism skills to tell stories about numbers and marketing campaigns” on a daily basis.

Throughout her Hubbard School journey, Caldie found herself following her interests through five internships between 2007 and 2011: American Jewish World, a newspaper that focused on the Twin Cities’ Jewish community; City Pages; iHeartMedia/ KDWB-FM; the South Washington County Bulletin; and Thomson Reuters.

“All of my internships jump-started my career experience. I wanted to do as much as possible,” Caldie said.

Caldie reflects on her Hubbard School experience as one characterized by hands-on professional journalism courses that built her confidence and skills, most notably in courses with Gayle Golden (G.G.) and Shayla Thiel-Stern. Not only did she land a freelance article with Plymouth Magazine in G.G.’s magazine writing class, she learned how to design the layout of a newspaper with Thiel-Stern.

Data, analytics, and metrics also played a central role in Caldie’s experience. Caldie counts Database Reporting as one of her favorite classes. Before taking Database Reporting, Caldie didn’t know how to use Excel. In class, though, she learned formulas and pivot tables and lookups; now she uses Excel every single day. At MPR, she used data to quantify her decisions about selling and optimizing ads for streaming and digital display. At Best Buy, she reports on the effectiveness of various ad campaigns.

“My whole job is based on how campaigns did, if they did poorly or if they did great,” Caldie said. “Learning how to read the data in general is important, but especially paying attention to ad attributed revenue. My job is retention, so learning how to read and use data to prove a story or prove a point is important as it helps provide revenue for the company. My whole job hinges on it.”

When asked about the transition from professional journalism to marketing, Caldie said it was natural as she “followed her interests” and “wasn’t afraid to try other things.” Caldie looks forward to continuing to learn more and lean into skills in operations, specifically around perfecting processes.

Caldie, Garrison and Gihring have been surprised at the twists and turns their careers have taken, as they couldn’t predict when they graduated they’d be where they are today, and all of them insist that writing, storytelling and working well with others are foundational skills and principles they learned at the Hubbard School that still pay dividends for them on the job today.

“At the end of the day, you need to know how to tell a good story that connects with your audience,” Garrison said. “This is true in journalism, PR, advertising, and marketing. That is why my time at the Hubbard School was so great. That’s one of the things I learned early on that has enabled me to bounce within all of these disciplines.”