Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgana Fry.
Hi Morgana, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started out working in digital services because I enjoyed being a part of the marketing team at my previous corporate job, I also ran my own personal blog back then and enjoyed the marketing aspect of the work.
Engaging with people on social media, setting up sales funnels, and just creating in general. I started helping my good friend with social media marketing for her small business, and realized I could be helping out a lot of small business owners with their small business marketing!
Eventually, I took to Facebook and found the most supportive communities of other virtual assistants and that’s how I found my first real client! Slowly but surely, I have been able to expand my business beyond just social media, but also offering video editing, website building, and custom graphics. I have gotten to the point that I was actually able to open a second business working in the travel industry!
Because my job as a virtual assistant is, well just that-virtual, I realized I was able to do the work from anywhere and wanted to travel! So I joined a small travel agency as an independent contractor and now I host highly specialized small group trips! Where I am able to enjoy the best of both worlds, getting paid to travel, and having a job I can do from anywhere!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely been a struggle in some places, we started out right before the COVID-19 virus really hit Knoxville hard so we barely got our feet off the ground before the whole town was shut down.
It was hard, businesses weren’t open so there wasn’t really a need for marketing. This is when I shifted gears and focused more on travel, at that point of course no one was traveling, but I was able to assist dozens of clients shift their existing plans around and make sure they got home safely.
It has really been a balancing act these past two years of when people need marketing versus when people are needing travel assistance. I’m really blessed to be surrounded by an amazing team that always keeps me organized and on track, with both of my businesses!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I actually have two different businesses, one a travel business and the other is a digital services business.
With Appalachian Digital Services, we mostly focus on digital marketing and content creation, we want to assist small business owners and creatives with their marketing. We actually work with a lot of artists and poets who want to commission their work, or have poetry books for sale! It has been such a blessing getting to work with such talent! We assist them with every part of the process from learning the basics of Instagram marketing, to creating and publishing content for them.
One thing that really sets us apart is we offer courses to teach beginners how to run their own marketing. Many marketing companies won’t do this, as they think they would lose the business of just taking care of the marketing themselves, but I have actually found the opposite is true. By offering courses and one on one coaching my business has doubled, and I have found loyal clients that come to me with any marketing questions or problems they have. This is why I love being able to pass on my knowledge of marketing, specifically on social media, to others so that they can succeed on their own!!
We also offer web design services, custom graphics, and video/audio editing! We truly want to capture the entire digital media space for our clients so that they don’t have to shop around for various things, we can provide them with it all! Of course, I can’t be a specialist in everything, which is why I have a whole team who specialize in various things, making sure you get the very best no matter what package you are looking at!
My travel business is Travels by Morgana, run through Travelwhirled LLC. This has been such a crazy year for joining the travel business, but as someone who is passionate about travel and has the ability to do so since my business is all virtual, I knew I wanted to share that passion for travel with others!
As an avid solo traveler for many years, I wanted to create a space where other like-minded solo travelers could join as a community! Solo travel can be amazing, but we all know the best part about it is you’re never really “solo” at all because the community of people you meet on the road is what this type of traveling is about. This is the idea behind my group trips.
We offer something that no one else does, highly specialized small group trips, with a dedication to exploring culture and giving back to the communities. There are no big tour busses, no 5-star hotels or fancy restaurants. These trips are about learning about the culture of an area, living, eating, and shopping like a local.
We learn about the history of an area, what shaped it into what it is now, we take public transit and stay in Airbnb or apartments. The idea is that the 8-10 travelers on these group trips will be able to intimately learn about an area, and discover whether it might be a place they would want to stay or explore more long term!
We also offer specialized themed tours, for example, we have a tour opening up in 2022 for Greek mythology. The entire trip is designed around Greek Myth. Every place we visit, every place we stay or eat is in some way connected to Greek mythology. We have designed these themed tours to appeal to a very specific base of people!
We also offer literary tours based on literature, as well as film tours (such as visits to Lake Como aka Naboo from StarWars!), and beginner courses where you can learn to rock climb in Yosemite National Park, or to scuba dive at the great barrier reef. And coming in 2023 we will be opening up our 7 Wonders trips! Where we will be taking three trips over three years to see all 7 World Wonders (and a bonus ancient wonder!)
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory is of traveling to my family’s house in Northern Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, it would always snow, and my siblings and I would have snowball fights with all the cousins, and we would build snowmen and ride on the snowmobiles and make “snow pie” and curl up next to the fire at the end of the day with hot coco, before drifting off to sleep just to do it all again the next day.
I have a large family on that side and it was always chaotic but so full of life and laughter and it is the best memory.
Pricing:
- Marketing Management starting at $150/Mo
- Website creations starting at $300
- Product Launch Campaign management starting at $350
- Reels editing & creation starting at $200/mo (for weekly reels)
- Marketing coaching starting at $45/hour
Contact Info:
- Email: morgana.fry@gmail.com
- Website: https://appalachiandigitalservices.wordpress.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/morganabydesign
Image Credits
Brianna Coffman of Brianna Renne Photography
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