Well—how did I get here? Meet Jessie Lewis – The Martin Group
It’s time for another installment of our new regular blog feature, “Well—how did I get here?” featuring first-person stories of our team members and their interesting journeys to The Martin Group. Next up: Media Buyer Jessie Lewis. Take it away, Jessie.
Long before I ever heard the words “media buyer,” I had my own classroom. Growing up, I loved to play teacher, and I took it very seriously. I had a full set-up in our basement, decorated with my mom’s old teaching materials (she was a teacher), and complete with an overhead projector she tracked down for me on eBay. For most of my childhood, I was sure I’d grow up to be a teacher.
There was just one problem. I have almost zero patience, and anyone who knows me will happily confirm that. If you had asked me at 18 what I wanted to be, my honest answer would have been the same one I wrote on my college application: undecided.
Not just about a major. About pretty much everything.
I started at the College of Charleston with a loose interest in healthcare and not much of a plan beyond that. I didn’t really know who I was yet, but I figured out pretty quickly who I wasn’t: the preppy sorority type. So, I transferred home to Canisius and declared a major in Health and Wellness. I still didn’t totally know what I wanted to do with it, but it was broad enough to keep a lot of doors open—and at that point, open doors were the goal.
By junior year, I thought I had finally figured it out: PA school. As one of seven kids, and the only one showing any interest in healthcare, I had a very excited fan in my dad, who’s a doctor. I even shadowed him in surgery during undergrad. I had the plan, I had the timeline, and then I had college chemistry—the “weed out” course.
Let’s just say it did its job. Consider me weeded, but for the first time, I realized that knowing what you don’t want is its own kind of progress.
When graduation came around, I still wasn’t ready to commit to one path, so I did what any proudly undecided person would do: I signed up for more school. I started my MBA, and a few introductory courses in, something clicked. It was marketing, and I specifically loved the strategy behind it. Who are you trying to reach, what’s actually going to get their attention, and how do all the pieces fit together?
For the first time, I declared something and meant it. Marketing became my concentration.
In the last year of my MBA, I landed an internship in the marketing department at a biotech company. I went in expecting to learn from the pros. Instead, they relied on me to teach them what I was learning in my classes each week. The intern became the teacher. Honestly, it was hard, but it gave me a little more confidence in what I knew.
As graduation got closer, they told me they didn’t have the budget to hire me full time. At the moment, it stung. Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise.
Not long after, I reached out to my network to ask about opportunities at The Martin Group. A few months later, a position opened up on the paid media team, and I applied. The interview process felt like an eternity, and by the end, I was fully convinced I wasn’t getting the job.
Spoiler alert: I got it.
I started as a media coordinator, and paid media was pretty new to me. On my first day, I didn’t know a CPC (cost per click) from a CTR (click-through rate)—but I learn fast. I ask a lot of questions, and I figure things out as I go. After all, I’d had plenty of practice not knowing exactly where I was headed.
Today, I’m a media buyer with The Martin Group, where I create media plans, make budget recommendations, launch traditional and digital campaigns, and dig into the results to figure out what’s working and why. What makes it all come full circle is that a lot of the clients I work on are in healthcare, like Kaleida Health, ECMC, and Samaritan Medical Center.
The healthcare career I was chasing in college found me after all. It just didn’t involve chemistry.
The wellness side of my Health and Wellness degree shows up outside the office, too, where you’ll find me teaching spin and strength classes at Revolution Buffalo and coaching Girls on the Run. In the end, I guess I did become a teacher after all. I just traded the overhead projector for a microphone and a bike.
But whether it’s a spin class or a media plan, it’s really the same job. Know your audience, keep them engaged, and adjust when something isn’t working.
Want to learn more about our team at The Martin Group? Click here.
