Barbara E. Stefano Email & Phone Number

Greater St. Louis Area

Writing, editing and marketing services for individuals and small businesses with strong emphasis on health care, eye care, food and wine, lifestyle. Services include social media, digital media, UX copy, blogs, webpages, news, features, direct and email marketing, copy editing. Current and past clients include: • Marketing - Scorch Agency (Microsoft and Xylem accounts), TrafficPRM, LogiCole Consulting• Food & Beverage - Sauce and Feast magazines, St. Louis Homes + Lifestyles, The Terrace at French Village winery, Schnuck Markets Inc., Panera Bread• Health Care - BJC HealthCare, Mercy Health, Ascension Health Group, Brinton Vision, Missouri Eye Institute, Eye Specialty Group, Kugler Vision, Parkhurst NuVision, Parkhurst Luxe Medical Spa, Fort Worth Plastic Surgery, Matossian Eye Care, Lake Lazer Eye Center, St. Louis Nursing News• Publishing - Network Solutions, Demand Studios, Outskirts Press Inc., Leader Publications and a variety of ghostwriting clients KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Expanded skillset into ghostwriting, SEO, digital marketing; grew aptitude for brand voice.

United States

Created landing pages, product marketing assets, email and social media marketing content for Microsoft and other agency clients. Served also as proofreader.

Provide ghostwriting services to authors, from deep, substantive editing to full, beginning-to-end fiction and nonfiction ghostwriting. Along the way, I counsel authors on what next steps they can take to prepare for publication and marketing while their manuscript is in progress.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: I've now helped a number of authors realize their dream of publishing! Some of these authors have gone on to receive awards for their (my) work.

Greater St. Louis Area

Provide engaging content for Scrubs & Beyond and Uniform City brands, including product descriptions, blog posts, marketing copy, SEO content and more. Manage vendor relationships, including technical and creative service providers and freelance content specialists.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: The creation of a unified stylebook for both the Scrubs & Beyond and Uniform City websites, which standardizes glossaries for each, distinct brand voices and HTML formatting.

1760 Gilsinn Lane, Fenton, Mo

Copywriting and proofreading for more than 20 brands in four business divisions: sewing, home floor care, commercial floor care, and ceiling fans and lighting. Writing demands routinely included printed and online marketing materials, including POP materials, brochures, specifications, enews and newsletters for B2B and direct-to-consumer marketing concepts. Duties also included proofreading of all materials companywide, corporate copy, media relations and website content creation as needed. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Quick grasp of various brand voices resulted in smooth transition, greater collaboration with design and marketing teams. Superior aptitude for consistent style has led to vast improvement in reprinted/refreshed copy.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including keyword research, SEO copywriting for Web sites in accordance with SEO style guides and customer preferences, target audience and marketing goals; online press releases, small business blogs, etc. Duties also included managing customer accounts and Internet marketing strategies, innovating new product offerings and improvements to current services; copy editing/proofreading; uploading blog posts and press releases; photo editing; proposing and updating internal policies and documents; producing corporate white papers and, as backup Copywriter Coordinator, assigning/tracking department projects.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Multiple awards for performance increased overall productivity and effectiveness of entire team. Played pivotal role in updating policies and increasing team accountability for product quality.

Provided food-related features on an as-needed basis, as a freelance contributing writer.

Covered countywide and municipal events and generated news leads for this weekly newspaper; some photography required. Independence, creativity and superb copy editing and proofreading skills were essential in this writing-intensive position.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Built a number of pivotal and trusting relationships among government and school district contacts, resulting in greater access and higher quality reporting.

Produced news, features and editorial columns; provided photography, editing, copy editing, proofreading, planning and designing layout; trained new interns and employees and communicated with production and sales personnel regarding newspaper layout and paste-up for The West End-Clayton Word weekly newspaper. The position required taking an active role in creative and editorial decisions, and acting as editor during the editor's absence.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Played key role in the redesign of the newspaper. Introduced movie reviews and new storytelling column to entertainment and editorial pages.

Taught a creative writing course in the college’s adult education program, focusing on a variety of writing genres and styles: short stories, news, commercials, poetry and prose.KEY ACHIEVEMENT: Instilled new students with a renewed love of writing and a fresh way to recognize and apply their innate skills.

Duties for this twice-weekly publication included identifying, developing and writing news stories and feature articles, ranging from informative to tragic to whimsical, as well as proofreading and copy editing. Independence and creativity were essential. An eye for the visual potential of an event was also a must since photojournalism was required.KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Continued growing valuable news contacts within state, regional, county and municipal governments and school boards. Brought knack for colorful features to the pages on a regular basis.

Reported local/regional news under a daily deadline. Photojournalism, proofreading and copy editing were large parts of this position.KEY ACHIEVEMENT: Encouraged editor and fellow reporters to place a greater emphasis on photojournalism as part of the reporting process.

Festus, Mo

Co-produced and co-hosted several quality news/talk programs. Gathered and wrote news, features and soundbites; produced and anchored live newscasts and remote broadcasts; covered breaking news; produced promos and voiceovers. Occasional duties included training new personnel in the use of station equipment, including on-air and off-air recording and editing equipment. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: Produced several new shows to the programming lineup, including the popular “Antiques Roadshow” style program, “For What It’s Worth.” Cultivated news contacts I would come to rely upon for years to come.

Education record

Associate Of Arts, Music Education

Activities and Societies: Chamber Choir, Madrigal Singerscoursework included television production.

Bachelor Of Science, Electronic Media; Production

Activities and Societies: KWMU programmer