Kenyana David is all about the entrepreneurial female – her business, education, and community. She is a digital content strategist and founder of 81Eighteen, LLC, a boutique marketing firm specializing in e-mail marketing, and the creator of the Fe-Mail Marketing for Entrepreneurs (FEMME) Academy, a year-round e-school teaching female coaches, consultants, and advisors to make money with e-mail marketing.
Kenyana is a Women's Business Center (WBC) success story. She took advantage of several WBC resources and focused on her talents, expertise, and passion. She's a Cornell University certified in Women's Entrepreneurship and HubSpot certified in e-mail marketing, inbound sales, content marketing, and frictionless sales. In addition, she has authored a book, "It's All About Strategy: A Workable Approach to Digital Content & Marketing." She is also the facilitator for the Grow Advisory Group at the Women's Business Center at Canisius College.
Journey to Success
Talking about her journey to success, Kenyana told WomELLE, “I always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I was creative, and in college, I did a lot of organizations and led organizations. I wanted to do new things, connect with people. So, entrepreneurship came naturally to me.”
An MBA, Kenyana said she had a lot of education – a degree in economics, attended several programs. Since she was 18, it has been a learning curve for her. She started my entrepreneurial journey in her late 20s. Once she realizes who she is and what she can bring to the table. She started her journey as an entrepreneur when she founded 81Eighteen, LLC.
Entrepreneurship is a trending issue these days as everyone is encouraged to do something independently and become an entrepreneur. There are many programs designed for people to become entrepreneurs with support systems that did not exist before, especially for women. "All these contributed to me becoming an entrepreneur at an early age," said Kenyana.
Founding 18Eighteen, LLC
18Eighteen is a boutique marketing program and support system for entrepreneurs with a difference, while the Fe-Mail Marketing for Entrepreneurs (FEMME) Academy is a subsidiary. At 81Eighteen, Kenyana offers instructional coaching to female coaches, consultants, and advisors who aren't yet making money but aren't yet earning a return on investment (ROI) or earning an ROI but aren't yet earning a profit with e-mail marketing. She also provides instructional training to companies, organizations, colleges, and universities with programs or initiatives helping female entrepreneurs market and sells their products or services or both.
On the other hand, FEMME is a membership program that offers instructional coaching to female entrepreneurs and college students intending to start their own business on e-mail marketing, click rates, etc. The duration of the programs varies from three months to nine months. At FEMME Academy, she teaches women how to make money. “In both our organizations, we focus on helping women entrepreneurs.”
Thus far, Fe-Mail Marketing for Entrepreneurs (FEMME) Academy has provided training to 1.9k female entrepreneurs through partnerships with more than 20 companies, organizations, colleges, and universities in four countries: the United States, Canada, Kenya, and Venezuela.
Importance of E-mail Marketing
Kenyana claims that e-mail marketing is a more personal and sometimes more effective means of marketing products and services than social media marketing. In e-mail marketing, she has her target audience's mail ids and phone numbers and can connect with them. This medium offers a unique opportunity for businesses to prosper. In the case of social media marketing, businesses have to deal with several platforms. Still, e-mail marketing provides a single window to showcase, promote, and sell products and services.
“E-mail marketing is completely different from social media marketing. E-mail marketing enables businesses to connect with their buyers, and build authentic relationships. It also helps to achieve ROI much more easily.”
Certifications
Kenyana is Cornell University certified in Women's Entrepreneurship and HubSpot certified in e-mail marketing, inbound sales and marketing, content marketing, frictionless sales, and social media marketing. She is also an ActiveCampaign partner. According to her, "My certifications helped me learn how women think, buy things and do business. Hubspot is an e-mail marketing program, and it brings value to my clients," she says.
Supporting Black Professionals
Kenyana is also the president of the National Black MBA Association, Western New York Chapter. She says that she helps in programming, entrepreneurship, and career-building in this capacity. The National Black MBA Association has 141 members, and they work to bring the members together for the next stage in their life and career through mentorship programs.
Author Kenyana
Kenyana is the author of "It's All About Strategy: A Workable Approach to Digital Content & Marketing" the book is a one-part workbook designed to help entrepreneurs and small business owners decide what they want to achieve, what, and how – and for whom they wish to create or make content, where they want to publish content, and how they want to promote – and market content, digitally. "There is a lot of misconception and misunderstanding regarding digital marketing. I wrote the book to help with such misconceptions and help people understand what they want and how they need to proceed with it," she told WomELLE.
Future Plans
"I am a very open person and don't have any specific plans for the future. New opportunities come all the time, and I want to take advantage of them,” Kenyana says. She is thinking of teaching graduate students, but she is not planning that yet. She would love to have at least one student in every English-speaking country. "Let's keep going. I don't like motivational speeches; they don't motivate me," she adds.
Advice to Women
Kenyana says that women must think realistically, and once they think something, they should just do it. "Just go for it. Even if you fail, do it differently. Once you do it, you will become a founder," she signs off.
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