RA Marketing & Creative Group,
Designer of the Exclusively Series^®

Advertising, Marketing & Design

Colleen Cryan, founder of RA Marketing & Creative Group, knows exactly where her company fits into the big picture. She understands that in the current economy, businesses sometimes can't or don't want to staff their own marketing department, but still dream of a talented, efficient staff who can produce effective and high quality marketing tools. That's where she and her team come in.

"I use the same trusted network I've worked with for years and offer an extension of the client’s company itself, without the huge overhead," Ms. Cryan explains.

The single mother of a daughter, Ms. Cryan took the long route to designing. While studying for her accounting degree, she worked as the bookkeeper for a mid-size company. She realized after a couple of years that, although she could do the work, it wasn’t her passion.

“Budgets are a big deal, and working with small companies and non-profits has taught me how to be resourceful as a marketer.”

While working as a nanny and a make-up artist, a close neighbor and friend who was a graphic designer would discuss issues she was having at work. Ms. Cryan says, “I loved helping her see things a different way or letting her know the direction I would take. One day she looked at me and said, ‘You know, you should go back to school for graphic design; I think you would be really good at it.’”

Adding bartending and event planning while still working as a make-up artist, she returned to UMBC for her degree in Visual Arts. Juggling these numerous and varied roles honed Ms. Cryan’s knack for managing, organizing and design and her newfound talent and skill began to gel for her into an ideal potential career.

Ms. Cryan’s knack for insight, design and packaging supplies deep and long-lasting benefits to companies who seek her team’s services for corporate branding or re-branding, event planning, media and advertising, collateral pieces such as brochures, ads, postcards, posters, flyers and email blasts, and even “swag,” which is promotional pieces like keychains, pens, t-shirts and hats with the client’s company logo on them.

“It is so important to know who you are and where you want to go as a company,” Ms. Cryan explains. “Using a team allows me to assemble exactly the right group of individuals who fit each job requirement to successfully complete the client’s entire project.”

RA Marketing & Creative Group thinks both outside and inside the box, presenting traditional or cuttingedge ideas, depending on what a particular project calls for. Ms. Cryan says, “We develop unconventional techniques to get inside the heads and hearts of real people, and, just as important, we know how to use that knowledge to get ad-weary, informationoverloaded consumers to tune in rather than zone out.”

Above all, she wants clients to know that marketing doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective. She and her team work within a client’s budget. “We all want to be successful, but throwing money away is never the right path,” she says. “Budgets are a big deal, and working with small companies and non-profits has taught me how to be resourceful as a marketer.”

RA Marketing & Creative Group
451 Broadwater Road
Arnold, MD 21012
410-507-5338

www.ramarketingncreative.com

Pictured: Colleen Cryan with Taylor and Spike
Photography: Richard Allen