Sara Mannix has always been determined to work hard for what she wanted:

• At age 13, Mannix was named Parade Magazine’s New York State Paper Carrier of the Year for selling more than 300 subscriptions to the Times Union and delivering them all over Burnt Hills every Saturday and Sunday. Her prize was a trip to Spain with 50 other newspaper carrier winners from across the nation.
• At age 14, Mannix was the youngest exchange student in the history of highly selective, nonprofit AFS Intercultural Programs, receiving a full scholarship to spend the summer in Bogota, Colombia. 
• Throughout high school, Mannix picked blueberries, then made blueberry pies with her mom and sat at the end of the driveway, selling them to help fund college.
• At age 19, Mannix funded her studies abroad by working three summer jobs in Lake George, rising at 5 a.m. to waitress at a breakfast cafe, then walking across the street to work the ticket booth for Parasail Joe’s from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., and finally heading to Lucille’s to wait tables in the evening.

Google was founded as a search engine in 1998. Mannix Marketing – a regional giant in search engine optimization - was founded in 1996. Talk about being ahead of the curve! 

Sara Mannix was on to something enormous when she conceived of a marketing company that could help her clients connect with new customers in what was then a unique method: a keyword was entered into a search box and scads of options for further research jumped onto the screen. Mannix’s superpower is being able to predict which keywords will bring her clients’ specific sites to potential customers’ attention.

But even Mannix couldn’t have predicted the impact of a business venture that began in a small Lake George office as a part-time passion project and grew into its Glens Falls headquarters -- with remote offices around the country and overseas -- employing more than two dozen marketing, creative, and computer programming specialists.

“People told me that internet searches were a fad and that I was quitting a good job for a bad reason,” Mannix remembers. After studying at The University at Albany and abroad – assuming she’d become a teacher - Mannix veered from that course and instead took a position in marketing for Benetton in New York City, a privately held Italian fashion brand with 5,000 stores worldwide. Best known for its “United Colors of Benetton” campaigns, the iconic company was an early corporate proponent of promoting diversity awareness in advertising.

“I had taken Basic (a computer programming code language) in high school, but thought, ‘Who wants to be stuck with a black screen all day?’” Mannix says now. “But in college, I started to relate to the computer as an end-user and I could see its power to reach out. I was no longer just coding, I was using the computer to solve problems.”

It rocked her world.

“I said, ‘This is where it’s at,’” Mannix recalls. 

Although Benetton was a spectacular learning experience for Mannix, the Burnt Hills native yearned for upstate New York, so she migrated back, drawn to promote the region’s robust tourism industry, “and I was just thriving,” she says. “I loved it more than anything.” Indeed, today Mannix Marketing continues to serve the tourism industry as one of its key targeted areas of marketing expertise. The company’s other specialty areas are senior living and manufacturing, although its client roster spans many other businesses and her firm’s website (www.MannixMarketing.com) recounts diverse success stories to illustrate the achievements that search engine optimization (SEO) and social media presence can germinate and sustain. 

Ever-prescient, at the outset, once she understood the direction the web-based information explosion was headed, Mannix reserved and paid for website domains such as Saratoga.com, GlensFalls.com, Saratogawedding.com, LakeGeorge.com, and others, making her a formidable force and resource for clients whose livelihoods are anchored by her drive to creatively, masterfully aggregate and disseminate relevant information.

“I was fortunate to have a marketing background before starting my company,” says Mannix Marketing’s founding CEO. “I had a different perspective than a coder or a creative and was certain getting found in the search engine was the key to success. Figuring out how to do it was the fun part. It’s intuitive for me. I’ve lived and breathed it now for 25 years. I even get up Saturday mornings and work while it’s still quiet.”

(Of course, it doesn’t stay quiet, Mannix and her husband, Mark, have three children with plenty of their own energy and activities. Mark, who has a background in technology, now works alongside Sara for Mannix Marketing. Together, the duo juggles a dizzying mix of home and work demands.)

But it’s not all fun and games. Mannix Marketing and Mannix personally have faced and overcome hurdles as well. For example, Mannix cites having to convert all the websites the company creates to be ADA-compliant so that hearing and visually impaired individuals, as well as people with other disabilities, can use them.

“Tears were shed,” she admits. “But I became obsessed with it and now we’re a leader in ADA compliance. I have staff dedicated to making it happen.”

Too, the pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to her tourism-industry clients, whose businesses were threatened by shutdowns and reduced traffic to their venues. She found herself working pro bono or at reduced rates to help the community. She knew Mannix Marketing could offer ways to reach audiences that needed information about what to do and where to stay safely, which benefited businesses and visitors alike. And she’s been rightfully hailed as a hero, with many awards to her name, including, among others, a Summit Creative Award for B2B Website Design, a Warren County Top Women Award, a coveted Ethics in Business Award, Women of Influence Award from SARATOGA TODAY, a U.S. Search Award for Best Use of Content Marketing – Real Estate Division Adirondack Mountain Land, and, for the past decade, many other top industry awards for SEO, creative, and digital marketing. But she doesn’t take all the credit. Mannix has high praise for her company’s staff and her own mentors: Mark Behan, CEO of prestigious Behan Communications in Glens Falls, and Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.

And she’s a collaborator. Mannix views former staffers as “alumni,” not “exes,” and they sometimes take on Mannix Marketing projects; she sees other marketers as potential partners, not competition; and she works closely with clients’ materials produced by other PR or design firms, without trying to eclipse their work.   

However entrenched in her business, Mannix is not a slave to work. She refuels by listening to podcasts on long walks, interacting with inspiring industry leaders, spending “amazing family time,” playing pickleball, and sharing laughter with girlfriends. It also “just makes me feel good,” she says, “to help others, however I can, especially the senior population.”

Current kudos notwithstanding, in retrospect Mannix remembers times when she had one problem to contend with, or seven, or even 20 at a time, but she came away from every one of those situations flourishing. 

“It’s okay to cry,” she advises, “But then you dig your heels in and meet every challenge.”