Vanessa Theoharis is the Director of Digital Marketing at OHO Interactive. She consults with organizations in higher education and healthcare on their digital strategies. She evaluates consumer decision journeys, refines touchpoints, and smooths friction points to help clients raise awareness, drive new leads and customers. She discusses the five pillars of effective digital marketing: technology, understanding customers, content marketing, social media, and analytics. She recommends that startups focus initially on establishing a website, organic search strategy, unified brand presence, CRM, and email platform as digital marketing essentials.