Overview/Work

Jon Payne is the Principal & Owner of Ephricon Web Marketing, a search engine marketing firm located in suburban Baltimore, Maryland. He also serves in a consulting role with DC-based marketing agency Rock Creek Strategic Marketing.

Education & Professional Life

Born and raised in Rockville, Maryland (a suburb of DC), Jon moved about an hour northeast to attend Towson University (Towson is just north of Baltimore) in 1999. At Towson he double majored in Business Administration and E-Business, with a concentration in Marketing. He graduated summa cum laude and was selected as the speaker at his graduation ceremony.

Following several internships and a one year stint as an internet marketing specialist with a local marketing agency, Jon decided he wanted to try his hand at entrepreneurship. A few months after graduating from college he founded Ephricon Web Marketing, which marked the formal birth of the various web services he’d been offering “on the side” to various small businesses for about a year. At first he held onto his previous position part-time, while testing the waters of self-employment slowly. By the end of 2003 he committed himself full-time to Ephricon.

Since then things have grown a bit.  Whereas the difficulty used to be getting new business, Jon’s current challenge is managing projects and timelines for existing work.  Ephricon currently has two employees and a small team of high-quality subcontractors.  The firm specializes in SEO for B2B service firms who are seeking to generate new business leads from their web presence.

In December of 2008 Jon will complete his coursework for an MBA degree at Loyola College in Maryland.  Short-term plans include growing Ephricon as well his two other online marketing ventures – Net Focus Media and Lead Storm Media.  Long-term plans include obtaining a PhD and embarking upon a career in academia.

Personal

Jon is happily married and lives just outside of Baltimore, MD with his wife and young daughter.  He’s a big fan of TiVo (DVR), the DirecTV’s , watching movies, playing video games and occasionally getting in a round of golf.

Oh yeah, Jon’s also a HUGE Redskins fan.  Go Skins!