PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Interactive Marketing Coach
Founder & GM
October 2012 – Present
Interactive Marketing Coach is a team of marketing, advertising, sales and web experts that can help any individual,
business or other organization win more customers, online.
Responsibilities Included:
- Conduct deep analysis of existing marketing and interactive marketing programs for clients.
- Conduct research into existing and new markets, and synthesize analytics and reporting into actionable strategies.
- Develop customized playbooks and interactive marketing programs for clients.
- Identify the best sources of client’s website traffic to align with their target markets.
- Create and execute social media strategies that focus on improving customer experience, and lead generation.
- Develop lead generation & nurture logic/content, and configure marketing and sales automation tools accordingly.
- Create user personas, and website visitor interaction journeys.
- Build information architecture, sitemaps and content strategy.
- Optimize visitor conversion paths and ecommerce transactions.
- Develop and deliver marketing analytics and reporting systems.
- Coordinate and manage development of new websites, mobile applications, etc.
PGi (formerly known as Premiere Global Services, Inc.)
June2007 – October 2012
PGi is a leading global provider of cutting-edge audio, web and video meeting solutions.
Senior Director, Marketing & Sales, iMeet.com
October 2010 – October 2012
Responsibilities Included:
- Lead a designated sales territory with an assigned quota for revenue with targets for new customer acquisition, and retention and growth of base customers.
- Responsible for executive oversight for all day-to-day operations of the iMeet.com web site, including all related maintenance and development activities.
- Developed an overall sales and marketing plan and strategy. Act as lead product marketing manager for the iMeet brand.
- Developed sales lead generation strategy and architecture, lead nurture, marketing automation strategy, CRM user flows, and Salesforce integration with internal sales and systems teams.
- Manage/allocate/forecast and reconcile annual operational/marketing budget of $11M.
- Created and implemented the "DigiMarketing" (digital marketing) plan and strategy.
- Created and implemented social media and social marketing programs and social monitoring/reporting systems.
- Creating personas, use cases, participant journeys, visitor segmentation, product positioning and messaging.
- Responsible for architecting, building, testing and optimizing the online ecommerce transaction engine.
- Oversaw routine development and management of online and offline marketing campaigns and programs, and optimize the ROI for these campaigns and programs, including print, TV, radio, digital display ads, paid search, natural search/SEO, and affiliate marketing.
- Coordinated efforts with interactive teams in APAC and EMEA. Assist in launch of web properties and campaigns in these regions.
- Acted as lead architect and testing manager for optimization testing of landing pages, and marketing campaigns, as well as conversion rate optimization (CRO), sign-up process optimization, sales process optimization, sales funnel and check-out optimization, price tuning, and free trial optimization.
- Provide routine sales reporting and business analysis.
- Developing/delivering analytics and reports to “C suite” and senior managers.
Achievements:
- Achieved over 50,000 new online subscribers within the first 14 months of launch. (imeet.com)
- Achieved recurring monthly revenue run rate of $1M within 11 months after launch, growing at average quarterly rates between 3.5%-5.0%.
- Launched two (2) stand-alone versions of the iMeet.com web site (N. America) from Jan. 2011 and July 2012.
- Launched five (5) regional sites in APAC and EMEA in 2011/2012.
- Developed over 25 different landing page templates for use in various marketing campaigns.
- Launched remarketing and re-targeting programs that achieved lifts of 250% in new customer signups.
- Social media programs lead to reduced customer attrition rates, and a 62% reduction in customer inquiries to the inbound call center.
- Conducted dozens of marketing experiments on campaign elements including digital ad creative/copy, bid optimization, landing pages, website learning paths, content, pricing, forms, conversion paths.
Featured results include:
> Reduced average pay per click ad bids by 38%
> Reduced overall cost per acquisition (CPA) on digital advertising from $1,000 to less than $150.
> Reduced overall site abandonment rate by 29%
> Reduced shopping cart abandonment by 42%
> Increased length of site engagement by 60%
> Improved lead conversion rate by 128%
Director/GM, Web Sales - BudgetConferencing.com
July 2009 – January 2011
Responsibilities Included:
- Managed P & L for a business unit that generated $15M in annual revenue.
- Responsible for executive oversight for all day-to-day operations.
- Directly managed sales, marketing and ecommerce teams.
- Lead a designated sales territory with an assigned quota for revenue with targets for new customer acquisition, and retention and growth of base customers.
- Developed business plans, marketing plans, and digital marketing plans. Analyze and adjusted activities against plans as necessary.
- Manage/allocate/forecast and reconcile annual operational/marketing budget of $5M.
- Oversee routine development and management of marketing campaigns and programs, and optimize campaign ROI.
- Developed and implemented social media programs for all major social engagement properties.
- Sales reporting, business analysis. Developing/delivering reports to senior management.
Achievements:
- Achieved average of 20% increase in online revenue growth, year-over-year from 2009-2011.
- Through various landing page and campaign optimization experiments, I was able to increase annual revenue from approx. $7M annually (USD) to over $9M annually in just 2 years.
- Met and exceeded sales quotas for each quarter and year of operations as Director.
- Created usage stimulation programs that grew revenues from existing customer base by 18%.
- Implemented a new and improved online billing platform which helped decrease inbound customer service billing requests to call centers by 68%.
- Reduced customer attrition and improved retention by average of 14% per annum.
- Lead efforts to complete an “extreme make-over” of the BudgetConferencing brand. The result of the re-branding effort included:
- New brand story / unique value proposition (“Simple. Affordable. Meetings”) was created and launched.
- Unique new brand character icon created (“Betty Budget”), creating a unique identity for the brand through this character.
- New pricing and positioning of the product’s pricing was introduced to scale the brand’s appeal across a wider group of value-conscious customers.
- New features (video conferencing) added to the existing product line to enhance current use, and stimulate new customer acquisition opportunities.
Web Strategist - Premiere Global Services- Interactive Marketing
June 2007-July 2009
Was 3rd hire for a new interactive marketing sales channel that was chartered with merchandising and selling the
company’s products through online channels. Acting as a true “generalist” in this start-up organization, I provided
practical hands-on experience and management to help develop the marketing systems and processes to achieve optimal
online sales performance.
Responsibilities included:
- Conduct marketing research and develop online product marketing strategies for multiple and diverse web properties.
- Design/develop and launch web properties. (SaveOnConferences.com, PGi.com, Fax2Mail.com, PremiereGlobalServices.com, and more)
- Developing entirely new online web businesses and brands to exploit new market positions online. (StarConferencing.com, SaveOnFaxes.com)
- Manage transition of BudgetConferencing.com, (a new competitive acquisition) into PGi’s operations.
- Develop, launch and manage paid search and SEO operations.
- Managed multi-million dollar marketing & advertising budget. Defined marketing spend allocations / reconciled marketing spend against forecasts.
- Manage web design/development projects cross-functionally, with web design and development teams.
- Create and optimize interactive marketing programs and campaigns and landing pages.
- Conduct routine interactive marketing experiments and campaign testing to optimize performance.
- Create lead generation, and nurture programs to support offline sales acquisitions.
- Support development of customer support programs (e.g. loyalty, usage stimulation, winback, etc.).
- Developing and configuring new analytics, reporting and testing infrastructure and systems, including online sales reporting, daily ecommerce reports, web analytics using Adobe Site Catalyst, and web testing using Adobe Test & Target.
- Recruit, interview, hire and train marketing managers, business analysts and other team members.
Achievements:
- Annual revenue from online sales grew from $4.5M in Y1 to nearly $11M by Y2.
- Grew the Interactive Marketing team from 3 to 15 persons.
- Built and grew StarConferencing.com from $0 to 1.5M annual online recurring revenue, at less than 9% cost of sales.
- Built and grew SaveOnFaxes.com from $0 to 3.5M annual online recurring revenue, at less than 12% cost of sales.
- Completed the transition of BudgetConferencing.com business operations into PGi’s business.
- Established all baseline analytics reports and systems.
- Launched total of 8 new web sites, and dozens of supporting marketing campaign landing pages.
- Optimization experiments yielded these improvements:
> Online sales (conversions) increased by over 235%
> Online leads increased by nearly 60%
> Increased average site visits by 37%
> Cut shopping cart abandonment rates by 50%
> Improved customer retention by 15%
e5 Marketing
Managing Director
January 2004 – June 2007
e5 is a national marketing organization, providing a full range of integrated marketing solutions for businesses of any size.
Responsibilities included:
- Ongoing project management for web marketing projects, specializing in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization.
- Provided strategic consulting and project management services for clients in a variety of industries.
- Founded, developed and managed the search and interactive marketing division for e5.
Achievements:
- Created new revenue stream from digital marketing operations which grew to represent 25% of total agency revenues.
- Increased average billable hours per engagement by 30%.
- Business development activities resulted in acquisition of 30 new accounts in 2 ½ years.
OrganizeYourWorld, LLC
Founder/CEO
December 1999 – December 2003
A start-up venture, Organize Your World developed and marketed personal productivity products and solutions including the
award winning "fileWISE" brand of filing systems and software. The company also developed a successful web business at
OrganizeYourWorld.com a one-stop supermarket for organization products and services.
Responsibilities included:
- Day-to-day management of company operations.
- Business contracts, licensing & intellectual property.
- Ideation, strategy and execution for marketing and sales programs.
- Product development.
- Investor relations, financial operations.
Achievements:
- Developed, marketed and sold the “fileWISE” product line.
- Successfully licensed the fileWise brands to Fortune Brands.
- OrganizeYourWorld.com achieved #1 rank for key search terms in all major search engines.
- OrganizeYourWorld.com generated over 1 million page views per month.
- Awarded the Associate of the Year Award in 2001 by the National Association of Professional Organizers.
MetLife
General Agency Manager
1984-1998
MetLife, Inc. is a leading global provider of insurance, annuities and employee benefit programs, serving 90 million customers.
Career highlights:
- Started career as an Account Representative selling insurance and investment products, achieving sales performance that ranked in the top 10 percent of all producers.
- Was promoted to positions of increased responsibility in the sales management organization.
- Was responsible for recruiting, selecting and training new sales staff.
- Sales units achieved consistent growth at levels far above quotas resulting in recognition as a leading business unit within the company.
- General Agency Management responsibilities included day-to-day operations management and direct supervision of a sales and administrative staff of 25 persons.
- Areas of responsibility included human resources, office administration, market identification, sales planning & forecasting, field sales support, customer service, customer relationship management, sales force automation, information technology implementation, ethical sales practice management, N.A.S.D and legal compliance, financial, and P & L.
Achievements:
- 7 time qualifier for MetLife’s prestigious “Sales & Management Leader’s Conference.”
- Lead MetLife sales agency to top 10 ( top 1 % ) of all agencies nationwide.
- Elevated the Maplewood (NJ) unit to a rank of # 9 out of 367 units in 2.5 years, after a starting position of 327.
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PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS/AFFILIATIONS
Certified - Landing Page Optimization (MEC) Google Adwords Professional
Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) Direct Marketing Association
Web Analytics Association Web Marketing Association
Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA) AMA – Atlanta
eMarketing Association eConsultancy
EDUCATION
The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC (Economics)
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CORE COMPETENCIES
Strategy
- Marketing /business plan development
- Interactive marketing strategy/plan development
- Competitive analysis/market research
- New product development
- Free trial and pricing strategy
- Target market identification/persona development
- Visitor traffic analysis/strategy
- Visitor path development/analysis/optimization
Web site services
- Information architecture/content architecture
- Website design/development
- Landing page & micro-site design/development
- Mobile web design/development
- Responsive design
- Website Usability/Testing
- Ecommerce
Optimization/Testing
- Website optimization
- Conversion rate optimization
- Landing page optimization
- Split testing (A/B testing)
- Multivariate testing (MVT)
Advertising/Media
- Digital media planning/buying
- Online advertising strategy/execution/management
- Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
- Digital display advertising
- Re-targeting ads
- Video channel development/syndication
Campaigns
- Interactive campaign design/development
- Interactive campaign management/ROI analysis
- Marketing program budget forecast/allocation
- Sales promotions
- Email marketing
Content
- Copywriting (ads, headlines, site content, etc.)
- Video development
Marketing/Sales Automation
- Marketing automation
- Lead generation/scoring/nurture
- Sales automation
- Email marketing
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Search Engine Marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Paid search ads (PPC)
Social Media/Marketing
- Social media program development
- Social marketing
- Blog development
Analytics
- Web analytics configuration
- Key Performance Indicator analysis
- Website visual analysis (heat maps, click studies, etc.)
- Sales reporting