Marketing Management

• Experience writing marketing plans that get results.
  - Responsible for the Internet marketing plan for Aon Corporation, a Fortune 250 firm, in 2000, the year eWeek Magazine selected Aon as an eBusiness Innovator of 2000. (AON)
  - Responsible for creating the marketing plan for Hydrosol Corporation, which included developing two new product areas where profit margins were as much as ten times those of current product offerings. Worked in the identification and expansion into a new market (originally as a new division of the company), two years later this division is a regular part of the business and is highly profitable. (HYDROSOL)
  - Responsible for the marketing communications and trade show selection and budgeting portion of the marketing plan, which incorporated the Internet as part of a full-fledged integrated marketing communications effort in 1996. (LA MARCHE)
   
• Experience in marketing and advertising positions with a wide range of industries, encompassing both products and services.
  - Industry experience includes financial services, consulting, chemicals, electronics, commercial testing, marketing communications and professional training. I am a quick-study who adapts easily and enjoys learning and challenges.
  - My work has been praised by VP's of Marketing, company presidents, leading marketers and business publications (examples are available on request).
  - Cited as an expert on marketing in national publications. (INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT/ MARKETING TODAY)
   
• Early career experience in advertising and B2B sales on the front lines that provides important insight for business-to-business marketing.
  Early career experience in advertising and business-to-business sales provides insight on complex B2B decision processes, advertising and the advertising industry and on the business negotiation process. (CHICAGO TRIBUNE COMMUNITY PUBLICATIONS, COLORFORMS DIV. OF WALLACE, QUESTAR PRINTING)

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Marketing Communications

• Experience with marketing communications spanning both products and services.
  - Handled marketing communications at Conam, La Marche, Hydrosol and Internet marketing communications at Aon.
   
• Experience developing integrated marketing communications efforts.
  - With a background that includes both offline and online marketing, I am a firm believer in never being channel-centric. While marketers can influence channel selection to a certain degree, in the end customers will choose the channel they like best. The best marketers realize this and act accordingly.
  - A recent article I wrote related to this topic received mention on Harvard Business School's Website. (MARKETING TODAY)
   
• Experience managing advertising, PR and trade show management that drive not only drive awareness, but sales.
  - A solid track record of producing efforts that delivered increase leads.
  - Developed a lead management system at Conam that permitted the identification of the most effective marketing tactics and maximization of  marketing dollars (as well as ensured leads were being followed up on). (CONAM)
   
• Also see Advertising and Publicity.

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eMarketing Management

• Responsible for creating permission marketing email newsletters at La Marche, Hydrosol and Marketing Today that increased exposure to brands and awareness of new product offerings
  - Created an email newsletter with regulatory, packaging, chemical and product formulation information that was requested by nearly 90% of those solicited.
  - Consulted to the Aon Specialty Product Network on launching a permission email marketing effort. By adding a sign-up to their existing form, they found 87% of those completing the form requested gave their permission for future email communications. 
   
• E-marketing experience that dates back to 1996. Writer and publisher of Marketing Today (http://www.MarketingToday.com), a Website and email newsletter of marketing. 
  - Marketing Today is read by a who's who of corporate marketing executives, educators, consultants, well-known gurus and even C-level executives.  It has been recommended on the Websites of more than 50 business schools. Content covers marketing, advertising, publicity, promotion, research and trends, both online and offline. Recommended by Harvard Business School, Seth Godin (author, Permission Marketing) and a long list of universities, marketing associations, marketers and business publications. Featured in Folio Magazine article "Beyond VerticalNet: Web Sites Worth Watching." In addition, I have been listed and interviewed as an expert on e-marketing in numerous national publications. (MARKETING TODAY)
  - Consulted and wrote internal white papers for Aon in the areas of e-metrics, online advertising, online promotion and online branding. (AON)
  - Performed several Website audits, including several at Aon. (AON, INDEPENDENT CONSULTING)

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Product Management

• Product marketing experience.
  - Responsible for the development of numerous chemical products at Hydrosol, working with numerous industrial and consumer product marketers. (HYDROSOL)
  - Responsible for the development and rollout of a new service offering at Conam, including the creation of a brand name (FissureTect®). The service line experienced rapid success and is now a regular part of the company's services. (CONAM)

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Direct Mail

• Worked on some of the world's largest direct-mail/direct-marketing campaigns
  Responsible for coordinating production on large direct-mail projects for clients such as Columbia House, Hearst Magazines, Chrysler, AT&T, Disney and others. (COLORFORMS DIV. OF WALLACE)
• Experienced with business-to-business direct mail.
  Experience employing B2B direct mail campaigns that drive sales leads and sales. (CONAM/STAVELEY SCHOOLS, LA MARRCHE, WEDDINGRESOURCE.COM)

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Branding

• Branding knowledge that extends far beyond advertising and PR.
  - Played a significant role in extending the Aon brand online, as well as many others such as Gold Eagle, encompassing planning, consulting, and performing a brand audit. Advised Aon's corporate communications department, worked in the development of online brand strategies and managing the complexities of global corporation with numerous business units and visual identity variations. (AON, GOLD EAGLE) 
  - Responsible for writing the portions of the Aon Corporate Identity Manual that encompass electronic media. I also wrote a significant white paper on managing the Aon brand online for  senior executives that was praised by the company's VP Branding. (AON)  
  - Helped create a new division and (B2B) brand for Hydrosol, Viachem Laboratories. (HYDROSOL)
  - Created an online brand, Marketing Today that has been featured, written about in print and Websites, received recognition of top business schools (including Harvard and Indiana University) and subscribed to thousands of professional marketers. I have never spent a penny on advertising the site, instead using word of mouth and word of mouse, employing viral marketing and publicity techniques. (MARKETING TODAY)

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Research

• Responsible for creative uses of research that resulted in closing millions of dollars.
  - Based on my belief that the sales personnel of Conam, a multi-national company, were not effectively cross-selling, I created a customer satisfaction survey that also asked if customers were aware of the company's various products. When one of our satisfied customers from one of the world's largest oil companies saw that our company offered the services he was in the market for, he called up and, within one month, we closed a multi-million dollar contract. Another customer who was highly dissatisfied called to let us know he was taking his business away. After the general manager called and then jumped on a plan for a visit, the relationship was back on track. The customer survey (rolled out on a regional basis) received a greater than 75% response rate nationally (averaged). (CONAM)
  - Responsible for Aon's first Internet-based survey, which received coverage in a number of trade and news publications, including the Wall Street Journal and helped increased Aon's perception as a leader in enterprise risk management. (AON)
  - Led numerous research projects related to potential acquisitions, competitors, investments, markets and a new Aon venture for senior level Aon executives, including the President, Michael O'Halleran. (AON)
  - Responsible for an extensive customer survey, working closely with Northern Illinois University, that helped identify key  problem points with the company's service. (HYDROSOL)
   
• A customer-centric focus.
  - Throughout my career, I have had the ability to empathize, to walk in the shoes of customers in order to help satisfy customers better. In fact, I would attribute this ability as a key foundation to any of my successes.
   
• A strong ability to enable business and marketing strategies through a solid understanding of IT fundamentals.
  - A long history of understanding how to leverage technology to achieve business goals. Technology has always been a strong interest of mine. I personally developed and design Marketing Today and this site.
   
• Strong creative business thinking skills.
  - The ability to see things as they are and as they could be, but always with a pragmatic eye. (After all, you can't always look somewhere else for best practices -- sometimes it makes the most sense to establish them yourself).  

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Publicity

• Experienced at getting companies ink.
  - Handled PR responsibilities at Conam, La Marche and Hydrosol (also for my own ventures WeddingResource.com and Marketing Today). Achievements include gaining regular editorial coverage in trade journals against much larger competitors such as Lucent. Gained a four page feature on the company and its product lines in the target market's leading trade journal that coincided with the launch of three new products (resulting in the company's most successful product launch in recent history, resulting in a large amount of inquiries and orders that eventually led to back orders). (CONAM, LA MARCHE, HYROSOL, WEDDINGRESOURCE.COM) 
  - Gained a media exposure for WeddingResource.com in a variety of outlets, including mentions in the Chicago Sun-Times and on radio. (WEDDINGRESOURCE.COM) 
   
• Insight on advertising and direct marketing from both sides of the desk.
  - My early career experience included serving as an advertising account executive for Chicago Tribune Community Publications, where I received two achievement awards. In addition, I spent a number of years selling commercial printing to advertising agencies and other companies and handled production planning for some of the world's largest direct marketing campaigns for companies like Columbia House and Hearst Magazines. (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, WALLACE)
  - Served as creative director and in a Web development capacity on a number of marketing communications and Web projects (INDEPENDENT CONSULTING)

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