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Resume Snippet
Chief Operating Officer, MarketStance
During my 11 year tenure as COO, the firm's revenues consistently grew at 20-40%. Employment has grown from two (myself and the CEO) to almost twenty professionals and support staff.
Director of Market Research, Aetna Inc.
Applied attitudinal market segmentation to profitability analysis of annuity retirement products; identified and evaluated potential new markets and distribution channels for LTD products; led team conducting small group health scenario analysis to identify key strategic risks to Aetna's transition from indemnity health products to managed health care.
Director of Telemarketing, Connecticut Savings Bank
Designed and implemented telemarketing projects promoting equity lines of credit, investment accounts, insurance policies and other bank product; hired and supervised staff of fifteen telephone sales representatives
Director, Film Fest New Haven
Produced and hosted 13-episode TV interview program on independent film making to market the festival.
In Depth
See below for two examples of successful Marketing Strategies.
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Marketing Strategy Success Stories
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Customer retention was a critical success factor as the MarketStance partners prepared to leave our parent company and set ourselves up as an independent business. We were leaving a very well-known, long-established firm and would open our doors with only the three partners on staff. Finding the right marketing strategy could be the difference between a successful first year, and a disaster.
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How to keep MarketStance's clients -- most of whom were in the Fortune 500 -- as we exited our parent company?
Starting four months before departure -- even before it was certain we'd be able to successfully negotiate a separation -- I developed a marketing campaign that could be initiated immediately upon completion of a deal.
This campaign emphasized the continuity of the business and positioned the separation as "removing the corporate shackles," allowing us to respond even faster to our customers needs. The campaign also keyed into a major theme of the business press at the time: how small startups, often with nothing more than a good idea and talented people, were becoming huge successes.
The result was that the company did not lose a single customer when it became independent, and we went into our first year with a solid client -- and revenue -- foundation.
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Marketing an independent film festival.
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The first year of Film Fest New Haven presented a particularly tough marketing challenge. Connecticut audiences were not familiar with independent film festivals. But even more challenging, movie audiences tend to decide whether or not to see a movie based on what they've heard about it, or who stars in it. Going out and paying money for something they've never heard of, with unknown actors, is risky even for regular movie-goers.
Indeed, as the first year's event came together, I heard more and more people say: "What will I see?" I couldn't point to stars or famous directors, because all these movies were made by unknown film makers who were trying to get known. For the longest time, I had no compelling answer to the "buying objection" implicit in the question: "What will I see?"
And then the answer came to me: "You Can't Imagine What You'll See." That became the fulcrum of the festival's marketing campaigns for the next couple of years. The tag-line turned the skepticism into curiosity by reframing the unknown as suspenseful, mysterious. Audiences won't see boring, amateur home movies, but cinema the likes of which they had never yet seen and could not imagine.
That first year, and every year thereafter, we had sell-out audiences not only for opening night, but for all the evening shows.
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