Welcome! I am an analytic marketer with over 20 years of experience generating leads, creating demand, and managing marketing teams. I have a passion for driving response, whether it’s in a direct to consumer or business to business environment. What’s important to me is that I work for a company with a product or service that adds real value to its customers. I’m currently leading the Strategy & Analytics practice at MarketOne International. We’re doing some great work for category-leading clients like Intel, Cisco, Oracle, and HP.

You can check out my LinkedIn profile for the full run-down of where I’ve worked and what I’ve done.

But what makes me different, and hopefully unique? Why would you want to work with me?

1. I’m all about results.

I truly believe that the purpose of marketing is to make sales for the company. Sometimes, that’s accomplished through 1-step direct to consumer marketing that drives an immediate sale. Sometimes it’s through rock-star branding that drives desire. But no matter what, the purpose is to create demand for the company’s products or services. I never forget that.

This core belief leads me to drive rigor around marketing measurement, create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for marketing that ladder to the company’s goals, and ensure marketing is held to the same level of accountability as the sales organization.

2. I am a testing machine.

While at Bose, I managed over $20 million dollars in magazine/newspaper and insert advertising media spend annually. At that time, offline printed ads made up the majority of direct response advertising for the company, and also offered the most opportunities for testing. So just about every piece of new creative, every new offer, and new calls to action were tested in print before being rolled out to other media. Each weekend I would regularly conduct up to 6 national A/B split tests in print (12 separate piece of print creative), often designed to work together so that I could index results and get more learning than just that provided by the 6 tests.

In the past 10 years I’ve focused on B2B demand generation, driving omni-channel and account-based strategies using every digital and human interaction channel available. I’ve implemented CRM and marketing automation, and helped numerous large, global enterprise companies get the most out of their MarTech investments by applying solid, strategic thinking to their use.

I’ve also planned, executed, and measured marketing tests across multiple regions and channels. If there is a marketing question, I will come up with a way to test a variety of hypotheses and ensure the results are measurable and actionable.

You can read a few recommendations from my former colleagues that reference my passion for testing and measurement on my LinkedIn profile. My favorite quote is from Brad Pruett from VOXmarketing. “She brings a level of analytical thinking to bear on marketing problems that borders on scary (in a good way).”

3. I’ll come up with a strategy AND make it happen.

During my years at Mimio, a small entrepreneurial company owned by Newell Rubbermaid, I was responsible for creating the company’s annual Integrated Marketing Plan (IMP), which laddered up to Mimio’s overarching strategic business plan. For the years 2010 and 2011 I led the development of our IMP, and also presented the IMP to Newell Rubbermaid’s CMO. For the years 2012 and 2013 I worked closely with our new Director of Marketing to develop the IMP.

When I took on the responsibility for the global digital strategy at Mimio, I knew that we needed a focused strategy to improve Mimio’s awareness, lead generation, and thought-leader standing among educators. At the same time, we were challenged to do more with less. I rallied the team to articulate an Inbound Marketing strategy, and we began working with HubSpot to operationalize the strategy. We really kicked into full speed in July, 2012, and have since achieved significant improvements in SEO, lead generation, lead nurturing, and customer engagement.

HubSpot recently published a case study and video chronicling my team’s success story. I’m really proud of how much we accomplished with our tiny team. Read how we improved web visits by over 70% and top of the funnel leads by more than 40%.

4. Not afraid to get my hands really, really dirty

Early on in my career I worked for 4 years as a Sr. Business Systems Planner in the Direct Marketing Group (DMG) at Bose Corporation. Because I had also worked in marketing and as a telesales supervisor in Bose DMG, I was able to truly understand the process and reporting needs for the division. In the Business Systems Planner role, I learned how to translate the requests of the marketing and sales teams into technical requirements for the Information Systems developers. This gave me a unique perspective as I moved back into the marketing team. I knew that every new offer, every new payment plan, and every new ad that marketing wanted to measure, needed to be created in our CRM system. So not only did my programs run smoothly and were able to be reported accurately, but I was also able to find ways to streamline and improve marketing processes.

This soup to nuts view of the marketing operations process truly came in handy at Mimio where I built the marketing database and installed Salesforce.com CRM from scratch. I was a one-woman marketing operations department, gathering requirements from sales, determining marketing requirements, implementing the systems, conducting training, and implementing change requests. All while also managing Mimio’s email programs, lead management, trade shows, and advertising. Needless to say, I was relieved when I was able to hire a full-time Database/CRM Administrator.

5. And yet, I’m a dreamer

So with all of this analytical and operational work, you might think that I live in a pretty black and white world. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love the creative process: I just work best when creative inspiration is grounded in insights from research and test data. And I keep my eye on the big picture, use that to draw my inspiration, and to inspire the people that I manage.

I have a keen eye for solid creative. At Bose I acted as the internal client for dozens of new print and insert ads, some of which are still used as the “control” today. I am a branding perfectionist. At Mimio I partnered very closely with our internal and external creative resources to develop messaging, ads, and web designs that elevated the Mimio brand, and raised the team’s standards for excellence.

And I can write a little. I’m no copywriter, and have a great deal of respect for those who write for a living. I am best when giving strategic direction to creative professionals and working with them to develop top-notch creative. But in a pinch, I can pump out a blog post or put together copy for an email or landing page.

Ultimately, I’m never happier than when I’m envisioning the future ideal, and then getting busy making it happen.

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about me. If you’re interested in talking more about how I can benefit your company, please email me at dawnaguiar@gmail.com.