Go Leftfield

One online diction describes ‘marketing communications’ as “Coordinated promotional messages delivered through one or more channels such as print, radio, television, direct mail, and personal selling.”

The reality is that any use of words created for a marketing effort are effectively marketing-communications ‘marcomms’. Due to the all encompassing nature of this field, anyone in marketing could claim that they have worked in this field to some extent. My view is that this segment is one of the least understood or justified segments of marketing. Some Marcomm companies claim the following services: branding; advertising; report writing; website optimization; white paper generation; PR – i.e. virtually anything, and I have had experience in all of the above.

However to clarify the level of my involvement in marcomms I have summarized some of my work below, with hyperlinks to the related work such as strategy and research elsewhere on this site. One of the things that my work does that differentiates it from others is where practical I prefer to use research, analysis and strategy to reinforce the words. Even in branding I look to use the reality behind the brand, to write about a tangible attribute rather than the trend of just selling an unrelated dream. I call this reality marcomms or analytical marcomms, or telling it like it is. I think your customers will thank you for it.

Gluten Free Pages (GFP)

This is a newly launched online gluten free living and lifestyle site. www.glutenfreepages.com.au was launched in October 2008 and by February it was already making appearances on page one of Google for its chosen keywords. For this site I optimized the ‘on page’ text – which when creatively done, is part of the marcomm strategy. I have also created numerous articles for visitors and submission to article sites.

Other sections of this site describing GFP work are: Website Optimisation and Market Analysis. 

ADAPS IT recruitment

Joining this company as the marketing manager meant a free ranging re-write of all marcomms and the design of complete re-Branding strategy.

• Creation of all marketing collateral (layout, copy) for Contractor Care brochures; event Invites.
• Writing copy for 90% of the company ads for Seek, The Age, AFR.
• Events Management for client and contractor events.
• PR for a recently formed wholly owned subsidiary: Adaps Virtual Bench
• Re-branded the company that included a new logo, all marketing collateral, premium business cards, stationary, events banners etc.
• Entirely redesigned the website layout and content. Optimised the site to rank top five on Google first page and Yahoo number three SERP. This increased traffic flow and clients as well as making it a legitimate marketing tool for existing clients and contractors.
• Created analytic website traffic reports that led to the refinement of the site’s ranking. Used Google analytics
• Optimised Adaps’ Google Adwords advertising campaign.
• Created ALL ‘Application Tips’ and ‘Latest News’ articles.
• Provided an extensive Seek Ad efficiency analysis – reports on the efficiency of New/refresh ads and analysis of specific IT role demand and supply. This assisted resource management.
• Managed the Events Committee to create a strong branded networking opportunity for Adaps’ client managers ($45K Christmas party, AFL corporate boxes, Aust Open Tennis, Contractor dinners & Tax Seminars). Challenges included meeting budget, vendor/ artist negotiation, branding development (signs, invites), event scheduling; logistics of AV coordination, invitee list management.
• Loyalty Program: Developed the strategy for the creation of content for Contractor Care brochures. Created content for the ‘footy tipping’ competition. Created two launches (staff and contractor) of Adaps’ $65K/yr Loyalty program which used the NAB’s WorkLife program.

For more details on other Adaps work please visit the Strategy and Analysis article and Adaps Search Engine Optimisation.

Drake International 

I accepted a role to create a Marketing License system to convert competitors to licensees of Drake’s Brand.

• Created all marketing collateral required to ‘sign up’ a recruiter to the MML plan. This ranged from initial letter and phone scripts to benefits brochures, FAQ documents, Client Presentations, non-disclosure agreements and ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ documents.
• Presented the Business proposal to prospect CEO’s of regional recruitment chains.
• Wrote white papers for Drake on such topics as the importance of identifying IT worker locations by suburb level in Metropolitan Melbourne.
• Provided strategic reports for the Drake office relocation projects in NW Melbourne and regional WA.
• Wrote about the latest techniques for website optimisation and gaining Drake a first page presence on Google searches.

Vision systems

Hired on contract specifically to provide market research, market plans and business plans for the manufacture of a new product - a ‘duct detector’ to complete their world leading smoke detector range. This involved:

• I performed detailed competitor analysis to define benchmark global specification and prices.
• Writing and administering survey questions for a one hour in-depth interviews with around thirty leading fire industry experts in Melbourne and Sydney.
• I created business plans and marketing plans so they could begin manufacture of the detector and a survey for use in the US. The product was expected to achieve over 90% of its sales overseas and dramatically improve Vision’s overall system performance.

McGregor TAN RESEARCH

Working as a Strategic Manager in this leading market research company I had full account management of personal projects that included: initial client meetings, writing proposals, creating questionnaires for quantitative and qualitative projects, co-ordinating the field-work, analysing results, report writing and presenting recommendations. I worked with many diverse clients including:

• GTEC a US multinational - doing due diligence for a purchase decision on the Adelaide Casino. This research and a presentation that I gave to their management team provided enough evidence for them to make a decision on the casino purchase.
• Transition Optical (optician survey on transition lens preferences, cost and advertising). This survey required a considerable amount of marketing input to ensure we received high response numbers.
• Adelaide Entertainment Centre (three surveys: patrons, promoters and corporate clients). These very large surveys and report covered all aspects of the centres entertainment and food and beverage options to ensure they remained competitive.
• WorkCover (satisfaction surveys)
  Top Stairs, a local growing stair maker needed to define their market and a point of differentiation with their competitors. For this project I also created a marketing plan to assist a possible expansion into the eastern states.

CLISPAL – This role saw one of the most extensive connections to development of marketing collateral for national distribution

See Product Management and Market Research Articles.

CONCLUSION

As you can see, my corporate marcomm experiences have run the full gamut of this realm. Whether you require marketing plans, new product development, Articles or website optimization reports I look forward to your call..