Won Merkle One Team Award
Background
The "One Team Award" is an internal recognition given within Merkle, a Dentsu agency. This award is designed to honor individuals or teams who exemplify exceptional collaboration, teamwork, and contributions to the company's success.
My team received this award for our exemplary collaboration, exceptional performance, positive team dynamics, and embodying Merkle’s values.
Lexmark International, Inc. is best known as a printer manufacturer. However, in 2012, Lexmark announced that it would stop production of its inkjet printer line representing a major shift in their business.
As a trusted partner, I was asked to assist in the transition and develop the strategy that would drive their business communications.
Ultimately, we created a systematic way to identify, serve, and retain customers based on their value by orchestrating customer interactions that improved financial results, created a competitive advantage, and built brand value.
My team drove the customer strategy, financial management, and experience delivery across all media, channels, and tactics.
Engagement included:
Database Build
Data Sourcing
Analytics
Product Launch
Program Strategy & Design
Event Marketing Support
Integrated Lead Generation Campaign
Awareness Campaign
Asset Creation including Videos, Games, Calculators & Parallax Sites
Brand Development (Logo, Identity System, Corporate Materials, Packaging, etc.)
Program included:
Four Channels: Email, Display, Search & Social
Six Countries: United States, Canada, Germany, France, UK, & Netherlands
Six Industries: Retail, Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing, Health Care & Education
Four Roles: Line of Business, Facilities, Finance & IT
Addressed multiple customer needs with a spectrum of solutions
Our program generated 75 leads in 3 months at $11M+ in estimated revenue.
My Roles & Responsibilities
As the Engagement Lead, I held responsibilities in three key areas.
Program and Service Delivery
Financial Management
Resource and Team Management
Program and Service Delivery
Led marketing program discussions with the client. Proactively consulting with clients and providing recommendations regarding project needs to ensure successful outcomes and the solution achieves the value expected.
Responsible for defining marketing program objectives and working with the team to develop an overall project plan to meet objectives.
Identified any high-risk areas for the project and ensured timely and collaborative resolution of issues.
Ensured that change orders were effectively and responsibly managed.
Set expectations and lead project meetings with the client to review project milestones and progress, risks/issues, as well as current/projected spend, change orders, etc.
Ensured program requirements are achieved, balancing both the needs of the client and the overall impact on Merkle.
Fostered an active partnership with other leaders ensuring updates regarding key project initiatives (and changes from the defined scope of services) were communicated and achieved.
Expanded and grew the scope of services and revenue as a natural byproduct of proactively responding to client needs and meeting delivery expectations.
Financial Management
Manage contract negotiations as part of leading the project or in partnership with the Client Relationship Leader to ensure profitability
Validate the final scope, timeline and resourcing, solution delivery responsibility, and overall P&L for client projects, ultimately assuring that the work would be completed as planned.
Participated in the pre-contract sales process as applicable.
Manage and influence project financials to ensure projects achieve financial performance targets, including forecasting project revenue, profitability, and time billed to the project, adjusting as needed.
Proactively communicating and accounting for scope adjustments & financial issues in forecasting and planning discussions. Ensuring internal and external communication to Merkle team and client.
Resource and Team Management
Hired, grew, and developed a core marketing program management team, capable of meeting program requirements and achieving strong client results and high-quality project deliverables.
Negotiated with business unit leaders to assemble the right support team and participate in the recruiting process for project resources (strategy, analytics, creative, data, print production).
Assured effective and timely communications keeping team members fully apprised of progress, work issues, and changes.
Evaluated the performance of the client project team against project objectives and good corporate citizenship. Coordinate this feedback with employees’ direct managers.
Assured high engagement and proper utilization of project team maintaining low staff turnover across the engagement.
Planning Deliverables
In addition to the Engagement Lead roles & responsibilities I also developed the following materials for Lexmark.
3rd Party Partner Needs
Audience Segmentation
Channel Calendar
Channel Forecasts
Channel Mix
Channel Plan
Gating Plan
Industry Mix
Launch Plan
Marketing Windows
Media Mix
Messaging Matrix
Optimal Response Calendar
Regional Mix
Regional Tiers
Reporting Plan
Resourcing
Retargeting Plan
Role Mix
Scoring Model
Scheduling
Survey Tracking
Tactical Calendars
Tactical Forecast
Tactical Plan
Testing Plan
Tracking Plan
Translations
Trigger Streams